Working with Attributes 

Use

Attributes are used as criteria for differentiating between business partners. They can be used to perform individually tailored marketing activities.

In the Segment Builder, you model marketing profiles by combining attributes into attribute lists. Some of these attributes may be those that you create in the CRM Marketing transaction (below) others may derive from SAP BI or from business partner master data.

The description of this function applies only to the creation of attributes in CRM Marketing. Attributes from other sources (BI data or business partner master data) are not created in this transaction.

Activities

●     To create your own attributes, you must carry out the following activities:

●     Enter a name and description for the attribute. You can also enter descriptions in languages other than the logon language. To do so, having first saved an attribute, choose Extras ® Change Language. Specify the relevant language and then enter the relevant descriptions (for the attribute, and, where appropriate for the attribute values).

●     You have the option to create attributes using a template. You can change or add to the default attribute values.

●     You can use the Default value indicator to determine whether a value should be preset as a default value for a business partner attribute.

●     To improve system performance, you have the option to save data for individual attributes to a buffer, so that they do not need to be redetermined every time. When creating the selection list, enter the desired number of days in the attribute properties, under Update cycle. For more information, see Customizing for Customer Relationship Management under Marketing ® Segment Builder ® Configure Caching for Attributes.

Example

You create an attribute with a particular type of marketing activity in mind. Assume, for example, you wish to create attributes for an attribute set to be assigned to an online book store. One of the attributes you require is “Favorite author”.

...

       1.      Choose Customer Relationship Management ® Marketing ® Segmentation ® Marketing Attributes ® Maintain Attributes.

       2.      Choose and enter a name for the attribute to be created, in this case for example “FA”.

       3.      Enter a description for the attribute, for example “Favorite author”.

 

       4.      Specify the Character format as the data type, with 30 as the maximum Number of characters. Since no more than one author is to be selected, choose Single value. As you want this information to be mandatory for all business partners, select Entry Required.

       5.      You are now ready to specify the possible values for this attribute. In the Attribute Value column, enter the names of the relevant authors, together with a description.

       6.      You can also specify that a given attribute value is to be proposed as a default value. For example, in a given scenario, you may want to "prompt" a business partner to choose a particular value.