Configuring Smart Connect Rules

When InterAction is initially rolled out to users, each user must review all the contacts in his or her list to determine which contacts should be contributed to the firm list and which contacts should remain only in his or her contact list. If a user has many contacts, this process can be time consuming. To reduce the burden on users, you can define rules to specify which contacts should be contributed to the firm. The Smart Connect feature lets you do either of the following:

  • Recommend contacts to users that should be added to the firm list. For example, you can recommend that users contribute any of their contacts that are already found in the firm list.
  • Automatically connect a user’s contact with a contact in the firm list. For example, important contacts such as the personnel of top clients or your organization’s personnel can automatically be connected with contacts in the firm list.

Smart Connect rules only process contacts that the user has not already indicated that they want to keep in their contact list. If a user has already indicated that the contact should be kept personal, InterAction does not attempt to match the contact with a contact in InterAction. Note however, that typically at the time of rollout, users have not yet accessed InterAction and therefore have not yet had the chance to keep contacts personal. Therefore, InterAction processes all of a user’s contacts to determine which should be recommended or automatically added to the firm list.

InterAction compares each contact in the user’s contact list with contacts in the firm list when User to Firm Contact Sync runs. Because of this, you must run User to Firm Contact Sync at least once after the user’s contacts are loaded into his or her contact list before the users should begin contributing their contacts.

Use the No Contact Match feature to automatically promote contacts to the firm list that do not meet any of the other Smart Connect rules. If a contact is unresolved due to the contact or associated company not matching a firm contact, use this feature to promote the contact. This only applies to contacts in the collections that are configured to have Smart Connect processing activated on them.

For more information, see the following sections:

  • Managing Smart Connect Rules
  • Create Smart Connect Rules
  • Edit Smart Connect Rules
  • Delete Smart Connect Rules
  • Turn on Smart Connect for New User Contact Lists
  • Turn Smart Connect On for Multiple User Contact Lists
  • Turn Smart Connect Off for Multiple User Contact Lists
  • Configure the No Contact Match Rule
  • Clear Smart Connect Recommendations

Managing Smart Connect Rules

Each Smart Connect rule has several configuration settings identified in the following table.

Smart Connect Settings
Setting Description
Type of Connection

This setting specifies how the contact matches a contact in the firm list. The match can be either of the following:

  • Contact Match - the contact, a person or a company, exactly matches a contact in the specified folder or contact type.
  • Contact’s associated company match - the contact, a person, has a company listed that exactly matches a company in the specified folder or contact type.
Folder

This setting specifies where InterAction looks for matching contacts. You can specify the following:

  • Contact Type - when this option is selected, you can choose the contact type for which you want to define a Smart Connect rule. All the contact types defined in your database are available in the drop-down list when this option is chosen.
  • Firm List - when this option is selected, the Smart Connect rule compares user contacts with contacts in the firm list.
  • Other Folder - when this option is selected, you can choose the folder for which you want to define a smart connect rule. Any folder in your InterAction database can be used in a Smart Connect rule.

For each folder or contact type, you can specify one contact match rule and one contact’s associated company match rule.

Rule

This setting specifies either of the following:

  • Recommend - If this option is selected, when the user reviews the contact to contribute to the firm, the contact is recommended to the user to add. Typically, this option should be used for Smart Connect rules defined for contacts where the user may be sensitive about contributing contact information. For example, recommended rules should be defined for your Client and Top Client contact types.
  • Automatically Connect - If this option is selected, the user’s contact is automatically contributed to the firm list, without the user’s prior review. Typically, this option should be used for Smart Connect rules defined for data quality certified contact collections such as your Top Client or Our Personnel contact types.
Expiration

If you define a Smart Connect rule to use the recommend rule, you can configure InterAction to automatically connect the user’s contact with the firm contact if the user has not resolved the contact in a specified number of days. For example, if Ed Roberts has a recommended contact in his or her contact list, but does not go through the contribute contact process within 60 days of adding the contact to his contact list, InterAction can automatically add that contact to the contact list.

You can specify the number of days after which the contact is automatically connected.

When Multiple Smart Connect Rules Apply to a Contact

In some cases a contact may have multiple Smart Connect rules apply to it. For example, a person may be a member of the alumni of your organization and also work for one of your clients. Because of this, two Smart Connect rules apply to the contact. When this occurs, the strongest rule is used. So, if one rule specified that the contact is recommended while the other specifies that the contact is automatically added to the firm list, the contact is automatically added to the firm list.

Create Smart Connect Rules

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double click User Contact List Configuration, then choose Smart Connect Rules.

  3. On the Smart Connect Rules dialog box, choose New.

  4. On the New Smart Connect Rule dialog box, enter the settings to use for the rule.

    For more information on the settings available, see Managing Smart Connect Rules

  5. When finished, choose OK.

Edit Smart Connect Rules

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double click User Contact List Configuration, then choose Smart Connect Rules.

  3. On the Smart Connect Rules dialog box, select the rule to change and choose Edit.

  4. On the Edit Smart Connect Rule dialog box, enter the settings to use for the rule.

    You can only edit the rule used and the expiration of the rule. You cannot change the type of connection or the folder for which the connection is defined.

    For more information on the settings available, see Managing Smart Connect Rules.

  5. When finished, choose OK.

Delete Smart Connect Rules

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double-click User Contact List Configuration, then choose Smart Connect Rules.

  3. On the Smart Connect Rules dialog box, select the rule to remove and choose Delete.

  4. On the confirmation dialog box, choose Yes.

Turn on Smart Connect for New User Contact Lists

Note: Turning on Smart Connect using this procedure only affects new contact lists you create after changing the setting. It does not affect existing contact lists in InterAction.

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double click User Contact List Configuration.

  3. On the User Contact List Configuration dialog box, choose Relationship Settings.

  4. On the Relationship Settings dialog box, select Use global Smart Connect to assist in the user’s review process.

  5. When finished, choose OK.

Turn Smart Connect On for Multiple User Contact Lists

Tip: You can also turn Smart Connect on and off for each user contact list from the Edit User Contact List dialog box.

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double-click User Contact List Configuration, then choose User Contact Lists.

  3. On the Manage User Contact List dialog box, mark the user contact list or lists for which you want to use Smart Connect.

  4. Under Apply Setting to Marked Lists, select Use Smart Connect and choose Apply.

    Note: Only marked user contact lists have the selected setting applied. If the currently selected contact list is not marked, it is not included in the setting.

  5. When finished, choose Close.

Turn Smart Connect Off for Multiple User Contact Lists

Tip: You can also turn Smart Connect on and off for each user contact list from the Edit User Contact List dialog box.

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double-click User Contact List Configuration, then choose User Contact Lists.

  3. On the Manage User Contact List dialog box, mark the user contact list or lists for which you do not want to use Smart Connect.

  4. Under Apply Setting to Marked Lists, select Do not use Smart Connect and choose Apply.

    Note: Only marked user contact lists have the selected setting applied. If the currently selected contact list is not marked, it is not included in the setting.

  5. When finished, choose Close.

Clear Smart Connect Recommendations

If you use Smart Connect rules that recommend contacts to contribute to the firm, you can clear any existing recommendations that have not yet been processed by users.

You may want to clear existing recommendations after reconfiguring Smart Connect rules because Smart Connect rules are not reapplied to existing contacts that already have recommendations.

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator.

  2. From the main window entity list, double-click User Contact List Configuration, then choose User Contact Lists.

  3. On the Manage User Contact List dialog box, mark the user contact list or lists for which you want to clear recommendations.

  4. Under Apply Setting to Marked Lists, choose Clear Smart Connect recommendations and choose Apply.

    Note: Only marked user contact lists have the selected setting applied. If the currently selected contact list is not marked, it is not included in the setting.

  5. When finished, choose Close.

Configure the No Contact Match Rule

  1. Log on to InterAction Administrator

  2. From the main window entity list, double-click User Contact List Configuration, then choose Smart Connect Rules.

  3. On the Smart Connect Rules dialog box, in the No Contact Match section, choose Edit.

  4. Select the applicable option:

    Option Description
    Ask the user to decide if the contact should be added to the Firm List

    The user must pick which unresolved contacts should be included in the firm list through the Web Client. This takes advantage of Smart Connect rules by making recommendations as to which contacts should be added to the firm list.

    Contacts remain unresolved until the user acts on them.
    Automatically add the contact to the Firm List Unresolved contacts are automatically added to the firm list once the specified number of days in the Days until the contact is added field has elapsed. Prior to the number of days elapsing, the user can add unresolved contacts to the firm list through the Web Client.
    Days until the contact is added The number of days that must elapse before unresolved contacts are added to the firm list.

  5. Choose OK to save your changes.