Defining a Data Collection

Defining a business entity property as collectable is performed in two stages. First, the property must be defined as collectable in the Business Entities window. It is then available for selection in the Data Collection window, where you can specify that you want Real-Time Designer to collect it.

A separate data collection entity should be created for each business context for which you want to collect data, such as a call, offer attempt, or business process execution.

To define a business entity property as collectable:

1. Click the Business Entities tab at the top of the window and then click the Types tab at the bottom of the Business Entities pane to display the Business Entities Types definition window.
2. Expand the Business Entity User Type branch of the tree. Select a business entity type and then one of the properties.
3. Select the Info tab to display the following:

4. Select Collectable. An additional icon is added to this element in the tree to indicate that this property is collectable:

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For primitive property types, two additional fields appear after you select the Collectable checkbox:

Data Usage In Reports: Select an option in the drop-down list to specify how the property is to be used in reports:

Unknown: This is the default, where there is no indication as to what the data represents.

Identifier: Data represents the unique ID (SSN, customer ID and so on). You cannot group by this data object (which is illogical, as there is always only one per group) or aggregate it (there is no logical aggregation).

Fact: Data represents an amount (account balance and so on). You can aggregate this data object.

Attribute: Data represents a segment (for example, gender, city and so on). You can group by this data object.

Data Usage Function: This option is only available when you select Fact in the Data Usage In Reports field. When Fact is selected in the Data Usage In Reports field, you specify the functions to be applied to this property in the Data Usage Function field.

For example, if you specify Fact in the Data Usage In Reports field and Median in the Data Usage Function field, then the report shows the median value of the property.

To define the objects to be collected:

1. Click the Decision Support tab at the top of the window and then click the Data Collection tab at the bottom of the Decision Support pane.
2. Click New Data Collection to add a new data collection activity object to the tree and display the following window:

The main work area displays a tree of the Real-Time Designer elements, such as callouts, KPI items, workflows, business rules and event handlers, that you defined as collectable.

3. In the Properties tab, expand the branches of the Collectable objects tree and select the objects whose data you want to collect. Each time you select the checkbox of a branch, it appears in the Selected objects area at the bottom of the window: