topic Re: Where is the response process? in SAS Customer Intelligence

Where is the response process?

janezou — Wed, 04 May 2016 16:20:44 GMT

Hi everyone,

I understand:

1) the Response Definition allows to set up the Response Code for different responses channels.

2) the Response Node allows us to link different Response Code to the Communication Node.

3) the CI_CONTACT_HISTORY saves all of campaign histories at subject level

4) the CI_RESPONSE_HISTORY should save all of the responses, and there are conditions have to be met before response can be created.

5) there are Converted/Responded, promoted/inferred or Opened/clicked/etc for response types.

6) I do not believe MA can automatically go out find its responses without configuration.

I am curious where I should look/define the actural responses, and schedule these processes. The scope is not real-time decision making. For example: link to external sales header table to get total amount at certain period; link to external sales detail for promoted response to a specific treatment at a time period; or link to external email promotion fact table to find the open and clicks, etc. At the end, I guess I want to know how CI_RESPONSE_HISTORY table is processed. Is it included in MA or it has to be done outside?

Thanks a bunch!

Jane

Re: Where is the response process?

shill — Thu, 05 May 2016 15:11:03 GMT

The CI_RESPONSE_HISTORY table is provided as a place where you can write response data, but populating it is an additional task that is generally done (and in my opinion, best done) outside of MA.

Normally this is an ETL process that analyzes input from the channels, where hopefully the actions you're tracking as responses include the Response Tracking Code and Treatment Tracking Code values that were assigned by MA so that you can perform direct attribution. Another option is to analyze your transaction data looking for behavior by customers who were in the campaigns and recorded in CI_CONTACT_HISTORY. If you find that someone has been contacted AND made a purchase (for example), you can create an inferred response.

The reason no specific process exists for this is because every customer and every offer has very different parameters for what defines a response: how long has it been since the contact? what if they received multiple contacts - to which do you attribute the response? what if they bought something other than what you were promoting? And so on.

Re: Where is the response process?

janezou — Thu, 05 May 2016 17:47:21 GMT

Thanks Shill for clarifying!

It makes sense to do it in ETL outside, the response could become complicated with different (business rules + channels + subjects + period of time) + control/test, etc.

By reading the user's guide and admin's guide, I got the impression that the response history table would be "magically" populated once response node is created, thought I might have missed something.

Re: Where is the response process?

shill — Thu, 05 May 2016 18:16:42 GMT

The response node(s) (which you can have added to the diagram if you configure your communication node with responses) does automatically query the CI_RESPONSE_HISTORY table to get the list of customers who were a) contacted by the communication the response node comes from and b) had that particular response(s).

But it won't give you any counts if you haven't first populated the table 🙂

Re: Where is the response process?

janezou — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:45:15 GMT

Yes, the Reponse Node(s) from Communication Node could serve as place holders, they could be used to bring real responses in the future ETL. That is the only purpose of Response Node, I guess? At campaign time, we do not have any response for sure.

Or the Response Nodes(s) can also be completely ignored. The response will be handled at the back end completely after compain execution.

Does this make sense?

Thanks,

Re: Where is the response process?

shill — Thu, 05 May 2016 19:48:32 GMT

The response node serves two possible purposes: informational (for the campaign designer to quickly check on the results of that campaign without writing a report - this functionality pre-dates VA) or as a starting point for follow-up campaigns. You can either connect a second wave of some logic and/or just a communication node to send a different messasge/offer to those who responded vs. those who hadn't after a week, for example, or you could connect a linkable cell to it and use that as a shortcut to building a select node where camp_cd = X and comm_cd = y, etc.

Re: Where is the response process?

janezou — Fri, 06 May 2016 00:23:56 GMT

That is a very smart way of creating wave 2, I have never thought of. THANKS!

Re: Where is the response process?

ThreeJay — Tue, 09 May 2017 08:01:01 GMT

Hi Steve,

I just started configuration of SAS CI at Gothaer Germany. Right now I'm gathering information about response tracking in CI and I'm wondering how to handle the TREATMENT_HASH_VAL column in the RESPONSE_HISTORY when i don't use dynamic treatments or any treatment at all in my campaigns. That cloumn is part of the key in the RESPONSE_HISTORY and NOT NULL. So my question is: Is there a default value for that column in case there are no treatments in the campaign?

Thanks, Jakobus

Re: Where is the response process?

shill — Thu, 11 May 2017 02:56:46 GMT

If you're not using it to join back to a specific treatment in a package, the TREATMENT_HASH_VAL can be anything (besides NULL). Elsewhere in the data model values of "S" (for static) and "X" (for dynamic default values) are used; following that pattern I would suggest a standard of "N" (for None). It's not a referential key, so ultimately it's up to you - the main thing in my opinion is that it be handled consistently.

Re: Where is the response process?

ThreeJay — Thu, 11 May 2017 13:48:35 GMT

Hi Steve,

thanks for your post. I tested with NULL Values in that column and it works. But if you say its risky I will use "N" to fill in.

Thanks & BR, Jakobus

Re: Where is the response process?

shill — Thu, 11 May 2017 13:53:29 GMT

Interesting... since it's part of the key and you mentioned it's marked NOT NULL that shouldn't have worked.