Uploading Customer Insights

There are certain types of customer insights that can be uploaded from an external system. For example, the system could receive flat files containing affordability information, indicating specific Accounts that may be in the low-to-moderate (LMI) income segment. This customer insight can be loaded into the Account's Customer Profile, using the Customer Profile Business Flag Upload (C1-CPRUP) batch process.

Refer to Understanding Business Flags for general information on how Business Flags are processed.

How the Customer Profile Upload Works

The Customer Profile Upload is a plugin-driven upload process that reads a flat file (e.g. a CSV file) and invokes the 'File Upload' algorithm that is plugged in on the Batch Control.

The base product provides a 'File Upload' algorithm for the purposes of the LMI/affordability use case: Add LMI Customer Profile Business Flag (C1-CPRBUSFLG). This algorithm maps the LMI indicator's external name - i.e., lmi_selection_flag (referenced in the input file) - to the Standard Name that is configured in the External Insight Standard Name (F1-BusinessFlagStandardName) lookup value, C1-LMI. This Standard Name value mapslmi_selection_flg as a Valid External Name.

The Standard Name determines the Business Flag Type, which in turn, determines the Business Flag object to create.

The 'Additional Processing' algorithm plugged in on the Business Flag Type is then invoked, to add or update the Account's Customer Profile. The base product provides the algorithm, Add/Update Customer Profile Attributes (C1CPAUCPA), which is meant to be plugged in for a specific Customer Profile Type (defined in the algorithm parameter). The base algorithm performs the following:
  • Checks if the Account already has an active Customer Profile of the configured type.
  • Creates the Customer Profile when one does not exist.
  • Adds new attributes to (or updates existing attributes in) the Customer Profile, based on the Customer Profile Attribute Type definition. Existing attributes are updated based on the Occurrence setting:
    • If set to Single, the existing value is updated.
    • If set to Single - Per Related Object, the attribute that references the same related object (e.g., Service Agreement) is updated.
    • If set to Multiple, the new values are compared with the existing values. to determine what to add or delete.
Customer Profile creation and attribute changes are captured on the Customer Profile log, for audit purposes.

Customer Profile Upload Validation and Error Handling

The Customer Profile Upload performs initial validation of the file record, including confirmation that the account ID is provided and valid. Detailed validation of Customer Profile and attribute information occurs during Customer Profile Business Flag BO and Customer Profile BO processing. If an error is encountered, the Business Flag is moved to the Validation Error state and an exception log entry is created. Users can review, make corrections and retry processing. The upload record skips the record in error and proceeds to process the next records in the file.

Refer to the C1-CustomerProfBusinessFlag and C1-CustomerProfile business objects in the application, for more information on the Business Flag and Customer Profile schemas and lifecyle processing.

Setting Up the System for Customer Profile Uploads

The following are the steps to enable Customer Profile Batch Upload processing:
  • Set up a Customer Profile Attribute Type for each unique attribute to capture in the Customer Profile. For example, with the LMI use case, there could be two attribute types - one for the LMI indicator (true/false switch) and another for the LMI Selection Reason (extendable lookup). Refer to Setting Up Customer Profile Attribute Types for more information.
  • Set up the Customer Profile Type and link the new Customer Profile Attribute Types to it. Refer to Setting Up Customer Profile Types for more information.
  • Add an Algorithm for the Add/Update Customer Profile Attributes (C1CPAUCPA) Algorithm Type and set its algorithm parameter to the new Customer Profile Type.
  • Update the External Insight Standard Name (F1-BusinessFlagStandardName) Extendable Lookup, with the applicable Standard Name (lookup value) and its associated Valid External Name(s). For the LMI use case, the base product provides the C1-LMI lookup value. It just needs to be updated with any additional implementation-specific Valid External Name(s) that differ the lmi_selection_flg name that is already included.
  • Set up a Customer Profile Business Flag Type using the Customer Profile Business Flag Type (C1-CustomerProfBusFlagType) business object:
    • Set the Standard Name. For example, in the LMI use case, set the Standard Name to the C1-LMI extendable lookup value or an implementation-specific Valid External Name, if any.
    • Configure attribute relationships, if any. This applies to cases where multiple attribute types are received and some attribute types provide more information related to the key attribute type. For example, with the LMI use case, the LMI indicator is defined with LMI Selection Reason as a related attribute. The LMI Selection Reason's external name (in the input file) is mapped to a corresponding Customer Profile Attribute Type.
    • Configure the 'Additional Processing' Algorithm with the new algorithm instance of Add/Update Customer Profile Attributes (C1CPAUCPA) algorithm type, created above.
  • Set up other implementation-specific configuration. For example, for LMI Selection Reasons, add the valid values for the LMI Selection Reason extendable lookup, C1-LMISelectionReasonLookup.
  • Set up Object Storage access. Refer to External File Storage for more information.

Parent topic: Customer Profile Insights