Everything you need to know about the Interaction Record in the CRM Interaction Center

An interaction record is created for every interaction in the Interaction Center. An interaction starts with
and inbound or outbound contact and ends when the agent presses the End' button. The confirmed
account, contact person and registered product, all business transactions created and accessed (in edit
mode), selected solutions from the knowledge search, and all processed inbound and outbound emails
are linked to the interaction record (via the activity clipboard).
This document has the objective to answer the following questions:

What is the Interaction Manager?
When is an interaction record created?
Can the creation of an interaction record be avoided or suppressed?
What are dependent business transactions and how do they relate to interaction records?
How is content of the activity clipboard linked to the interaction record?
How is the interaction record used in reporting?
This document describes the behavior of the interaction record in SAP CRM2007.

What is the Interaction Manager?

The Interaction Manager is not to be confused with the Interaction Manager Business Role
(IC_MANAGER). The Interaction Manager is a technical object in the Interaction Center. Its lifetime starts
when an Interaction Center session is started.

The task of the Interaction Manager class is to know when the agent starts working on something that
should not be overlapped or interrupted by different work. Therefore the Interaction Manager listens to
events like accepting a call/chat/e-mail, confirming an account, etc. If one of these events happens then
the Interaction Manager will remember that the agent has started interaction related work, and the
Interaction started event will be raised.

When is an interaction record created?

An interaction record is created when:

The agent accepts a new inbound communication
An account is confirmed
The Interact button is pressed in the Inbox
A new or reply email (fax, letter) is created
Executing a call from a call list
An interaction record is created from the navigation bar
A dependent business transaction is created

Event Source
Account confirmation BPConfirmed Business Partner
Interact from Inbox for business transaction BPConfirmed Business Partner
Interact from Inbox for email, fax, letter AUI_Interact Inbox
Accept inbound communication ContactAccepted Contact
New or reply email (fax, letter) MailCreated Outbound email of fax
Manual Interaction Record InteractionRequested Interaction Record
Dependent Business Transaction InteractionRequested Business Transaction
Call from a call list (*) CallListCallSelected Call List

The Interaction Manager listens to the events mentioned in the table above. When one of these events is
raised the Interaction Manager class will trigger the INTERACTION_STARTED event.
The event INTERACTION_STARTED is picked-up and the Interaction Record will be created.
(*) In case of a call selected from a call list, there is no creation of the interaction record yet. The
Interaction record is prepared. The interaction record is created when the account is confirmed

What are dependent business transactions?
Dependent business transactions are customized in the Business Transaction Profile. These are CRM
Business Transactions for which there are Interaction Center specific UI components. The following
dependent business transactions exist:

Sales Order (UI Component: ICCMP_BT_SLO)
Sales Ticket (ICCMP_BT_SLT)
Service Order (ICCMP_BT_SVO)
Service Ticket (ICCMP_BT_SVT)
Complaint (ICCMP_BT_COM)
Lead (ICCMP_BT_LEAD)

A dependent business transaction can only be created when an interaction record exists. If no interaction
record exists when the agent tries to create a dependent business transaction, the system will create the
interaction record in the background.
An interaction record is needed before creating a dependent business transaction because the confirmed
account and contact person data is transferred from the interaction record into the dependent business
transaction. Additionally there is a document flow link (type INTA) between the interaction record and the
dependent business transaction created.

Can the creation of an interaction record be avoided?

There is a BADI available to suppress the creation of the interaction record: CRM_IC_IARECORD
With this BADI it is possible to suppress the creation of the interaction record based on for example the
interaction source (Inbox, Call List, ...). There is a sample implementation in the system that suppresses
the creation of the interaction record for email interactions started from the inbox.
Be aware that without an interaction record the content of the activity clipboard cannot be linked when the
interaction is ended.
When creating a dependent business transaction this BADI should not be used to suppress the creation
of the interaction record as the interaction record is necessary for the creation of dependent business
transactions. If this BADI would be used to suppress the interaction record, then the creation of a
dependent business transaction will fail.

How is content of the activity clipboard linked to the interaction record?

When the interaction is ended (by pressing the END button), the content of the activity clipboard is linked
to the interaction record. The content of the activity clipboard (including dependent business transactions)
is linked to the interaction record using an INTO link.

Difference between Interaction Record and other Business Activities

When an interaction record is created the system creates an anchor' document flow link (relationship
type INTO with object type CRMCICANCH). This differentiates an interaction record from all other Activity
Business Objects (BUS2000126).
This additional anchor is used in navigation: when navigating from the interaction history or inbox to an
interaction record, the system will use this anchor to determine whether an activity is of type interaction
record or not. An interaction record typically has other screens than a normal business activity.
The BW extractor makes also use of this anchor object to differentiate interaction record related statistics
from regular business activities.

How is the interaction record used in BW Reporting?

The BW Data source 0CRM_INTER_REC_H uses extractor function module
CRM_IC_INTERACTION_RECORDS. This retrieves all Interaction Records, and counts how many
business transactions (service tickets, sales orders, complaints, ...) or business partners were created,
changed or opened during an interaction. Created objects are derived based on the INTA link with the
interaction record. This link type proves that a business transaction was created during the interaction.
Changed or Opened objects are taken from INTO links with the interaction record. It also extracts the total
handling time of the interaction record.
Using the Statistics Interface it is possible to upload CMS statistics into CRM. In CRM this communication
data can be combined with interaction record data and extracted to BW (using DataSource
0CRM_CIC_CTI). This allows blended analytics combining communication data from CMS with business
data from CRM.
A function module (SPS_STAT_DATA_GET) in the CRM system can be used to upload the statistical
data into two separate tables - one containing the connection headers (CRMD_CIC_CTI_H), the other
one all corresponding connections steps (CRMD_CIC_CTI_I). All connection steps are assigned to a
connection via the connection id (For more detailed information, please refer to the SAP phone RFD
Interface Documentation). The Connection id is the link between the communication data and the
interaction record. When an inbound call is accepted the CMS passed the connection ID to the Interaction
Center. This connection ID is stored in the interaction record