Rep Connect Formatting Best Practices

The formatting functionality allows you to format your data before it is used for integrations within Rep Connect, without changing any source data.

Rep Connect provides multiple functions within Formatting to modify your data. The Edits Made column is available on the Mapping tab within the connector wizard for each of the fields displayed. Once you click on the edit icon, the Formatting Panel opens where you can choose and configure the formatting options for that field.

Formatting options include:

  • Concatenate – Link multiple text values together in a chain or series with a choice of separator.
  • Find & Replace – Find a certain value in any column and replace it with any value of your choice.
  • Format URLs – Format any invalid formatted URLs to a valid formatting.
  • Split – Split any text value from your data. Save partial text data mapped to any Reputation Field.
  • Static Value – Specify a static text value for any Reputation Field that you wish to populate regardless of the value present in your data.
  • Lowercase – Convert any text in your data to lowercase characters.
  • Title Case – Convert any text in your data to Title Case characters.
  • Uppercase – Convert any text in your data to Uppercase characters.
  • Dynamic Templates – Add rules to decide which request templates should be used by Rep Connect to send the review requests .
  • Lookup – Add a mapping table which can be used as a lookup for a bulk find and replace.

Concatenate

Example Use Case
For a review request integration, you want the full name of your customer to appear in the requests, but your data contains two distinct columns for “First Name” and “Last Name.” Map the Reputation Field “to-name” to a value which is a concatenation of the values from both the “First Name Last Name.”

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Concatenate from the Function dropdown. This will deselect Your Column.
  3. Select the columns you wish to concatenate using the dropdown menu displayed

    Concatenate allows you to combine a maximum of three columns.

  4. Select the delimiter that you would like to separate the selected columns. Options include:
    • Space ( )
    • Comma ( , )
    • Semicolon ( ; )
    • Pipe ( | )
  5. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from each selected column. Optionally check Ignore if blank to allow the formatting to ignore any blank data values in the selected columns.
  6. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Find & Replace

Example Use Case
For a Profile Import Integration, you want to save a certain category as “Physician Family Medical Practice,” but your data contains the “Categories” column where the value is “Physician Family Medicine.” Map the Reputation Field “Categories” to a formatted value of the data in your columns.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Find & Replace from the Function dropdown.

    Ensure your selection in the Your Column dropdown is accurate.

  3. In the Find box, type the term that you wish to find.
  4. In the Replace With box, type the term that will replace the term in the Find box.
  5. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using a sample value from your selected column. Click Submit to save this formatting.

    The Find & Replace function applies to all profiles where the specified rule matches.

Format URLs

Example Use Case
For a Profile Import Integration, you would like to save a well formatted URL of the profile’s website, but your data contains the column “Homepage” which has URLs that are missing the “HTTPS://” prefix. Map the Reputation Field “Website URL” with a formatted version of the value in your column “Homepage.”

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Format URL from the Function dropdown.

    Ensure your selection in the Your Column dropdown is accurate.

  3. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from the selected column in your data. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Split

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you would like only the First Name of your customer to appear in the requests, but your data contains the column “Full Name.” Map the Reputation Field “to-name” to a value which is a partial text of the value from the “Full Name Column” of your data.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Split from the Function dropdown. This will deselect Your Column.
  3. Select the separator on which you would want to split the text. This will split the text from your column at every occurrence of the separator within the text. Options include:
    • Space ( ) → selected in the example
    • Comma ( , )
    • Semicolon ( ; )
    • Pipe ( | )
  4. Select which partial text would you like to use for the mapping. In our example use case, Full Name “John K Smith” has two spaces, one after the first name “John” and another after the middle initial “K.” The original text “ John K Smith” is split into three parts:
    • Part 1 – John
    • Part 2 – K
    • Part 3 – Smith
  5. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from the selected column in your data. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Static Value

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you would like all the requests to be sent from the same name “Business Manager,” but your data does not contain any column that would provide this value to be mapped to the Reputation Field “from-name”. Use the formatting function “Static Value” to define this mapping; you do not need to map any of your columns to the Reputation field.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Static Value from the Function dropdown. This will deselect Your Column.
  3. Enter the value and click Submit to save this formatting.

Lowercase

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you may have “location-code” in either title case or uppercase and the same location code is stored on the Reputation platform as all lowercase. Use the formatting function “Lowercase” to convert the “location-code” value from your file into all lower case characters.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Lowercase from the Function dropdown.
  3. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from the selected column in your data. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Title Case

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you may have customer names all in lowercase in your source data, but you want to display the names in Title Case in the request being sent. Use the formatting function “Title Case” to format this mapping.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Title Case from the Function dropdown.
  3. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from the selected column in your data. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Uppercase

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you may have “location-code” in either Title case or Lowercase and the same location code is stored on Reputation platform as all in Uppercase. Use the formatting function “Uppercase” to convert the “location-code” value from your file into all Uppercase characters.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Uppercase from the Function dropdown.
  3. The resulting value will be displayed for you to review using sample values from the selected column in your data. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Dynamic Templates

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you may want to send requests using one specific template for email requests and another template for SMS templates. Use the formatting function “Dynamic Templates” to add this rule.

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Dynamic Templates from the Function dropdown.
  3. Add criteria using IF THEN statements to define which template to use for email and sms. If you intend to use more than one template for either of the channels, you will also need to define the distribution percentage for each template.
  4. Click Submit to save this formatting.

Lookup

Example Use Case
For a Review Request integration, you may have “store-codes” for all of your locations in your CRM while the Reputation field “location-code” are all sequential numbers. Add a “Lookup Table” to the Rep Connect integration to define the “store-code” to “location-code” mapping, and then use this lookup table for the integration

To setup formatting:

  1. Click the formatting icon (⚙) next to the field which you wish to format.
  2. From the formatting panel, select Lookup from the Function dropdown.
  3. Choose which lookup table to use from the subsequent dropdown.
  4. Click Submit to save this formatting.
  5. Once a Lookup Table has been added to the Rep Connect integration, use the formatting function “Lookup” so Rep Connect can map “location-code” to the “store-code” from your source requests data dynamically.

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