Data Import – The Limitations

Oracle Service Cloud (OSvC) comes with a data import capability to allow us to migrate data from legacy systems or databases into the OSvC database in the cloud.

Data can be migrated using data files with various types of delimiters – the most commonly used is CSV (comma-separated value).

It is possible to import data into most primary standard and custom objects, and associated secondary objects.

We can use the Data Mapping Templates map the columns in our files to the fields in OSvC database, and also set duplicate criteria.

To import the data, we can use the easy-to-use and intuitive Data Import Wizard, which not only allows import but also reports on success/failure.

It is a great and useful feature, but it has its limitations. Some of them, important to bear in mind, are:

Opportunity and Task objects are not supported. If you want to import records to these two objects you will need to use the APIs.
Importing data in to associated (secondary) objects – e.g. Message Thread on Incidents, Notes in Contacts – is allowed on create but ignored on update.
Products and Categories fields are not available for mapping when you are importing Answers. These have to be updated manually after import.
Special characters (e.g. apostrophe, commas) or words (e.g. “Union”) might cause record import to fail when they exist in lookups fields (e.g. Contact Email, Organisation Name).
Due to Incident reference number format (YYYYMMDD-xxxxxx) we are limited to the import of Incidents to 999,999 per day.

Apart from that, the Data Import capability seems to work well.

Data Import Bug

We recently bumped into a bug… When we were importing data into the OSvC instance of two of Capventis customers, the system started creating loads of duplicates, forcing us to stop the import, delete the records, and import back again.

Unfortunately this was happening again and again. And we were not even using loads of data. Our files contained a few thousands or a couple of tens of thousands of records. When trying to import a file with 5,000 records, the system was creating 15,000 or 20,000, and kept going if we didn’t cancel the import.

We reported to Oracle and, after many hours on the phone and emails exchanged with Oracle Support, they finally recognised the bug and promised to resolve in the next few patches or releases. Hopefully they will resolve soon as this is crucial to all our projects.

In the meantime the workaround we found was to break data files down in 500 records each. Otherwise, create tools that read CSV files and use the APIs to import data.

Data Import Performance

Some times the data import process via the Data Import Wizard can be slower than usual – obviously depending on the type and amount of data in your data files.

This can be fixed or improved. During the data import process the data in the data files is divided in batches that are processed one at a time.

If you feel the process is slower than usual you may want to reduce the number of records in each batch, by changing the value in the DATA_IMPORT_BATCH_LIMIT configuration setting.

The DATA_IMPORT_BATCH_LIMIT configuration setting limits the number of records processed in a single batch when performing a Data Import. Maximum is 5000. Default is 1000.

Oracle Service Cloud with LinguistNow in PhotoBox

It was almost three years ago when I first came across a brilliant add-on to Oracle Service Cloud, developed by Language I/O. At the time I wrote a post about it, describing how it would work for Incident and Answer translation.

A number of months later I posted about the success story of the Answer translation (LinguistHelp) in iRobot.

This time the post is about another success story, but related to the Incident translation (LinguistNow) in PhotoBox.

I would like to outline the words of Chris Gallimore, Customer Support Operations Manager at PhotoBox, who I had the pleasure to meet not long ago: “When LinguistNow came up as an option and was explored, it seemed to tick off a couple of boxes straight away in that it supported all of the languages that we support and had a solution that tied into Oracle Service Cloud”.

Also worth to emphasise… “LinguistNow Response easily fits into Oracle Service Cloud, combining both machine and rapid human translation to allow support agents of any language to respond to customer emails quickly and in their preferred language. Together, PhotoBox and Language I/O are able to successfully support customers in eleven languages. When a support agent responsible for one specific language is unavailable, another agent is able to easily service his or her customers in their language, in just a few clicks, via the LinguistNow tool”.

Sam Walton (Walmart founder): Believe me… the client will never come back

Maybe some of you have already come across this, but for those who haven’t, here goes…

A few years ago Sam Walton, founder of the biggest retailer in the world, opened a new training programme for Walmart employees, and made sure he took the first slot in every training session.

Most people expected Sam to make a speech about the history and the values of the company, about sales or customer service. But instead Sam shared a short, simple and personal history.

“I’m the kind of person who goes to a restaurant, sits at the table and patiently waits, whilst the waiter does everything but taking my order.

I’m the kind of person who goes to a shop and waits in silence, whilst the employee behind the counter finishes the private conversation with the colleague, before taking my payment.

I’m the kind of person who goes to a gas station and never buzzes, but waits patiently whilst the employee finishes his newspaper read.

I’m the kind of person who explains to a supplier his urgency on getting a specific product, and does not complain after receiving it 3 weeks later.

I’m really the kind of person who enters any commercial establishment and seems to be begging for attention, for a smile, for the employee to do me a favour.

And now you must be thinking that I’m just a nice, calm, relaxed, quiet, patient kind of person. But you are wrong!

You know who I am? I’m the customer who will never come back.

And then I have fun. Watching these companies spend millions of dollars, in marketing and advertisement, in order to make me come back to them. When actually I was there already, and all they had to do was a simple, cheap and easy thing: treat me with a little courtesy.

There is only one boss: THE CLIENT. And he can fire everyone in the company. From the employee to the Chief Executive, simply by taking his money somewhere else”

Customer Experience. This is what it is all about. And a good one has lots of components, from employee empowerment to personalised service. But the truth is that everything should start from the basics. And the foundation for a good CX is something as simple as a bit of courtesy. And that doesn’t require any investment in time or money, just the right attitude.

Gatwick, not so express!

Back in 2 January I was coming back to London, from my Xmas holidays with the family, and had my pre-booked Gatwick Express ticket to London. Surprise, surprise! The service was disrupted on that weekend due to works.

Nothing we could do apart from waiting 1 hour for the next Southern Railway train which took 1,5 hours to get into London, rather than the usual 25 mins the Gatwick Express takes – reason why I paid much more for the ticket.

Obviously I contacted Gatwick Express customer service, via email, asking for a refund. The automatic acknowledgement email came back stating it would take them 20 days to respond (call that express service!).

And they did. On the 22 January I received an email asking me to send the electronic copy of the tickets. Problem was, I bought them on the train station and I already had attached a picture of them to my original email.

The response was quick. The advisor asked me to go online, download a form, fill it in and send it via post to the “Refunds Team“. I was obviously not happy with this and tweeted about it @GatwickExpress. Unlike times I praised them, and they came back asap thanking, this time no one replied.

There are many things wrong here, and I will list them below hoping that someone from Gatwick Express customer service can read it:

Disrupting trains on a weekend where thousands are coming back from their Xmas holidays is obviously not a good idea.
An SLA of 20 days to respond to a customer’s email is absolutely ludicrous.
Asking a customer to send the tickets when he already done it shows lack of organisation and attention to detail.
Asking a customer to request a refund via post is appalling (does your customer service even live on the XXI century!?)
Forcing a customer to use post is a deliberate manoeuvre to make it harder for people to request refunds, hoping they will quit.

It is clear to me that Gatwick Express…

Does not have a customer centric strategy
Does not have a customer experience focus
Does not have a 360-degree view of the customer
Does not have joined up operations and systems
Does not worry with customers expectations and effort
Does not want to go the extra mile for its customers
Does not want to embrace the digital world

Maybe they are happy with the amount of customers they have, and not worried about retaining them or acquiring more. As far as I’m concerned, I will start using the competition (Southern Railway) whenever I need to go to Gatwick Airport.