Siebel Marketing User Guide > Managing Lists > Process of Importing and Managing External Lists >

Verifying Preinstallation Requirements

Before importing a list, you need verify the status of the server components, the data quality settings, and the structure of the incoming data.

Verifying Status of Server Components and Tasks

Before importing a list, you need to verify that server components are enabled and that server tasks are running.

To enable server components and run tasks, you use the Administration - Server Configuration screen, Components view. For more information, see Siebel System Administration Guide.

Make sure that the following server components are enabled and the following server tasks are running:

• List Import Service Manager: Enabled.

  Clicking Launch Import in the List Import view tab of the List Management screen submits the import request. The actual import is performed by the List Manager server component on the Siebel Server.

• Server Request Processor: Running.
• Server Request Broker: Enabled or running.

To import a list, you must be connected to the Siebel Server. If the client cannot detect a running Siebel Server at the time you launch the import, you receive a warning message. You can continue to submit the import request if you are sure that a Siebel Server is available to handle the request later.

For the request to be queued, you must have a Siebel Gateway Name Server running in the background. The request is routed through the gateway name server to a Siebel Server that has the List Import Service Manager server component enabled. If you do not have a gateway name server running, you receive an error message:

Unable to connect to gateway name server.

Verifying Data Quality Settings

When you use the optional Data Quality module, you must verify the settings for the following server components before importing files:

• Data Quality Manager.
• List Import Service Manager.
• The object manager for the application in which your users promote prospects. For example, if you promote prospects using Call Center, you need to enable the Call Center Object Manager.

If you need to enable a server component, see Siebel Marketing Installation and Administration Guide. For more information about data quality configuration, see Siebel Data Quality Administration Guide.

To verify the data quality settings

1. Verify that these server components are set to Enabled.
2. Verify the component parameters for these server components are set for deduplication and data cleansing.

   To enable Data Matching:

   1. Use the Components view in the Administration - Server Configuration screen and query for each of these server components.
   2. Click the Component Parameters view tab, query for the DeDuplication parameters, and verify that the DeDuplication Enable Flag is set to TRUE.

      To enable Data Cleansing during import, query for the Data Cleansing parameters. The Data Cleansing Enable Flag must be set to TRUE.

3. Verify the matching threshold for List Import.

   The Match Threshold setting in the Data Quality Settings view of the Data Administration screen determines if an incoming name is considered a match with existing data. You can specify a different threshold for List Import than the rest of the Data Quality module.

   CAUTION:  Reboot Siebel Server before launching any import tasks so that new parameter values take effect. Otherwise, the old parameter values remain in effect.

4. Make sure that you set the Data Quality Settings in the Data Administration screen.

   You must generate and refresh the match keys for the existing contact and prospect data before importing any files.

To specify a different threshold for List Import

1. Navigate to the Components view of the Administration - Server Configuration screen.
2. Select the List Import Service Manager.
3. Click Component Parameters and query for Dedup Threshold.
4. Set the value to the match score threshold that you want to apply to the List Import utility.

Validating the Structure of the Incoming Data

Some columns for a prospect correspond to an LOV (List of Values) or MLOV (Multilingual List of Values) field in the application. Be sure that your incoming data for these columns only use values from the LOV or MLOV. Any nonmatching values are set to NULL in the new prospect record.

The date format is set in the Regional and Language Options control panel for the machine on which the Siebel Server is running. For date fields, make sure you use the correct date format that corresponds to the locale settings for your environment.

Common Issues to Check If the Import Is Not Complete

• Check the license keys.
• Check that Disable DataCleansing and Disable DeDuplication settings are not selected. These settings override those specified in the Server Administration screen. They are specified in the Application Administration screen > Data Quality Setting.
• Check User Preference > Data Quality settings. They override those specified in Application Administration.
• If a key is generated but Siebel Marketing did not find any duplicates, verify if the search type is too low and threshold is too high. To change it, use Application Administration-> Data Quality Setting.
• If you are having troubles updating records with List Import, enter it using the List Management screen and check the record's score. List Import assigns the same score. Check to see if the score is below the threshold you normally put (instead of the very low threshold you used for the troubleshooting test).
• Both Real Time DeDuplication and List Import with DeDuplication Enable will insert keys into the key tables. Make sure the following new keys are inserted:
  • Account: S_ORG_DEDUP_KEY table. ACCNT_ID column stores the row id of the account
  • Contact: S_PER_DEDUP_KEY table. PERSON_ID column stores the row id of that contact
  • Prospect: S_PRSP_DEDUPKEY table. PRSP_ID column stores the row id of that prospect
• Batch Key Generate generates keys for old records in the database. If you enable Real Time DeDuplication, you do not need to run Key Refresh that often.
• Make sure you have enabled DeDuplication in the correct Object Manager. The Data Quality Manager is only used by Batch mode tasks, it is not the central server for all Real Time DeDuplication requests. You must enable Real Time DeDuplication in Call Center, but not Data Quality Manager.
• You cannot match against records that did not have keys generated. You need to run Key Generate first if you want to find duplicate records in existing table.
• Key generation must be run at regular intervals. This is done to refresh the generated keys and to include newly added or changed records. Both Batch and Real-Time matching require access to the match keys generated by the key generation process.
• To catch duplicate records for a record entered before DeDuplication was enabled, run Batch Key Generate which is used to generate keys for old records in the database.
• If you are using a custom SRF file, test with the standard SRF file.