Customer Associations
Customer associations allow organizations with multiple venues or types of events/products (e.g. sports and arts) to identify the relationship between a customer account and the organization, so that customers can more accurately be targeted for marketing purposes.
Associations can be set directly on the customer account (Customer Services - Customer|Basic Page) or on the order (Customer Services - Order|Summary Page) using the 'Association' dropdown, if you have the applicable permissions.
Associations can also be set on users, venues and specific sellable items. When a user completes a transaction or a customer purchases an item with an association, that association is automatically applied against the customer account and order. Associations can be set on the following pages:
Customer associations can then be pulled via an Order/Customer BI query. For more information, refer to Business Intelligence and Reports Business Intelligence Pages.
The associations values are defined via the Associations list. The values entered in the 'Key' field of the Associations list must be in sequential, numeric order (i.e. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4). For more information, refer to General Configuration - Lists.
Message Sources
'Message Sources' appear to Online within their accounts. They can be used to track higher level keywords against customer accounts; however, using the Message Source Strategy, 'Message Sources' can be used as a type communication preference list. For more information, refer to Configuring the Message Source Strategy.
When the Message Source Strategy is not been enabled, the 'Associations' and 'Message Sources' fields operate independently of each other, and different lists can be bound to each of them.
When the Message Source Strategy is enabled, the 'Associations' and 'Message Sources' fields share the Associations list.
Association and Message Source Combinations - Customer|Basic Page
The following image illustrates the possible combinations of selected/deselected 'Association' and 'Message Sources' check boxes on the Customer|Basic page:
The combinations above would have been assigned to the customer account in the following ways:
-
Ballet: The customer either purchased something with an assigned Ballet 'Association' or selected/asked to receive communications regarding Ballet events/items.
-
Opera: The customer purchased something with an assigned Opera 'Association', but deselected/asked not to receive communications regarding Opera events/items.
-
Theatre: The customer has neither purchased something with an assigned Theatre 'Association' nor has the customer selected/asked to receive communications regarding Theatre events/items.
Associations and Message Sources also appear on the Order|Summary page when a customer account has been added to an order.
Association and Message Source Combinations - Order|Summary Page
The following image illustrates the possible combinations of selected/deselected 'Association', 'Customer Message Sources' and 'Customer Association' check boxes on the Order|Summary page:
The combinations above would have been assigned in the following ways:
-
Ballet: The order contains a product with an assigned Ballet 'Association'.
-
Opera: The customer associated with the order either purchased something with an assigned Opera 'Association' or selected/asked to receive communications regarding Opera events/items. Nothing on the order contains an Opera 'Association'.
-
Sketch Comedy: The customer associated with the order purchased something with an assigned Sketch Comedy 'Association', but deselected/asked not to receive communications regarding Sketch Comedy events/items. Nothing on the order contains a Sketch Comedy 'Association'.
-
Theatre: The customer associated with the order has neither purchased something with an assigned Theatre 'Association' nor has the customer selected/asked to receive communications regarding Theatre events/items. Nothing on the order contains a Theatre 'Association'.