How to Upload Members for Mailing Lists
This entry describes the steps to manage a database of system participants who do not participate in the credentialing process. This process allows contacts to be uploaded from multiple sources while avoiding the possibility of corrupting an existing record.
Scenario Background
In this scenario, we want to import people so they can participate as Subscribers to a client’s newsletter. This scenario departs somewhat from many credentialing scenarios because we lack some specific information about the person, including a Unique ID. LearningBuilder has no mechanism at this time to assign a unique ID to a person.
User Stories
The following user stories apply.
Name | Story | Implementation Notes |
|---|---|---|
Upload contacts | As a person responsible to build an organization’s mailing list, I import contacts from external sources so I do not have to enter them individually. | We can use either the Member Upload or the Enhanced Data Import to accomplish this. |
Upload e-mail addresses | As a person responsible to build a mailing list, I upload a person’s e-mail address so I can use electronic communications to reach them. | E-mail address is a required field. |
Upload partial information | As a person responsible to build an organization’s mailing list, I upload records that have only an e-mail address and no first or last name so I can continue to communicate with the person by e-mail. | We can upload using placeholders (e.g., “No Name Provided”). |
Upload mailing addresses | As a person responsible to build an organization’s mailing list, I upload each person’s mailing address so I can communicate with them through physical mail. | We can only use the Member Upload feature to do this. Enhanced Data Import does not support addresses. |
Prevent duplicates | As a person responsible to build an organization’s mailing list, I want to make sure I do not create multiple records for the same person so I am never confused about whether I am dealing with the same person. | To prevent duplicates, we use the e-mail address as the Subscriber’s Unique ID. The Enhanced Uploader will then recognize an existing user based on an Email match of the Unique ID. |
Prevent data overwrite | As a person responsible to build an organization’s mailing list, I want to make sure when I upload partial information I do not remove information in the system that is already verified so I do not undo work I have done. | The Enhanced Import feature updates Member attributes like First Name using behaviors. If we specify to “Only Update if Field is Empty” on the Member Profile behavior, we prevent updating a record that already has a name. |
Workflow Configuration
We will configure a new Role called “Subscriber” that will use the “Subscriber Details” workflow. The Subscriber Details Grant Role workflow collects the following information:
Email address
First name
Last name
Lead source
The Workflow needs the following Steps
A placeholder data entry step
A data import entry step
On the Data Entry Step, we configure the following fields:
First Name from Import
Last Name from Import
Lead Source
We have one Save action on the Data Entry Step:
Save
The Save button has the following behaviors:
Update Member Profile
Set First Name from First Name from Import
Set Last Name from Last Name from Import
Make sure that the checkboxes for “Only update if Profile value is empty” is unchecked (the system considers the *Placeholder* value to be a value and will ignore an assigned name if these boxes are checked.
File format
We would create the CSV file with the following fields:
:EMail
:UniqueID
:RoleName
First Name from Import
Last Name From Import
Lead Source