Vocus/Cision Integration

Vocus is now Cision, but it still offers an On-Demand Software for Public Relations Management .

This integration allows you to send customer contact data from NetForum to Vocus for online advocacy.

Vocus Features

Vocus Public Relations software suite helps organizations of all sizes manage local and global relationships and communications with journalists, analysts, public officials and other key audiences. Its integrated software modules address the critical functions of corporate communications and public relations. It helps organizations manage large amounts of information, deliver consistent and well-executed communications, collaborate among large or geographically dispersed teams and analyze and report on the effectiveness of their corporate communications and public relations.

See Vocus Government Relations and PAC products and services at http://www.cision.com/us/products/government-relations/

Integration Tasks

Client Tasks

  • Client must have valid user license with Abila.
  • Client must have valid license with Vocus
  • Client will need to purchase xWeb license and configuration services from Abila.
  • Client will need to be on active support agreement with Abila (for clients after implementation.)

Note: Baseline integration requires tight coordination between Abila and Vocus, changes to baseline offering will need to be approved by Abila, Vocus and the client. Abila will be responsible for changes to NetForum and the client needs to work with Vocus on the changes to Vocus. Fee for additional services provided by Abilaonly covers NetForum changes and client needs to work with Vocus on possible additional cost involved with Vocus changes.

Abila Tasks

After the agreement is signed by the client:

  • Abila needs to create valid xWeb User account for Vocus .
  • Abila needs to create a mailing list for the client to include the initial set of customers data .
  • Abila will build a daily SQL job to update the mailing list with daily transaction changes.
  • Abila needs to create the web service ExecuteMethod and the store procedure .

Usage and Instructions

Please see VOCUS Setup for further detailed instructions

The Abila/Vocus baseline integration functions as follows:

  1. Abila will set up the VOCUS mailing list (VOCUS) and populate the mailing list detail (i.e. the customers in the mailing list). The creation of the list will be based on client's own business rules and will not exceed 4 hours of effort.
  2. After the initial list is populated, Abila will provide an XML file containing these records to VOCUS to populate the VOCUS database. This will only happen during the integration launch. After the initial records are created in VOCUS, there will be only transactional changes that will be updated once a day.
  3. Client must have a valid xWeb license for this integration.
  4. Abila will create a SQL server job to update the mailing list based on the changes to contact information of the individual records in NetForum. There is no automatic "addition" to the mailing list for new individuals. Client will manually add new individuals to the mailing list if needed based on their business rules. Typically most clients do not want all the individuals in the VOCUS/NetForum integration.
  5. The scheduled job to update the mailing list based on changes will be run once a day at 11:00 PM. Before the scheduled job is run, no updates will be made to the mailing list. The baseline offering only calls the scheduled job once a day.
  6. If a record should be deleted from the integration, client should manually enter the mailing list detail "end date" so it can be pulled into VOCUS for removal from the VOCUS database.
  7. VOCUS will all the changes in the data for the previous day (updates, deletes and inserts) at 3:00 AM next day. This data pull must be called after the Abila scheduled job is complete, otherwise no changes will be reflected. The baseline offering only pulls records into VOCUS once a day. No changes will be in VOCUS until the data pull is complete.
  8. VOCUS will pull the changes from netFORUM mailing list once a day to update the records in VOCUS that have been updated in netFORUM. If there are new records added to the mailing list, those records will be created in VOCUS.
  9. Information that is being sent to VOCUS is explained in VOCUS Setup. Any data (table/column) that is not listed in this document is not part of the baseline offering.
  10. Client should coordinate with VOCUS to communicate what address type codes in NetForum will correspond to "Home" and what will correspond to "Work" in Vocus.
  11. There is no information that will be updating NetForum tables from VOCUS. The integration is only one way from NetForum to VOCUS.
  12. Before a client can start using the integration, the VOCUS database needs to be populated with the initial data set. This process will be implemented through a file exported from NetForum and then imported into VOCUS. The format of the file must match the daily synchronization file, just with more records. If the daily file has been customized to include more/fewer columns explained in this document, then the initial upload file needs to be changed accordingly.

Items not included in baseline offering

The integration does not include the following:

  1. Additional columns and information might need to be transferred into VOCUS.
  2. Automatic adding of new individual records into the mailing list based on client's business rules.
  3. Perform the update to mailing list more than once a day and VOCUS to pull data more than once a day.
  4. Additional effort (more than 4 hours) to create the initial list based on complicated business rules.
  5. Updating netFORUM tables from VOCUS.

Additional Services

The following functions are not considered part of the baseline offering. However, they can be accomplished as enhancements/customizations to the baseline offering with a fee. Detail design between the client, Abila and Vocus is required before a price estimate can be provided.

Automatically adds new records to the mailing listClient might want to add new records into the mailing list based on the business rule. Abila can work with the client on the rules and update the daily schedule job to accommodate such requirement.

Additional information transferred to VocusIn the baseline offering, only basic contact information will be sent over to Vocus such as name, address, phone, fax and email. If additional information needs to be sent over to Vocus, the client needs to work with Abila to include that information. In addition, the client needs to work with Vocus to ensure that Vocus will make changes to its integration to include additional columns.

Change the frequency on how often information is updatedThe client might want to update Vocus information more than once a day or real time. A detailed process needs to be worked out between Abila/Vocus and the client

Client might want to push activities back to NetForum.

Client might want to bring online activities back into NetForum. This will require detail design between Abila/Vocus and the client .

Assumptions and Limitations

If VOCUS should change its product resulting in the integration to fail the client will be responsible to pay for Abila to make the necessary modifications to make the integration be functional. The level of effort will be based on the changes made by VOCUS.