An essential guide to Key Attributes. A round up of articles about storing dynamic data for marketing

2 minute read time.

This article provides links to different videos and articles that discuss the creation and use of Key Attribute data. Key Attribute data is data held in Sage CRM for typically marketing purposes and that is captured through question categories in either the main user interface or through the screens generated within an outbound call.

The Key Attributes feature allows a system administrator to quickly add new data capture fields without changing the underlying data model. That means you don't have to add new fields into tables like Company, Person, Opportunity etc if all the marketing team needs to capture is the answer to 'Do you intend to come to the breakfast briefing next week?'. That sort of question can become irrelevant to a business very quickly.

But if you added a new field to a table, for example, a new field called 'pers_seminar' on the Person table, then this would be a permanent change to the data model and affect all records in that table.

Key Attributes categories are easily made temporary and can be used for subtypes of records.

Consider the question "Should data be stored as a new Table Field or a Key Attribute?".

  • Data is either permanent or it is ephemeral. Permanent data is information that must always be stored and kept. An example of this is whether a person has opted in or out of your email marketing list. Ephemeral data is temporary data. This is the sort of data that is only important for a short period of time.
  • Data is also either universal or particular. Universal data is data that applies to everyone. For example, every business and person has a name. Particular data is data that applies only to some records. For example Contract Terms may only apply to your supplier contacts rather than you customer contacts.

In the examples above,

  • A company name is permanent and universal and so has been created and stored as a table field.
  • A company service level is permanent but may only apply to customers. But its permanency means that it has been created and stored as a table field.
  • A marketing question like 'Do you intend to come to the event' may be universal and be asked to all persons but it is ephemeral and so would typically be stored as a Key Attribute.
  • A support question like "Preferred contact person during the holiday season" may be ephemeral and it may be particular. This indicates that the data could be best stored as a Key Attribute.

There are several short videos available to explain Key Attributes.

Key Attributes Data: Create a Single Instance Category

Key Attributes Data: Create a Multiple Instance Category

Key Attributes Data: Creating a parent category

The articles below will also help you better understand how Key Attributes are defined, controlled and used within an implementation of Sage CRM.

Defining

Controlling

Using In Marketing