Creating and Managing Audiences

This chapter covers the following topics:

Managing Audiences

An audience, in marketing terms, is a group of people who can be targeted for a campaign or an event. They meet a common criteria, and can be addressed for a specific purpose such as customer retention, cross-sell, or the launch of a new product.

In Oracle Marketing, you will use the Audience Workbench to work with and manage lists for your marketing activities. From the Audience Workbench, tasks for audience management (commonly known as list management), includes:

Working with Audience Objects

There are several objects that you will use when you work with audiences in the Audience Workbench. This section gives you a brief overview on each of them.

Lists

A list is a group of customers or prospects who meet specific user-defined criteria. A list is always static. For example, from a given database, a list is created on 12-December-2003 consisting of high income customers with kids living in San Francisco. The list contains 1000 records. On 13-December-2003, there are 50 additions to the high income category of customers in the database. However the list, being static, continues to hold only the original 1000 entries.

List Templates

A list template is a set of conditions that has been defined by the administrator for the purpose of creating a list. Two types of list templates are available: the Natural Language Query (NLQ) template and the Parameterized SQL template. The NLQ template allows you to specify the query conditions in a format that is similar to the way you speak or converse. The Parameterized SQL template displays query conditions as a list of parameters whose values you can enter directly.

Segments

Segments are groupings of customers satisfying strategic or tactical business rules or criteria. A segment is dynamic. For example, if a segment is associated with a target group in a campaign schedule, those customers meeting the segment criteria will be included in the list at the time of generation. Therefore, a segment always reflects the latest data in the database. For example, from a given database, a Segment is created on 12-December-2003 consisting of high income customers with kids living in San Francisco. The Segment contains 1000 records. On 13-December-2003, there are 50 additions to the high income category of customers in the database. The Segment now contains 1050 records.

Workbooks

Workbooks are created within Oracle Discoverer and contain user-defined selection criteria for customers/prospects. A workbook can have a single or multiple worksheets. A worksheet can be used as criteria for the generation of a list.

SQL

You can use Structured Query Language (SQL) as another method to store specific criteria that you can dynamically use to create a list.

List Import

This is the process used to import external data, such as a purchased or rented prospect list, into the Oracle Customer Model (TCA).

Target Groups

A Target Group is associated with campaign activities to specify the customers or prospects to target. You can define a target group based on list templates, lists, segments, workbooks, or SQL.

Person

A person is an individual consumer that your business interacts directly with.

Organization

An organization is a business or company.

Organization Contact

An organization contact is a person who acts on behalf of or in the context of an organization.

Overview of the Audience Dashboard

The Audience Dashboard is the home page of the Audience Workbench for users with an Audience User responsibility. On the dashboard, you can monitor the performance and metric trends of your lists, view the distribution of lists across the various purposes, and quickly navigate to other functionalities such as creating or updating a list. The functional flow for the tasks that a marketer can perform from the Audience Dashboard is as follows:

The Audience Dashboard contains five main bins: List Effectiveness Report, List Metric Trend Chart, Active Lists by Purpose, My Recent Lists, and Shortcuts.

Topics in this section include:

List Effectiveness Report

The information displayed within this bin is based on the view selected. The lists appearing are associated with the target groups of active campaign activities. The Top and Bottom Performing Lists are out-of-the-box views. These two views are based on the number of leads the list has generated over the period of time specified in the view. The top performing lists will be displayed by default.

The list effectiveness is measured based upon the following metrics:

You can personalize your view to display the appropriate metrics, but additional metrics cannot be added to the list effectiveness bin.

Personalizing the List Effectiveness Views

You can modify what is displayed in the summary, and how the information is displayed by personalizing the view. The Personalize feature provides the following options:

See Personalizing Views in the Audience and Campaign Workbenches for the procedure.

List Metric Trend Chart

The information displayed by the List Metric Trend Chart is based on the view selected in the List Effectiveness bin. The lists appearing are associated with the target groups of active campaign activities. The metric trends chart bin displays a graphical view of the trends for lists corresponding to specific metrics. You can evaluate the effectiveness of your lists over a time period.

You can personalize your view to display the appropriate metrics, but additional metrics cannot be added.

Note: If the profile value for the application is set for ADA compliance, a table with the corresponding information is displayed above the metric trend chart.

Personalizing the List Metric Trend Chart

You can select the metrics and the time lines to be used for the display in the Personalize definitions of the List Effectiveness bin. For example, if you wish to view the Leads Trend chart for the last 5 days, you must select the metric value as Leads and the Time Period as 5 Days in the personalize page of the List Effectiveness bin.

The metric values that you can select from include:

The Time Periods you can select from include Last 5 Days, Last Month, Last 3 Months, Last 6 Months, Last Year, Last 2 Years, and Last 5 Years.

See Personalizing Views in the Audience and Campaign Workbenches for the procedure.

Active Lists by Purpose

The Active Lists by Purpose bin displays a pie chart that depicts the distribution of the active lists by purpose. Some seeded purposes are Cross Sell, Up Sell, Customer Acquisition, Customer Retention, or any other purposes defined by your administrator. If you are the logged in user, only your lists that are in the Available status are considered for display. Each purpose is displayed in a different color and the lists available for each purpose are displayed as a percentage. For example, if you own ten lists and four of them are for the Cross Sell purpose, then Cross Sell purpose is indicated as 40% in the pie chart.

My Recent Lists

The My Recent Lists bin at the bottom of the Audience Dashboard displays details of your recent lists in descending order based on the last date of update. You can change the sort order to ascending by clicking the Last Updated Date column heading. By default, five lists are displayed.

The information displayed includes List Name, Audience, Purpose, Status, and Last Updated Date and provides you with summary data of your recent lists. You can do the following from the My Recent Lists summary if the list is in Available status:

Shortcuts

The Shortcuts bin is displayed on the top right corner of the Audience Dashboard and contains a list of links that you can click to perform specific tasks or navigate to other audience functionality. The links available may vary as per the responsibility with which you log in to Oracle Marketing. The links are:

Related Links Bin

The following links are in the Related Links bin:

Creating a List Using Natural Language Query

Using the Natural Language Query (NLQ) template, conditions can be specified just as you would naturally think of them. You can define your selection criteria by selecting the operator and the corresponding value for each condition. Following is a sample query to generate a list of customers who may be interested in buying high-end electronic toys in the state of California for their children. This is what the query template will look like:

Customers whose state of residence is name_of_state
And whose annual income is greater than amount
And have children is yesno

In the above example:

The following is an example with values selected for the above template selection. If necessary, operators can be changed. In the example, the "is greater than" operator has been changed to "is between".

Customers whose state of residence is California
And whose annual income is between 50000 and 95000
And have children is Yes

You can associate single or multiple values with an operator.

Examples

Similarly, you can associate multiple values with the "is not" operator.

For numeric values, you can select "equals" or "not equals" as the operators.

Examples

Navigation: Audience Workbench > Create Lists

  1. Enter a name for your list, select an audience, and a purpose.

  2. Select Standard from the List Creation Method region.

  3. Select a Standard template, using the search icon, to base your query on.

  4. Click Continue.

    Any mandatory and/or default conditions defined for the template that you have chosen is displayed. Mandatory conditions cannot be removed.

  5. Click the hyperlink on the operator and condition value to modify it.

    Repeat this step until all conditions are filled. You must fill in all the conditions.

  6. Click Modify Selections, to add or modify the selection conditions.

    You can add more conditions. However, the selections displayed is restricted to your template definition.

  7. Click Recalculate, to view the projected running total when the list is generated.

    The Recalculate button will be displayed only if the administrator has enabled the Recalculation functionality.

    Note: The recalculation process may take some time. Please wait till the process is complete.

    The projected running total number gives you an idea of how many records will finally be selected when the list is generated.

  8. Click Options, to define what to include or exclude from the list.

  9. Click SQL Statement, to view the SQL statement for this query.

  10. Click Finish, to save the selections.

    The Generation subtab appears. At this point, you have only defined the list selection criteria.

  11. Click Generate List

    Note: The list generation process may take some time. Wait until the list is generated and its status is Available.

  12. Click the Entries subtab, to view the entries in the list.

    The list entries can be viewed only if the list is generated successfully and its status is Available.

  13. Optionally, choose the Add Entries Action in the Entries subtab, to add entries to the list manually.

    For more information on adding manual list entries, see Adding Manual List Entries.

  14. Click the Charts subtab, to view charts of distribution of entries according to the selected conditions.

    The charts can be viewed only if the list is generated successfully and its status is Available.

  15. Click the Notes subtab, to create or view notes.

Creating a List Using Parameterized SQL

The Parameterized SQL List template is based on a SQL statement with parameters provided by your administrator. The selection parameters are presented, and you must enter the values for the parameters while creating the list.

In the Parameterized SQL template, the selections are displayed as a list of parameters whose values you can enter directly. For example, if the purpose for the list is Cross Sell and the selected list template is Cross Sell Based on Orders, the parameters to be specified can be Product, Cross Sell Product, Date of Purchase, Order Amount Greater Than, and Contact Job Title.

Note: The condition between the parameters will always be AND when using the parameterized SQL.

Navigation: Audience Workbench > Create List.

  1. Enter a name for your list, select an audience, and a purpose.

  2. From the List Creation Method region, select Standard.

  3. Using the search icon, select a Parameterized SQL template to base your query on.

  4. Click Continue.

    The Selections region displays the parameters defined for this template.

  5. Enter values for the parameters, or select them from a drop-down list or a list of values.

  6. To define what to include in or exclude from the list, click List Options.

    For more information on List Options, see Understanding List Options.

  7. To view the SQL statement for this query, click SQL Statement.

  8. Click Finish.

    The page refreshes, and the Generation subtab appears. At this point, you have only defined the list selection criteria. The list must be generated before proceeding. For more details on generating a list, see Generating Lists.

  9. Optionally, to view the list generated based on your query, click Preview Entries from the Selections tab.

    Note: The result for this action may take some time. Please wait till the process is complete.

  10. Optionally, to view the number of entries in the list, click Preview Count from the Selections tab.

    Note: The result for this action may take some time. Please wait till the process is complete.

    Note: You can preview the list size only if the administrator has enabled the recalculation functionality. See Understanding Recalculation for more information.

  11. To view the entries in the list, click the Entries subtab.

    The list entries can be viewed only if it is generated successfully and is in the Available status. For information on other options in this subtab, see Managing Lists.

  12. Optionally, to add entries manually to the list, choose the Add Entries Action in the Entries subtab. For more information on adding manual list entries, see Adding Manual List Entries.

  13. To view charts of how the entries are distributed based on the selected conditions, click the Charts subtab.

    The charts can be viewed only if the list is generated successfully and is in the Available status. For more information, seeViewing Customer Attribute Charts for a List.

  14. To create or view notes, click the Notes subtab.

Creating Lists Using Advanced Methods

Advanced list creation offers unlimited flexibility to create lists. You can create a list based on different Source Types. The source type can be a list, segment, Oracle Discoverer workbook, custom SQL, or an imported list. For each source type, you can select an instance of the source type and base the new list on it.

When using advance methods, it is possible to include a combination of source types to arrive at a complete list. If you are a knowledgeable SQL user, you can also formulate your own SQL query to create a list.

When a source type is selected, it is displayed in the Selections area. You can select multiple lists with a combination of source types. The selected source types are displayed in a tabular format. The columns of this table are described below:

Creating a List using the Advanced Method

Use the following procedure to create a list using an existing list, segment, workbook, imported list, or SQL.

Navigation: Audience Workbench > Create List.

  1. Enter a name for your list, select an audience, and a purpose.

  2. From the List Creation Method region, select Advanced.

  3. Click Continue.

  4. In the Selections region, from the Add drop-down list, select the source type for your list. Only sources of the same audience are displayed when you click the Go button for the steps below.

    1. To create a list from an imported list, select Import List, and click Go. To import a list, see Importing a List.

    2. To create a list from an existing list, select List, and click Go.

    3. To create a list from an existing segment, select Segment, and click Go. To create a segment, see Creating a Segment.

    4. To create a list from a Discoverer workbook, select Workbook, and click Go. For more information on workbooks and how to create them, see the Oracle Discoverer User Guide.

      When creating workbooks in Oracle Discoverer, certain mandatory identifiers must be selected for list creation based on such workbooks to be successful. The following table lists these mandatory identifiers:

      Business Area Folder Mandatory Identifier
      Audience Workbench Organizations Organization Details Include Organization Details
      Audience Workbench Organizations Organization Contact Details Include Organization Contact Details
      Audience Workbench Persons Person Details Include Person Details

      The rest of the folders represent child data sources and cannot be used to define workbooks independently. For workbooks in these folders, the mandatory identifier columns from the parent folder are needed for list generation to be successful.

    5. To create a list using a SQL query, select SQL, and click Go. See Creating a Custom SQL to create a custom SQL statement.

      One or more of the above sources can be used to create a list.

  5. To Include, Exclude, or Intersect entries in a list source, select the appropriate option from the Action column.

    This first action must always be Include.

  6. To calculate the number of entries from each source, click Recalculate.

    If the recalculation functionality is enabled, a concurrent request is submitted to calculate the number, and the request ID is displayed. You must return to this list at a later time to view the result. See Understanding Recalculation for more information.

  7. To change the order of the sources, click Reorder. Using the up and down arrows, reorder your selections and click Apply.

  8. To delete a list source from the selection, click the icon from the Delete column.

  9. To define the list deduplication or limit the size of the list, click List Options.

    For more information on List Options, see Understanding List Options.

  10. Click Finish.

    The page refreshes, and the Generation subtab appears.

  11. Use the Generation subtab to generate the list. See Generating Lists for more information.

  12. Click the Entries subtab to view the entries in the list.

    The list entries can be viewed only if it is generated successfully and is in the Available status. For information on other options in this subtab, see Managing Lists.

  13. Optionally, to add entries manually to the list, choose the Add Entries Action in the Entries subtab. For more information on adding manual list entries, see Adding Manual List Entries.

  14. Click the Charts subtab to view how the entries in the list are distributed based on selected attributes.

    The charts can be viewed only if the list is generated successfully and is in the Available status. For more information, see Viewing Customer Attribute Charts for a List.

  15. Click the Notes subtab to create or view notes.

Creating Lists Using Discoverer

You can create a list using a Discoverer query that is launched from within the Oracle Marketing application, and a list manager can create and manage workbooks and worksheets needed for list management purposes. For more information on creating lists with Discoverer, see the Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide.

Creating a Custom SQL

While creating a list using the Advanced method, you can create a custom SQL statement. If you are a knowledgeable SQL user, you have the flexibility to create your own query. Unlike a template, you do not have any restrictions, and can generate any kind of lists.

Prerequisites: Knowledge of SQL

Notes

Generating Lists

When a list is generated, customer records satisfying the list conditions are populated in the list. A list can only be generated after all the conditions have been specified. The amount of time it takes to generate a list depends on several factors such as the size of the database and the system environment condition at the time a list is being generated.

Generation Types

You can also choose from three Generation Type options:

Schedule a List Generation

When you are satisfied with the conditions specified for the list, you can choose to schedule it for generation. A list can be generated immediately or at a future time. For generating at a future time, the system defaults to 12am the next day. For example, if the system date is 07/17/03, list generation is scheduled for 07/18/03 at 12:00 a.m. You can choose to change the default date and time for list generation.

List Generation Log

As a list is being generated, the system logs messages in a log that you can view to track the progress of list generation. Additionally, when the status of a list changes, the system logs the change in the log. Log messages are stored in descending order of date, that is, the latest log message is at the top of the list; you can reorder the log to display it in ascending order of date.

Generating a List

Use the following information to specify the generation type and time to generate a list.

Prerequisites: You must have specified the conditions for the list.

Notes

Adding Manual List Entries

You can add entries manually to lists from the Audience Workbench or using the Target Group functionality for campaign activities. For lists created based on the seeded data sources - Organization contacts and Persons - you can manually search and add customers from TCA to the corresponding list or target group.

The following business scenario demonstrates the need to add entries manually to an existing list.

Example

A marketing campaign is planned to up sell laser printers to existing ink jet printer customers. The target audience for this campaign includes decision makers in Fortune 5000 companies located in the United States. In addition to the target list created using this condition, marketers would also like to manually add one or more customers that they know have recently purchased ink jet printers, but whose information has not yet been captured within the order management systems. Marketers can use the manual list entries addition feature to add these customers to the list. These manually added customers may or may not necessarily satisfy the target selection (decision makers in Fortune 5000 companies) but are potential buyers based on the marketer's knowledge of these customers.

Navigation: Entries subtab of the List Details page

Notes

Managing Lists

After a list is generated, you can view the entries it retrieved, modify its conditions, split a list into two or more lists, merge two lists, and so on. You can manage lists from the List Summary and detail pages.

Sections include:

Exporting a List

You can export a list to:

A list is exported in the form of a single .csv file. The columns in the file include the currently displayed columns for the list and all Enabled columns, whether they are displayed or not.

Only generated lists with entries in them can be exported.

Viewing Customer Attribute Charts for a List

The Charts page helps you to understand and quickly analyze grouping of the customer within your list. You can decide based on the chart analysis if adjustment to the selection criteria is required. Four charts can be displayed at one time. The chart can be of Pie, Column, or Bar format.

Your administrator can specify which attributes to chart as well as define the default chart format to display. You can select different attributes and different chart types for display and analysis if the default does not suit your need. For example, in a B2B scenario, you may want to analyze the customer distribution by industry in a list and in a B2C scenario, you may wish to understand customer distribution by household incomes.

The administrator can also define chart ranges for the attributes. For example, for the chartable attribute Household Income, the administrator can define chart ranges as follows - Less than 50000, Between 50000 and 100000, Between 100000 and 250000, and Greater than 250000. When you view the chart, list entries are grouped on these ranges.

Notes

Splitting a List

Lists may need to be split into smaller lists for campaigns that have multiple phases, each designed to target customers with slightly different profiles. Splitting a list results in significant time saving as compared to generating them separately. For example, for an electronic toys product launch campaign, a list containing high income customers in California may need to be split to generate a list of high income customers with children and without children.

When you split a list, multiple lists are created from it. You can split a list using one of the following three methods. The entries for the new lists are chosen randomly.

Notes

Merging Lists

When two or more lists are merged, a single list is created. Only lists that are already generated, have the same audience, and are in the Available status can be merged.

The final merged list may not contain the sum of the individual lists. This is because the records with the same Party ID are automatically deduped. This is in addition to using the dedupe rule. In this case the whole is not always equal the sum of the parts.

Notes

Deleting a List

You can choose to delete one or more lists. If a list is used in a Campaign or Event schedule, and the schedule is still active, the list, as an independent object cannot be deleted. However, the list can be removed from the schedule.

Creating Campaign Activities from a List

When you choose to create a campaign activity from the Lists page, the creation of a new campaign activity is launched, and the entries in the selected list become candidates of the target group. When the target group is generated, the entries may be a smaller set after suppression criteria and fatigue rules are applied.

When you create a campaign activity from a list, the list’s Purpose will automatically become Campaign Activity. You can create a campaign activity from a list only if the list contains at least one entry.

To create a campaign activity from a list, click the icon from the Create Campaign Activity column in the Lists page.

Creating and Managing Segments

Market segmentation identifies groups of customers, or prospects that satisfy business-defined strategic or tactical criteria. For example, a car manufacturer may need to identify different types of consumers based on lifestyle preferences to segment their car buying market accordingly. Once segments are identified, marketers may develop specific marketing programs that will uniquely target each segment.

Overview

Segmentation criteria can be saved and used as the basis for list, or target group generation. For example, a segment could be defined for Credit Card dormancy, based on the date of the last customer purchase transaction.

Segments can be created using either a Oracle Discover workbook, or a SQL statement. Unlike a list, which has a fixed set of entries, the entries within a segment may differ over time as customers and prospects migrate in and out of the segment as they satisfy/dissatisfy the business criteria on which the segment is based.

The segment summary page displays all the segments that you have created within Oracle Marketing. You can personalize the attributes on this page by clicking the Personalize button.

Hierarchies

Segments can be organized into a segment hierarchy, in which each child segment contains a subset of the entries in their parent segment.

Consider the following example:

Segment A: All customers in the organization’s customer database

Segment B: High income families

Segment C: High income families with kids

Segment B is defined as a child segment of Segment A, and Segment C is a child segment of Segment B.

The segment hierarchy for the above example is depicted in Table Segment Hierarchy Example.

Segment Hierarchy Example
Segment Name Segment Criteria Segment Count Segment Hierarchy Segment Condition
Segment A All Customers 100,000 N/A N/A
Segment B High income families 25,000 Child Segment of Segment A Intersection of Segment B and Segment A
Segment C High income families with kids 10,000 Child Segment of Segment B Intersection of Segment C and Segment B

Creating a Segment

When you create a segment, you can either choose to base it on an Oracle Discoverer Workbook or write your own SQL statement. If you choose Workbook, the associated SQL statement for the Workbook is displayed in the SQL section. This SQL statement is not editable. If you choose SQL, you must enter the SQL statement in the SQL text field.

Notes

Valid Segment Queries

A valid SQL query (from Oracle Discoverer Workbook or directly typed in Oracle Marketing) must meet the following conditions.

A minimal SQL statement for creating a list will be:

Select '<data source code>',<unique identifier> from <data source object>

In the above example, if the data source's code is 'EXAMPLE_DS', the correct segment query will be:

select 'EXAMPLE_DS', party_name, party_id from hz_parties 

Note: Do not enter ; at the end of the SQL statement.

When a segment query is not valid for list generation, the following error message is displayed:

"Error: Cannot create list based on this segment. Please recheck the sql segment" 

For the query to execute correctly and create a list with entries in it, a data source is required.

Creating and Managing List Imports

This is the process used to import external data, such as a purchased or rented prospect list, into Oracle Trading Community Architecture.

Oracle Marketing offers a list import process, enabling marketers to map an external data source, such as a purchased or rented list, or an existing customer database, to destination target fields either within the Oracle Customer Model or a staging area within Oracle Marketing (for rented lists).

Overview

The List Import feature enables you to enrich your customer data with purchased lists and also consolidate the customer data from legacy systems. This feature facilitates the importing of:

The list import process imports records (in .csv or .xml format) from a client desktop, server or an ftp site. For additional details of importing from a server or FTP site, refer the Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide.

The list import process is in the form of a wizard that guides you through the process of importing a rented or purchased list of prospects. The steps in the wizard include:

  1. Selecting the Import Type (Persons, Organization Contacts, Leads, Event Registrants)

  2. Specifying the location of the file

  3. Mapping the fields between the source file and the destination columns (for a list of fields that can be imported, refer to the Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide)

  4. Importing the list import table with the source data

Once the records have been imported, they can be used for campaign or event target group generation.

Rented vs. Purchased Lists

During the import process, you can specify if the source for the import data is from a Rented or Purchased list. Table Rented Vs Purchased Lists highlights the difference in processing for these two sources.

Rented vs. Purchased Lists
Rented List Purchased List
Data stored within a staging area (AMS_LIST_ENTRIES) in Oracle Marketing Data stored within the staging area and are added to the Oracle Customer Model (TCA)
Dummy, inactive records created in Oracle Customer Model (TCA) for the corresponding records Corresponding customer information is inserted into the Oracle Customer Model (TCA)
Rented records are purged based on usage or expiry date Purchased records are not purged and are maintained within the Oracle Customer Model (TCA)

Importing a List

For information on Importing a List, see the section titled Importing a List in the Oracle Marketing User Guide. The information includes:

Handling List Import Errors

If there is an error during list import, then the status of this import will be “Error” (if no import records were successfully imported) or “Incomplete-Errors” (if some of the import records were successfully imported). You can drill down into the import results to obtain additional information about the errors (for example number of error records, number of duplicate records).

Additionally, within the context of a list import error results, the Search feature enables you to query results based on certain key attributes such as first name or last name.

For information on how to handle list import errors, see the section titled List Import Errors in the Oracle Marketing User Guide. Information includes:

Importing a List Using the List Import Wizard

The list import wizard walks you through the process of importing a rented, purchased, or other lists.

Prerequisites

  1. Log into Oracle Marketing with the appropriate responsibility, and access the Audience Dashboard.

  2. Click the Import link from the Shortcuts bin.

  3. Click Create to start the Import Wizard.

  4. Select the Import Data Type.

    By default the Organizations, Contacts, Addresses option is checked.

    If you select Event Registrations, ensure that you pass the registration source type code and not the meaning for the lookup. Refer Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide for a list of event registration sources.

  5. You can either click Next to continue the import process or you can click Setup to configure the default import mapping and the fields that are to be exposed during Import Preview.

    • If you click Next, then proceed to step 6 of this procedure.

    • If you click Setup:

      1. Specify the default import mapping for .csv or .xml files. By specifying this default mapping for an import type, you do not have to configure the mapping during the list import wizard process. The default import mapping for an import data type will be automatically applied to the import process.

      2. From the Preview Selection region, select the fields that are to be exposed during the import preview, by selecting the Available Fields to the Exposed Fields section.

      3. Click Apply to apply the changes.

      4. Click Return to return to the import wizard.

  6. On clicking Next to continue the import process, the Import Step 1a: Definition page appears.

    1. Enter a unique name and description for the Import.

    2. In the Source File region, select the location for the source file.

      1. Choose Client if the source file is located on your computer, and click Go to browse for the location of the source file.

      2. Choose Server if the source file is located on a server.

        It must be located in the directory specified by your System Administrator. Refer to the Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide for additional information for server side imports.

      3. Choose FTP to specify an FTP address for your source file.

        Also provide your user name, password (to access the file) and the file name.

    3. Select the Character Set for your import source file.

      By default this is set to ‘Western ISO-8859-1”. You can also choose from European (ISO-8859-2), Japanese (SHIFT-JIS), and so on.

    4. Specify the column delimiter for your source file.

      By default this is set to “Comma”. For a .csv file, choose Comma.

    5. Select the Field Enclosed By for your source file.

      By default this is set to "Double Quotation". For a .csv file, choose Double Quotation.

    6. Select the File Header Exists check box, if the file has a header row.

      When you check this, make sure that the first line of your file has the column headings (field names).

    7. Select a deduplication rule that needs to be applied while generating this import.

      The deduplication rule will directly be applied only on the source file that is being imported. The deduplication rules can be configured by your System Administrator.

    8. Check the Use Word Standardization check box to apply Word Standardization Rules on the import data.

      Word Standardization is used in the deduplication process. For example, when the Word Standardization is checked, the words "Street" and "St." are treated the same. The Word Standardization rules can be configured by your System Administrator.

    9. Click Next to proceed to the next step of the import wizard.

  7. Enter Additional Details for the import:

    1. Select the source for your import.

    2. Enter a Vendor and Cost. These are optional entries.

    3. If you choose a Rented List as your source, you must enter either an expiration date or the number of uses.

      • Number of Uses: The number of uses for a rented list is based on the number of campaign schedules that are made Active using a particular rented list.

      • Expiration Date: You need to run the AMS: Purge Imported List concurrent program to purge the entries of the Rented List after the expiration date. If the source chosen is other than a rented list, this is an optional entry.

    4. Click Next to save and continue the import process.

      The Import Mapping page appears. If a default mapping has been specified through the Import Setup, then this page will not be displayed.

  8. In the Import Mapping section, you can specify the mapping between the source fields to target fields.

    You can load an existing mapping to map the source and target fields. This is beneficial if the source file has to be imported regularly.

    You can also manually map the source and target fields and enter a unique mapping name in the Save New Mapping field. This will create a reusable mapping that can be loaded using the"“Load Existing Mapping" field.

    1. To do the mapping, select an item from the Source Fields column and the corresponding item from the Target Fields column, and click > to move the field mapping to the Mapping: Source => Target column.

      Continue until all desired fields are mapped.

    2. To remove an existing field mapping, highlight the item mapping in the Mapping: Source => Target column and click the <.

      This removes the field mapping. For a complete listing of the Target Fields that are available, refer to the Oracle Marketing Implementation Guide.

    3. See the Preview field for the data from the import file.

    4. Click Next to save the changes on this page and move to the next step of the import process. If a name for the new mapping is provided, then the new mapping will be saved.

      The Import Step 3: Review page appears.

  9. Review the import information.

    1. In the General region, you can specify the error threshold number for this import.

      The Error Threshold identifies the maximum number of errors that can occur during list import. For example, if Error Threshold = 100, it implies that there can be a maximum of 100 errors before the list import stops processing additional import records. Records prior to the error threshold being reached will be imported using the regular import logic.

    2. To update existing records, select the Record Update box.

      The list import process uses the existence checking rules to match the records in the import source file to the Oracle Customer Model (TCA). If a match is found, then the customer record in the Oracle Customer Model (TCA) is updated with additional information from the source file. If this field is cleared, then the import source file records are inserted into the Oracle Customer Model (TCA) even if a match exists between the Oracle Customer Model (TCA) record and the import source file.

    3. To validate the data, select the Validate Data box in the Validate region.

      For example, date fields can accept data only in the date format, data for a field with a list of values should contain one of the values specified, and so on.

    4. To automatically generate a list upon import, select the Generate a List upon Import box.

      By default, this check box is selected. You must provide the List Name. By default, the List Name has the same name as the Import name. You can overwrite the default List Name.

    5. To preview the data being imported, click the Preview button.

      The fields that are displayed in the Preview page are based on the “Exposed Fields” that are set up in the Import Setup page. By default, the mandatory fields are always displayed as part of the Preview page

    6. After reviewing the details on this page, click Import to begin the import process.

      A confirmation page appears.

    7. Click Finish to return to the Import Summary Page where the import results can be viewed.

    8. Optionally, click New Import to import data from a new source file.

Handling List Import Errors

If there is an error during list import, then the status of this import will be “Error” (if no import records were successfully imported) or “Incomplete-Errors” (if some of the import records were successfully imported). You can drill down into the import results to obtain additional information about the errors (for example number of error records, number of duplicate records).

Additionally, within the context of a list import error results, the Search feature enables you to query results based on certain key attributes such as first name or last name.

For information on how to handle list import errors, see the section titled List Import Errors in the Oracle Marketing User Guide. Information includes:

Viewing Organization and Person Information

You have a selling relationship with a person or organization, regardless of whether anything has been purchased or serviced. A selling relationship can be established simply by negotiation terms that will be used if you later sell products. You create lists, segments, and target groups from a data source of Persons in a Business to Customer (B2C) scenario and a data source of Organizations in a Business to Business (B2B) scenario.