Subscriber Activity

Circulation has the ability to import data from a telemarketing system or other source. Starts, stops, restarts, moves, delivery schedule changes, payments, complaints, billing changes and combo changes can all be imported. Solicitation codes can also be updated. After the import, Circulation in turn creates an export file, detailing records that were rejected or have warnings.

Subscriber Activity reads in a file from /dti/exchange/cm/secure, and creates subscriber transactions using the guidelines described in the following table. A separate section of Business Rules, Import Sub Activity (see Import Sub Activity in the Setup Manual) allows you to configure some aspects of the import.

Transaction	Guidelines
All transactions	If the Circulation Occupant ID, Address ID, or Subscription ID is supplied by the interface file, the address, occupant, or subscription in Circulation must match the information in the file. If no Occupant ID, Address ID, or Subscription ID is supplied, Subscriber Activity will attempt to match a Circulation address based on address data in the file. All address elements must match, except for the unit designator (Apt, #, Room, etc.). If the file contains a name, the occupant first and last name in the file must exactly match the occupant first and last name in Circulation for the subscriber matched. If no Occupant ID, Address ID, or Subscription ID is supplied, Subscriber Activity will attempt to match a Circulation address based on address data in the file. All address elements must match, except for the unit designator (Apt, #, Room, etc.). If the file contains a name, the occupant first and last name in the file must exactly match the occupant first and last name in Circulation for the subscriber matched.
Start	If this is a mail delivery start, the occupant cannot have an address that the router determines should be route delivered. If this is a route delivery start, the occupant must have an address that is route delivered, as determined by the router. When creating a new start, Subscriber Activity will create a new occupant record if there is no matching occupant at that address in Circulation. It will then assign the subscription to a label group (based on the Zip code) or a route (based on the router). It will also determine the subscription rate, occupant type, credit status, AAM zone, unlisted phone number flag, and send invoice and send renewal flags, if this information is not supplied by the interface file.
Stop	The occupant must have an active subscription, and no pending stop transactions.
Restart	The occupant must have a subscription that is temp stopped on the record’s transaction date (cannot be perm stopped or active), and cannot have a restart between the temp stop date and the record’s transaction date.
Delivery Schedule Change	The occupant must have an active subscription. There cannot be a pending delivery schedule change transaction for the subscriber. Business Rules can be set to require the delivery schedule in the file to contain a higher number of delivery days than the subscriber’s current delivery schedule. For example, a delivery schedule change that upgrades a subscription from Mon-Fri to 7-day would be accepted, but a delivery schedule change that downgrades a subscription from Mon-Fri to Sat-Sun would be rejected. When creating the delivery schedule change, Subscriber Activity will determine the new subscription rate, if not supplied by the interface file.
Move	The occupant must have an active subscription, and no pending stop transactions.
Payments	The occupant must have a subscription (it does not have to be active). Cash, check, credit card or bank draft payments can be interfaced. Business Rules determine the number of days that are added to the payment date when importing cash or check payments.
Billing Changes	The occupant must have an active subscription.
Combo Changes	Combo changes are supported for both non-combo to combo subscription changes and combo to combo subscription changes.
Complaints	An occupant or address must be supplied. The occupant does not need to be a subscriber.
Demographic Answers	An occupant or address must be supplied. The occupant does not need to be a subscriber.
Solicitation Update	Up to two solicitation codes can be included in the file. If they are, the occupant matched in Circulation w ill be updated with the solicitation code(s).

Running the Interface

To run the Subscriber Activity interface:

• Select Subscriber Activity from the Import menu to display the Subscriber Activity Import screen.

• Select Add and complete the following fields.

Field	Type	What to enter
FILENAME	open (25)	Enter the name of the import file. The import file can have any name, but must be located in the /dti/exchange/cm directory.
BANK	setup	Enter the bank for cash, check or bank draft payments being interfaced.
READ OPTION	predefined	Indicate whether the import should be run in Edit only or Commit mode. Commit will create transactions and update solicitation codes. Edit only will not update any information, but it will validate the data in the interface file and display warnings and errors on an error report. When first implementing the interface, we recommend running the interface in Edit only mode before committing.
CREATE EXPORT FILE	yes/no	Indicate whether an output file should be exported to the /dti/exchange/cm directory. The output file lists the status of each imported record.
AUTO ACCEPT	yes/no	Indicate if you want all open batches to be accepted automatically. Transaction Security controls whether the default answer can be changed.
SUSPEND ALL STARTS	yes/no	Set this field to “y” if all new starts should be suspended.
ALLOW START FOR EXISTING SUBSCRIPTION	yes/no	Set this field to “y” if new starts are allowed for addresses that already receive a subscription. Set this field to “n” if starts are not allowed for addresses with existing subscriptions.

• Select Continue to run the interface. If the read option is Commit, transactions will be created in Circulation, solicitation codes will be updated, and an output file will be exported. If the read option is Edit only, the data will only be validated. In both cases, a report will be displayed after processing is complete. If Create Export File is set to “y”, an output file will be also be created in the /dti/exchange/cm/secure directory, listing the status of each imported record. The standard view/print options are available.

For the format of the import and output files, see Appendix B. For descriptions of the reject codes, see Subscriber Activity Import | Reject Codes.