Everything you need to know about the Interaction Record in the CRM Interaction Center

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An interaction record is created for every interaction in the Interaction Center. An interaction starts with and inbound or outbound contact and ends when the agent presses the ‘End' button. The confirmed account, contact person and registered product, all business transactions created and accessed (in edit mode), selected solutions from the knowledge search, and all processed inbound and outbound emails are linked to the interaction record (via the activity clipboard).

This document has the objective to answer the following questions:

• What is the Interaction Manager?
• When is an interaction record created?
• Can the creation of an interaction record be avoided or suppressed?
• What are dependent business transactions and how do they relate to interaction records?
• How is content of the activity clipboard linked to the interaction record?
• How is the interaction record used in reporting?

This document describes the behavior of the interaction record in SAP CRM2007.

What is the Interaction Manager?

The Interaction Manager is not to be confused with the Interaction Manager Business Role (IC_MANAGER). The Interaction Manager is a technical object in the Interaction Center. Its lifetime starts when an Interaction Center session is started.

The task of the Interaction Manager class is to know when the agent starts working on something that should not be overlapped or interrupted by different work. Therefore the Interaction Manager listens to events like accepting a call/chat/e-mail, confirming an account, etc. If one of these events happens then the Interaction Manager will remember that the agent has started interaction related work, and the InteractionStarted event will be raised.

When is an interaction record created?

An interaction record is created when:

• The agent accepts a new inbound communication
• An account is confirmed
• The Interact button is pressed in the Inbox
• A new or reply email (fax, letter) is created
• Executing a call from a call list
• An interaction record is created from the navigation bar
• A dependent business transaction is created

	Event	Source
Account confirmation	BPConfirmed	Business Partner
Interact from Inbox for business transaction	BPConfirmed	Business Partner
Interact from Inbox for email, fax, letter	AUI_Interact	Inbox
Accept inbound communication	ContactAccepted	Contact
New or reply email (fax, letter)	MailCreated	Outbound email of fax
Manual Interaction Record	InteractionRequested	Interaction Record
Dependent Business Transaction	InteractionRequested	Business Transaction
Call from a call list (*)	CallListCallSelected	Call List

The Interaction Manager listens to the events mentioned in the table above. When one of these events is raised the Interaction Manager class will trigger the INTERACTION_STARTED event.

The event INTERACTION_STARTED is picked-up and the Interaction Record will be created.

(*) In case of a call selected from a call list, there is no creation of the interaction record yet. The Interaction record is prepared. The interaction record is created when the account is confirmed

What are dependent business transactions?

Dependent business transactions are customized in the Business Transaction Profile. These are CRM Business Transactions for which there are Interaction Center specific UI components. The following dependent business transactions exist:

• Sales Order (UI Component: ICCMP_BT_SLO)
• Sales Ticket (ICCMP_BT_SLT)
• Service Order (ICCMP_BT_SVO)
• Service Ticket (ICCMP_BT_SVT)
• Complaint (ICCMP_BT_COM)
• Lead (ICCMP_BT_LEAD)

A dependent business transaction can only be created when an interaction record exists. If no interaction record exists when the agent tries to create a dependent business transaction, the system will create the interaction record in the background.

An interaction record is needed before creating a dependent business transaction because the confirmed account and contact person data is transferred from the interaction record into the dependent business transaction. Additionally there is a document flow link (type INTA) between the interaction record and the dependent business transaction created.

Can the creation of an interaction record be avoided?

There is a BADI available to suppress the creation of the interaction record: CRM_IC_IARECORD

With this BADI it is possible to suppress the creation of the interaction record based on for example the interaction source (Inbox, Call List, ...). There is a sample implementation in the system that suppresses the creation of the interaction record for email interactions started from the inbox.

Be aware that without an interaction record the content of the activity clipboard cannot be linked when the interaction is ended.

When creating a dependent business transaction this BADI should not be used to suppress the creation of the interaction record as the interaction record is necessary for the creation of dependent business transactions. If this BADI would be used to suppress the interaction record, then the creation of a dependent business transaction willfail.

How is content of the activity clipboard linked to the interaction record?

When the interaction is ended (by pressing the END button), the content of the activity clipboard is linked to the interaction record. The content of the activity clipboard (including dependent business transactions) is linked to the interaction record using an INTO link.

Difference between Interaction Record and other Business Activities

When an interaction record is created the system creates an ‘anchor' document flow link (relationship type INTO with object type CRMCICANCH). This differentiates an interaction record from all other Activity Business Objects (BUS2000126).

This additional anchor is used in navigation: when navigating from the interaction history or inbox to an interaction record, the system will use this anchor to determine whether an activity is of type interaction record or not. An interaction record typically has other screens than a normal business activity.

The BW extractor makes also use of this anchor object to differentiate interaction record related statistics from regular business activities.

How is the interaction record used in BW Reporting?

The BW DataSource 0CRM_INTER_REC_H uses extractor function module CRM_IC_INTERACTION_RECORDS. This retrieves all Interaction Records, and counts how many business transactions (service tickets, sales orders, complaints, ...) or business partners were created, changed or opened during an interaction. Created objects are derived based on the INTA link with the interaction record. This link type proves that a business transaction was created during the interaction. Changed or Opened objects are taken from INTO links with the interaction record. It also extracts the total handling time of the interaction record.

Using the Statistics Interface it is possible to upload CMS statistics into CRM. In CRM this communication data can be combined with interaction record data and extracted to BW (using DataSource 0CRM_CIC_CTI). This allows blended analytics combining communication data from CMS with business data from CRM.

A function module (SPS_STAT_DATA_GET) in the CRM system can be used to upload the statistical data into two separate tables - one containing the connection headers (CRMD_CIC_CTI_H), the other one all corresponding connections steps  (CRMD_CIC_CTI_I). All connection steps are assigned to a connection via the connection id (For more detailed information, please refer to the Sapphone RFD Interface Documentation). The Connection id is the link between the communication data and the interaction record. When an inbound call is accepted the CMS passed the connection ID to the Interaction Center. This connection ID is stored in the interaction record.