DESelect Segment - Implementation Guide for Admins

Being a DESelect Segment administrator is both a privilege and responsibility to provide a more efficient way of working with DESelect Segment through features configuration, offering other users a seamless experience when working with the solution. This implementation guide intends to help DESelect Segment administrators maximize the usage of the available features.

What can a DESelect Segment administrator do?

Several features can be configured by a DESelect Segment administrator inside the Admin Panel. These features include Predefined Relations, Data Sets, Picklists, Inclusion/exclusion of folders for Available Data Extensions and Target Data Extensions (features will vary depending on the edition the organization has purchased). Moreover, a DESelect Segment administrator can modify a user’s settings that includes activating/deactivating a user and setting a user as a DESelect Segment administrator or not.

Content Overview

• How to set a user as a DESelect Segment administrator
• Available features per edition
• Activating/deactivating a user
• Picklists
• Predefined Relations
• Data Sets
• Including/excluding folders
• Disabling Data Views
• Scheduling of Selections
• Selection Templates

How can a user be a DESelect Segment administrator?

Upon DESelect Segment installation, ask your Customer Success Manager to set at least one user as a DESelect Segment administrator. Once a user from the organization is already a DEselect Segment administrator, he/she can set the rest of the users to be one.

To set a user as a DESelect Segment administrator, follow the below steps.

1. Under AppExchange, click on DESelect Segment and you will be redirected to the overview of selections.
2. Click on the gear icon on the bottom right corner of the screen and you will be redirected to the Admin Panel.
3. Click on the Users tab, select the name of the user and tick the Administrator checkbox.
4. Hit Save.

Available features per edition

Available features vary depending on the edition that your organization is subscribed to.

Refer to the below table.

Activating/deactivating a user

A DESelect Segment administrator can set a user as active or not. Once a user visits DESelect Segment for the first time (clicking on DESelect Segment under AppExchange), the user will be added to the list and will be automatically marked as an active user.

To activate or deactivate a user, follow the below steps.

1. On the Admin Panel, click on the Users tab.
2. Select the name of the user and tick or untick the Active checkbox.
3. Hit Save.

Creating Picklists

A DESelect Segment administrator can configure a Picklist setting for a field of a Data Extension. Normally, creating a selection involves setting up some filters that require a bit of knowledge of the field values. A DESelect Segment administrator can simply ease this situation by creating a dropdown field that contains the field values so users can see the values and just simply choose from the dropdown.

Benefits of configuring Picklist:

• Eliminate man-error (this refers to cases where users have typing errors).
• Save time by just selecting and deselecting the values needed.
• Display the values selected in an orderly manner for easy validation.
• Instantly provide the users with the numbers of values selected.

To create a Picklist for a field of a Data Extension, follow the below steps.

1. On the Admin Panel, click on the Picklist tab.
2. Click on the New Picklist button.
3. Provide a name for your new Picklist.
4. Select the Data Extension and the field where you want to apply your Picklist.
5. Click on the Retrieve button. Once the values have been retrieved, switch on the Picklist toggle.
6. Optionally, setting an auto-refresh setting is also possible just by clicking the Auto-Refresh button. A DESelect Segment administrator can set a frequency when the Picklist needs to be automatically refreshed.
7. Hit Save.

For further reading, click here.

Predefining relations

A DESelect Segment administrator can predefine the relationships between Data Extensions. This is the process of defining how 2 Data Extensions are related to one another. It involves the matching columns and the relation type (either 1-to-1 or 1-to-many) of the Data Extensions.

Although this process might take some time to be completed for all the Data Extensions (depending on the volume of data to be predefined), this has a great payoff. Once a DESelect Segment administrator predefines the relationships between Data Extensions, it will allow users that are not familiar with the data model to simplify the use of DESelect Segment. 

Benefits of predefining relations:

• When combining Data Extensions, the users will get the matching columns by default.
• Additional view of related Data Extensions to get an improved In Results and Not In Results filter types.
• When using an Aggregation custom value, the relationship between the Data Extensions will be set by default.

To predefine relationships between Data Extensions, follow the below steps.

1. On the Admin Panel, click on the Relations tab.
2. Click on the New Relations button to create a new relationship.
3. On the drop-downs, select the Data Extensions, the fields, and the relation type.
4. Hit Save.

For further reading, click here.

Creating Data Sets

A DESelect Segment administrator can extend the use of Predefined Relations to predefining the combination of multiple Data Extensions using Data Sets. In a Data Set, a DESelect Segment administrator can predefine the match type alone and the matching column will be automatically retrieved from the Predefined Relations.

Once a DESelect Segment administrator creates a Data Set, it will allow users that are not familiar with the data model to just drag-and-drop the whole set of combined Data Extensions to their main Selection.

Benefits of creating Data Sets:

• When combining Data Extensions, the users will be able to use the whole set of combined Data Extensions in one go with the predefined matching columns and match types.

To predefine relationships between Data Extensions, follow the below steps.

1. On the Admin Panel, click on the Data Sets tab.
2. Click on the New Data Set button to create a new Data Set.
3. Provide a name for your Data Set and under Available Data Extension, select the main (parent) Data Extension to be used, and click the Add button. Optionally you can provide the alias on the modal that will appear.
4. Once the main (parent) Data Extension has been added, click on the + icon and select the Data Extension you want to combine.
   Note that the Data Extensions that will be listed are the ones which you have priorly predefined it with under the Relations tab, then click the Select button.
5. A modal will appear with the predefined matching column retrieved from the Relations tab. Since it has been already predefined, hit Save.
6. A modal will appear to select the match type to be used for this combination of Data Extensions. Select accordingly and hit Save.
7. Click the + icon on the right side of the Data Extension which you want to combine the new Data Extension with. There is no limit on how many Data Extensions you can combine.
8. Hit Save.

For further reading, click here.

Including/excluding folders

A DESelect Segment administrator can specify the folders to be included (available) or excluded (hidden) under Available Data Extension and Target Data Extension sections on a business unit. 

Benefits of including/excluding folders:

• Allows DESelect Segment to only scan the included folders that were selected instead of going through everything in your SFMC environment. With this, your data processing will be faster.
• Users will not have access to Data Extensions they shouldn’t use, reducing the risk of mistakes.

To include/exclude folders, follow the below steps.

1. On the Admin Panel, under Data Extensions Folders.
   • Click the Available Data Extensions.
   • Click the Target Data Extensions.
2. Between 3 functions namely Don’t filter, Include, and Exclude, choose a function to be applied to the folders that will be selected.
3. Tick the folder checkbox where you want to apply the setting chosen above.
4. Hit Save.

For further reading, click here.

Disabling Data Views

Data Views are system-generated tables that involve Salesforce Marketing Cloud

tracking events such as Job, Open, Sent, etc. These Data Views are supported by DESelect and will be automatically included upon DESelect Segment installation. 

However, in case an organization needs to disable Data Views from their instance, a user or administrator can request and create a support ticket through support@deselect.com. 

Scheduling of Selections

Scheduling selections is a feature that DESelect launched for users to be able to automatically run the selections at a specified date and time or frequency. This feature is included in all DESelect Segment editions.

On the other hand, this is not automatically installed. Installing the scheduling of selections feature is a separate process. To get your hand on this feature, request it and create a support ticket through support@deselect.com.

To automatically run Selections, follow the below steps:

1. On the Selection, click on the Scheduling Selection icon and switch the toggle on.
2. Optionally, select a timezone when the Selection will automatically run.
3. Set a specific date and time under the Once function if the Selection needs to automatically run only once.
4. Set a frequency under the Repeat function if the selection needs to automatically run recurrently.
5. Click Save and you will see that the Scheduling selection icon is now green, indicating that the schedule setting has been made.

Benefits of  using scheduling of  selections:

• Automatically run your selections.
• Chained selections which are dependent on one another can be automatically run after one another.

For further reading, click here.

Creating a Selection Template

All users can define Selection Templates, so marketers can start working from a base instead of from scratch.

Benefits of creating a Selection Template:

• Define the template for a recurring campaign, including filters, Selected Data Extensions (and their match type), and how to populate the Target Data Extension.
• Include a description and instructions so the users can understand how to adapt it whenever they need it.
• Minimize the recurring work of the marketers, reducing the probability of human errors and wrongly defined relations/filters.

To create a Selection Template, follow the below steps:

1. On the Selection Overview screen, click New Selection
2. Define the Selection Criteria and the Target Definition of your selection, and validate it using Preview.
3. Once your selection is validated, you can configure it as a template by clicking on the Template icon next to the Save button and the template setting will appear.
4. Click on the This selection is a template checkbox and you will be able to add template description and instructions so the marketers can understand how to use it.
5. Click Save and you will see that the Template icon is now green, indicating that the template set has been made.

On the Selection Overview screen you can easily identify the selections that are templates, by scrolling right and looking for the Template column:

Scenario:  The marketing team wants to create a monthly campaign to impact the heavier users of each product type with a custom newsletter regarding new launches and hidden features. 

They have a Customers Data Extension that has the customers’ data and a Usage Data Extension with the data regarding usage of the different services the brand provides, so they need to create a different selection for each Service.

To optimize the process, the head of marketing is creating a selection template with the main configuration of the selection and the Target Data Extension, specifying the changes the team should do to do it specifically for each service. 

For further reading, click here.