Managing Live Dialogs

Marketing, Operational Reports, Outbound Emails

View Dialog outbound email transaction details using a marketing operational report. The Dialog Outbound Email Search component enables you to view a Dialog outbound email immediately after the email is sent.

Deleting a Broadcast Email action or a Follow-up Email action.

Deleting an email action before the email is sent prevents it from being sent, even if it is already scheduled. This also applies to Broadcast Email actions deleted while Online Marketing is sending the emails to the target audience.

Deleting a Broadcast Email action also prevents you from seeing those results in CRM Analytics.

Editing an email document (while in any state).

You can edit a document used in an email action at any time. The change will be reflected the next time the email action is executed. If you make changes to an email document used in a Broadcast Email action that has already started being sent out, the changes will not be included unless the Mailcaster is restarted (the Online Marketing Mailcaster handles sending all Online Marketing emails to the SMTP server). This is the only way to force a Broadcast Email action to restart. However, any emails already sent out will not be resent.

Changes to Choice questions are allowed .

Adding questions to a document: When a new question is added to a document, a “blank” value is stored in that document’s data table for each respondent who already submitted data for that document. The “null” indicates that no answer was supplied for the question.

This is how unanswered questions are marked, so the CRM Analytics data might be misleading because Online Marketing does not automatically indicate the date when the respondent submitted the page. (Of course, you can do this yourself by using a hidden date field.) It may seem that many people chose not to answer a question, when actually the question was added late.

Changing the number of choices presented for a multiple choice question: Changing the number of choices in a question can cause the results to be misleading because the same choices will not have been available to all respondents.

Changing the text of a choice question in a document, but leaving the choices unchanged: Although this does not damage the dialog, you must be very careful when changing the question, because only the new question is listed in CRM Analytics. If you change the question, the results can be misleading.

For example, suppose the following: the original question is “What is your favorite color” and you change it to “What is your least favorite color”. If prior to the change, 20,000 respondents selected red as their favorite color, and after the change 10,000 respondents selected red as their least favorite color, then the results will show 30,000 people selected red as their least favorite color, which is entirely misleading.

Removing questions from a document: Online Marketing never deletes columns from a document data table. If a question is removed from the document definition, any new respondents will have a “null” value placed in the column associated with the deleted question. However, since the question has been removed, there is no way to view or analyze the data originally stored in that column. Further, since the column still exists, you are unable to use that question’s name again.

These changes to Date/Time triggers are allowed.

• Adding, deleting, or modifying outbound actions for an existing Date/Time trigger that has been scheduled but not yet executed.

  When a Date/Time trigger's execution date and time arrive, the actions associated with that trigger will execute. If an action is scheduled for a delayed execution, Online Marketing places it in an execution queue until that date. Once an action is scheduled for execution, changing the scheduled date and time does not change when it executes. (Online Marketing does not change the timing on actions that have already been scheduled.)

• Adding outbound actions to a Date/Time trigger that has already been executed.

  Doing this has no effect on the dialog. A Date/Time trigger is executed only once. Any actions added after that date are never executed.

• Changing the date of a Date/Time trigger that has already been executed.

  Doing this has no effect on the dialog. A Date/Time trigger is executed only once.

• Creating a new Date/Time trigger (with new broadcast email).

  If you schedule a new Date/Time trigger for a date or time before the dialog is reactivated, the milestone is triggered immediately after the dialog is reactivated.

• Changing the date of a Date/Time trigger that has not yet executed.

  Doing this will cause the Date/Time trigger execution to change to the new date.

• Creating a new Landing Page (with new subordinate inbound actions, such as Intermediate Pages) is allowed.

  Respondents cannot access a new Landing Page unless you provide the new URL via a Broadcast Email, a Web Link Promo, or a new link from a modified web document already in the flow.

• Deleting an existing Landing Page.

  Deleting a Landing Page deletes any subordinate actions, and breaks any links to or from these actions. It also prevents you from seeing those results in CRM Analytics.

  If the dialog has already sent broadcast emails or placed Web Link Promos that contain links to a deleted Landing Page, recipients may still attempt to access the web page. Any respondents that attempt to access a deleted web page receive an error message.

• Redirecting a Web Link Promo to a different Landing Page.

  You can redirect a Web Link Promo, but any respondents who received the original link and attempt to use it, will receive an error message if the original Landing Page has been deleted.

These changes are allowed :

• Creating a new Repeating Trigger (with new broadcast email).

  If you schedule a new Repeating Trigger for a date or time before the dialog is reactivated, the trigger is triggered when the next repeat is scheduled.

• Adding, deleting, or modifying outbound actions for an existing Repeating Trigger.

  When a Repeating Trigger's execution date and time arrive, the actions associated with that trigger will execute.

Selecting a different document to be used in a web page .

When you change the document that is associated with a web page action, any links to the original web page generated by the Link Report will remain intact. However, merge content and cross dialog links from other Online Marketing web documents will need to be reset.

Modifying an existing Decision Point can have a serious effect on the overall behavior of the flow. You should not do this unless absolutely necessary.