Campaign Fields

A field represents a data item to be collected in a campaign. The field definition controls what type of data will be accepted into the field from an incoming lead.

How to edit fields for a campaign

Navigate to the Campaign Field Editor:

1. Click the Campaigns tab.
2. In either the My Campaigns or Campaigns Available to Me section, select a campaign by clicking the hyperlinked name of the campaign.
3. In the Campaign View screen, click the "View fields" hyperlink.
4. The View Campaign Fields screen will appear.
5. Click the Modify button.
6. The Campaign Field Editor screen will appear.

If you are an admin user, this screen will allow you to add new fields and edit or remove existing fields.

About field names

Generally, campaign field names should correspond to field names on the form being used to collect leads for the campaign. When a lead submits information via a web form, LeadConduit will automatically match the incoming HTTP parameters from the form post to the fields defined in your campaign.

Field name restrictions

Since field names correspond to HTML form fields, we validate campaign field names according to the the HTML specification for form field naming.

There are a few simple rules you should follow when naming your form fields and your campaign fields. Each field name must begin with a letter and may contain any number of letters, digits, hyphens ("-"), underscores ("_"), colons (":"), and periods (".").  For example, “fname”, “first_name”, "First-Name" and "First.Name" are all acceptable Field Names.  LeadConduit uses field names starting "xx" for system fields (like xxLeadId and xxNodeId), thus your field names cannot start with "xx".  Field names are not case sensitive.

See the following links for more information on the HTML specification for form field naming:

• http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/interact/forms.html#h-17.3
• http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/types.html#type-cdata

Renaming fields

Fields can be renamed, but doing so comes with some responsibility. Repurposing an existing field by renaming it is not a good idea because it can have unintended consequences for data which was collected under the previous field name. As an example, consider what would happen if you renamed your "homePhone" field to "streetAddress". You've already collected thousands of leads using the "homePhone" field. Now when you browse to one of those leads (or even export them), you will see phone numbers in the "streetAddress" field.

Renaming fields should only be done when doing so doesn't alter the meaning of the field. You might, for example decide to start collecting "phone" as "phone1", if you've decided to add a second field ("phone2") to your campaign.

What's a field description for?

Field descriptions are use to convey extra information about the field that cannot be deduced by the field's name. Field descriptions will be included in the posting document for your campaign that will be provided to affiliates.

Selecting the Field Type

LeadConduit provides a mechanism for ensuring specific kinds of data is handled properly. Since different kinds of data require different kinds of validation, you must select the field type for each field in your campaign. By default, all new fields are created with the generic "Text" type with no validation criteria. That means that by default, LeadConduit will accept any kind of text data (letters, number, spaces, punctuation, etc.) into the fields you've defined in your campaign.

There are several Field Types supported by LeadConduit which can be used to customize the validation criteria for your campaign. Leads which do not conform to the validation criteria that you define for each field will be marked INVALID.

You are free to change a field's data type. Be forewarned, however, that doing so will change the validation criteria applied to that field. Leads that may have been accepted before the change may now be marked INVALID, and vice versa.

Maximum and minimum field length

The maximum and minimum field length configurations may be used to further limit the data that will be accepted for a campaign field. If a lead is posted with a field value that does not fall within the constraints defined by these fields, it will be marked INVALID.

Multi-value fields

Multi-value fields simply allow more than one value to be submitted for the given field on each lead. For example, imagine a form that asks the respondent to select up to 3 hobbies, from a list of 20 possible choices. The field, "hobby", would be a multi-value field, with a maximum of 3. In this example, you would also enter the 20 possible hobby choices for this "Text - List" type field.

Requiring a field

You may choose to require a field in your campaign. A lead submitted without a value for this field will be marked INVALID.

If there are no field constraints associated with a required field, LeadConduit will accept blank values for required fields. A required field simply means that the field name must be present in the lead submission – it doesn’t require a value to be passed with the field name.

If a field is not required, yet it has validation constraints associated with it, those constraints will only be enforced if a value is passed with that field.

For example, let's say a campaign is collecting an alternative phone number with a field name "alt_phone". This field has a pattern constraint which requires the value to have 10 digits. If a no value is passed for the "alt_phone" field, it will be accepted. However, if a value of 5 digits is passed, it will be marked invalid.

Primary Key field

Primary key fields can be checked for uniqueness in a campaign. If a primary key is defined, and duplicate checking is enabled, LeadConduit will ensure that two leads with the same primary key value are never delivered to your back end system. Duplicate checking can be configured for window of time in the past. For example, if you don't mind receiving the same lead again as long as it has been at least 90 days since it was last accepted then you would turn on duplicate checking with a 90 day window.

Static values in Campaign Fields

Often times a constant or static value should be passed in one of the campaign fields. This can be accomplished in two ways:

• Specify in the field description for the field the value that must be passed and require that affiliates pass it as such.
• Hard-code the value in the lead delivery configuration (this must be done by ActiveProspect Technical Support).

Using System Field values in Campaign Fields

It is possible to pass system field values for campaign fields. This must be done by ActiveProspect Support. In your request, indicate the campaign field and the associated System Field value to be used.