Overview
You may wish to include customer actions that occurred prior to the inclusion of A-Score in netFORUM. This backfilling of historical data can be accomplished through the use of automated tasks in netFORUM. When running these tasks, you must perform them in a specific order. The order these tasks must be performed in is:
1. Add customer actions
2. Score customer actions
3. Create a scoring history.
Backfilling Historical Customer Actions
To add historical customer actions, complete the following steps:
1. Open the CRM module by expanding the Module Menu and clicking on the CRM option.
2. Click the Customer Setup link located at the bottom of the CRM Overview page.
3. Click the More tab and click the Scoring option if the Scoring tab is not already displayed.
Customer Setup Page with More Menu Expanded
4. Expand the customer action type child form.
5. Click the GoTo icon next to the customer action type you wish to backfill.
This will open the Customer Action Type Profile for that specific action type.
| You will need to perform this task for each individual Customer Action Type you wish to backfill. |
6. Click the More tab and click the Open Tasks option.
This tab lists all of the open/scheduled tasks for this Customer Action Type and also provides the option to schedule a new task.
7. Click the Add icon located on the customer action type task child form.
This will open the Add - Customer Action Type Task pop-up window.
Add - Customer Action Type Task Pop-Up Window
8. Expand the operation type drop-down menu.
9. Select the type of backfill operation you would like to perform
Most commonly, you will select the Insert Customer Action Records Only option. This option simply goes back and associates all of the actions of this type the customer has performed over the specified time period to his/her profile.
The other options available are:
- Insert Customer Action Records and Qualify Them - Inserts customer actions of this type and measures them against any qualification queries that have been set up to determine their eligibility for scoring purposes.
- Qualify Existing Customer Action Records - Examines exiting customer action records and determines their eligibility for scoring purpses based on qualifications that have been set up.
- Requalify Exisiting Customer Action Records - delete ineligible, add or keep eligible - This operation is performed when a change has been made to the qualifications required for scoring purposes. This operation will re-examine the existing customer action records of this type and requalify or recompute values based on the changes that have been made.
| You can also use these steps to re-evaluate scoring qualifications and points in the event the criteria for awarding points has changed or a new scoring scale has been adopted. |
10. Enter the dates of the customer actions to perform this operation on in the action date from and action date through fields.
| You should limit your date range to one year or less when performing these tasks |
11. Schedule the date and time for this task to run. You may click the Now link to have this task scheduled to run in five minutes from the current time.
12. If you would like to be notified of the progress of this task, select the notify template, enter the notify e-mail, and click the checkboxes for the notify conditions you would like to be notified of.
13. Click the Save button to schedule this task.
Backfilling Scoring Weights for Historical Actions
To add scoring weights for historical Customer Action Types, complete the following steps:
1. Open the CRM module by expanding the Module Menu and clicking on the CRM option.
2. Click the Customer Setup link located at the bottom of the CRM Overview page.
3. Click the More tab and click the Scoring option if the Scoring tab is not already displayed.
4. Expand the scoring scale child form.
5. Click the GoTo icon next to the Scoring Scale whose scoring weight you wish to backfill.
This will open the Scoring Scale Profile for that specific Scoring Scale.
| You will need to perform this task for each individual Scoring Scale you wish to backfill. |
6. Expand the scoring weights child form, located on the Primary tab.
7. Click the GoTo icon, next to the Scoring Weight you wish to backfill.
This will open the Scoring Weight Profile.
8. Click the Add icon on the scoring weight tasks child form, located on the Open Tasks tab.
This will open the Add - Scoring Weight Task pop-up window.
Add - Scoring Weight Task Pop-Up Window
9. Select the operation to perform by expanding the option drop-down menu.
There are three options available in the option drop-down menu:
- Qualify Existing Customer Action Records - Applies the selected Scoring Weight to all qualified existing customer records. This is the most commonly used option.
- Requalify Exisiting Customer Action Records - delete ineligible, add or keep eligible - This operation is performed when a change has been made to the qualifications required for scoring purposes. This operation will re-examine the existing customer action records of this type and requalify or recompute values based on the changes that have been made.
- Delete Existing Qualifiers Not in Date Range - Deletes the Scoring Weights for Customer Actions not within the qualifying date range.
10. Set the schedule for this task. It is best to schedule these tasks during non-peak hours.
11. Set your notification preferences.
12. Click the Save button.
Backfilling Scoring Scales for Historical Actions
To backfill scoring scale data for historical customer actions, complete the following steps:
1. Open the CRM module by expanding the Module Menu and clicking on the CRM option.
2. Click the Customer Setup link located at the bottom of the CRM Overview page.
3. Click the More tab and click the Scoring option if the Scoring tab is not already displayed.
4. Expand the scoring scale child form.
5. Click the GoTo icon next to the Scoring Scale you wish to backfill.
This will open the Scoring Scale Profile for that specific action type.
| You will need to perform this task for each individual Customer Action Type you wish to backfill. |
6. Click the More tab and click the Open Tasks option.
This tab lists all of the open/scheduled tasks for this Customer Action Type and also provides the option to schedule a new task.
7. Click the Add icon located on the customer action type task child form.
This will open the Add - Scoring Scale Task pop-up window.
Add - Scoring Scale Task Form
8. Expand the option drop-down menu and select the operation you wish to perform. The Scale Only option is the most commonly used.
9. Set the date range for this task in the start date and end date fields.
| Limit your date ranges to one year or less for all backfill tasks. |
10. Set the date and time for this task to run. Clicking the Now link will run this task five minutes from the current time.
11. Complete your notification settings if you wished to be notified about this task's progress.
12. Click the Save button.
| You should do your best to schedule these tasks at off-peak hours. |
FAQ
Time to Run Backfill
Once you've set up your Scales and Scoring Weights, you then need to run the backfill process described on this page to generate the A-Score for all your customers.
The processes that generate the scoring data must churn through several years worth of transactions to generate the A-Score. The A-Score is not computed on the fly, but is computed based on underlying data that needs to be generated. The A-Score cannot be computed on the fly because it's too complicated and has to sift through a lot of data that needs to be evaluated, categorized and qualified. It's almost like a data warehouse, and the backfill process can be likened to a data conversion.
Avectra developed the backfill process to run a sequence of many smaller tasks, each of which performs one operation on a narrow set of records. For example, there is a task to insert customer actions for a particular action type, a task to qualify each scoring weight (i.e. which customer actions qualify for points), a task to crunch the historical scores for each scale, for each calendar month, etc. The rationale for this design was to isolate each specific task in case of failure. Additionally, we wanted to break the work down into smaller pieces in order not to overtax the netFORUM site.
When the initial backfill task runs, as many as 300 tasks can be generated. After each task runs, the next task is cued up to run ten minutes later using the Task_Scheduler#Linking_Tasks feature. Doing the math, that means it could take 3,000 minutes (300 tasks X 10 minutes per task) to complete the process, or 50 hours from start to finish. This does not mean netFORUM is computing the scores for 50 hours straight -- each task may run in only a few seconds, to half a minute. This means that during that time span, tasks are actually executing for perhaps 1,000 to 3,000 seconds (which can vary dramatically based on the data being scored) which is anywhere from 16 to 50 total minutes during the span.
While it may be inconvenient to wait a day or two for the initial scoring to be generated, be aware that:
- The initial backfill process only needs to run once in the lifetime of netFORUM.
- If you make a tweak to the scoring setup after the initial backfill, you don't need to re-run the entire process; you can re-run just specific tasks needed to reflect that change. But if it's easier, you can simply re-run the complete process although you'll need to wait a little longer.
- Avectra engineered the process to minimize impact on live, production systems, at the expense of having it complete right away.
- Avectra engineered the process to run in a series of smaller micro-tasks, rather than one big task that does everything, to minimize the chance of a big task failing or overtaxing the production system.
We realize that you want to see the A-Score in action as soon as possible, but we ask you to be patient while the initial process runs. For most netFORUM clients, you can turn on the tasks in the afternoon and see the A-Scores the next morning.
See Also
- A Score
- A Score - Scoring Scale Task
- A Score - Managing Scoring Weights
- A Score - Decay Rates