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Planning fields properly

Before you start creating new fields, you should take some time to think about their future use. The planned use determines the required field type. The fewer fields you have in your Profile Database, the clearer it is. You may want to read chapters "Closed-loop marketing - An example" and "Automatic mailing - An example" first; they contain precise examples.

You may want to consider some basic rules:

Use meaningful field names. This will make it much easier to work with the Profile Database, especially if several people will maintain the data.
The field type you will use most often is the Numerical type which may only contain numbers. Despite the restriction, this is a truly universal field type. You can, for instance, enter whether or not a recipient is interested in a particular topic. The value 0 means „not interested“, while the entry 1 will mean „interested“ (an example can be found in chapter "Closed-loop marketing - An example").
You may want a field for fixed values, like for instance the GENDER (sex) field. Recipients marked 0 are male, a 1 means female and recipients whose sex is unknown are characterized as 2. Such a field only makes sense if properties are mutually exclusive. Recipients could be interested both in travel and in cars. In this case, you will need one field for each topic.
The use of Date fields is self-explanatory. They could contain birthdays or a contract’s expiry date. All dates are entered in the YYYYMMDD format, i.e. 19650905 for the 5th of September 1965.
The field Alphanumerical should only be used for truly free entries without any restrictions. Such a text field could contain holiday destinations or nicknames. Please note, however, that such text fields are difficult to evaluate with the search function or the target group drop-down list. Very often, entries are just slightly different, for instance if the user mistyped his or her entry.