Certain Signal: Eloqua Native Integration Guide

This document is a guide to using Certain Signal to integrate with Eloqua.
(Signal also integrates with other products, including Marketo and Salesforce via native integrations and
others via Webhooks or Advanced Webhooks – see separate guides.)

 

This product is not included with Certain Platform by default, but if you’re interested in it after reading this document, please email help@certain.com, including your account name.

 

Contents

What is Signal? How does it work?.................................2
Prerequisites.............................................................................2
                • Data-Flow Considerations ..........................2
                • Eloqua Credentials..........................................2
Overview of Setup Steps......................................................3
Setting up Tags .......................................................................3
                • What Are Tags?.................................................3
                • Setting Tags Up for an Account.................3
                • Applying Tags in an Account......................4
                • Applying Tags in an Event............................4
Recording an Event’s Campaign Name ........................5
Opening Certain Signal........................................................6
Setting up a Connection......................................................6
                • What are Connections?................................6
                • Adding a Connection....................................6
Setting Up Flows....................................................................8
                • What is a “Flow”? ..........................................8
                • The Flow List ...................................................8
                • Configuring a Flow........................................8
Flow Data Source ...............................................................10
                • Available sources.........................................10
                • Activate for …................................................10
Flow Filters.............................................................................10
Flow Destination..................................................................11
                • Setting up a Destination...........................11
                • Mappings .......................................................11
                • Campaign ID..................................................13
                • Form .................................................................13
Metrics Dashboard ............................................................14
                • Account Insights .........................................14
The Retry Queue..................................................................16
Replaying a Flow..................................................................17

 

 

What is Signal? How does it work?

 

Certain Signal processes data from your events in real-time, passing it from Certain Platform to your instance of Eloqua.

This real-time integration empowers sales and marketing teams to take intelligent, prompt action on the right event data.

Almost everything is set up at the account level. Signal processes information from the events in your account. For event-level information this is based on the custom tags you attach to data such as Registration Statuses, as explained in this document.

Important: Signal processes outbound information, processing information from Certain and sending it to Eloqua.

 

Prerequisites

 

  Data-Flow Considerations

      • Do you capture data in registration questions that will be synced to Eloqua?
           o If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those questions: see page 5.

      • Do you have different data mappings based on registration status, or attendee type?
           o If so, you’ll need to apply tags to those items: see page 4.

      • How many Eloqua campaigns?
           o One campaign that’s common to all events, or one campaign per event?
           o If one per event, you’ll need an Event Question for the Campaign ID: see page 5.

 

  Eloqua Credentials

For you to set up a Connection in Signal (see page 6), you need to decide which of the two authentication options you will be using: OAuth2 (our recommendation) or Basic Credentials. (Setting up a Connection is explained on page 7.) The choice you make determines the information you require in advance.

• OAuth2

Your Eloqua administrator will need to create an OAuth2 app in Eloqua, by going to Settings >App Cloud Developer >Create New App.

They then need to provide you with the following details:

      • Endpoint
      • Client Id
      • Client Secret
      • Callback URL: https:///svcs/maintegration/oauth2Callback

 

• Basic Credentials

This option uses an Eloqua user login: Username and Password.

The user is likely to be one set up for integrations only, such as (MyOrganization/Integration), but could be a regular user.

They must have access in Eloqua to:
      • Create Contacts
      • Add Contacts to a List
      • External Activities

 

Overview of Setup Steps

Step                                                                   See Page
On Certain Platform
1. Add tags in the account                                           3
2. Apply those tags                                                      4
3. Add Event Question for Campaign ID                     5
4. Answer that question in events                               5

In Certain Signal
5. Add Connection                                                      6
6. Configure a Flow                                                     8

 

 

Setting up Tags

  What Are Tags?

Tags are a way of identifying event-level data using labels you set at the account level.

You can then apply those tags to generic items in events, especially custom registration statuses and custom registration properties for use in Certain Signal. (Tags can be used for other purposes as well, but this guide doesn’t cover that.)

For example, your events may have several custom registration statuses in addition to the standard ones.
You can apply the same Tags to more than one status, or you might choose to give each one its own Tag.

When you set up a Flow in Certain Signal to send data to Eloqua when an attendee’s Registration Status
changes, for example, you specify the tags applicable to those statuses, not the statuses themselves. That
means the flow can apply to any event in your account.

 

  Setting Tags Up for an Account

      1. As an Administrator, go to Account Settings > Management >Tags.
      2. Enter a Name and a Label for the tag.
      3. Select the Object(s) to which the tag can apply; for example, ‘Registration Statuses” and/or
          “Custom Registration Properties”.
      4. Click Add.
      5. Repeat as required for as many tags as you need.
      6. Important: Add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in flows (see page 10):

              a. Registration Statuses
              b. Custom Registration Properties
      7. Also add enough tags to apply to all of the following that you will use in filters for flows (see pg 10):
              a. Attendee Types
              b. Events

 

  Applying Tags in an Account

In each event from which you want information to flow through Certain Signal, apply tags to the relevant
information: Registration Statuses and Registration Custom Properties.

(You can also tag Attendee Types and Events, so that you can filter registration records by attendee type or event: see Filters on page 10.)

 

Default Registration Statuses
These apply to all events, so an Administrator applies the tags at the account level.
      1. Go to Account Settings > Management > Registration Statuses.
      2. Select one or more Tags for each status.

Important: Even if you don’t use any standard registration statuses, the best practice is to set up tags for all of them, but it’s essential to tag at least the ‘New’ status (which Certain uses “behind the scenes” when first processing each registration).

If you do use standard reg statuses, it’s essential that you tag them all, so that you can use them in the Flows you configure in Signal: see page 8.

 

  Applying Tags in an Event

Custom Registration Statuses
If any of the Flows you configure in Signal will watch or activate for changes of Registration Status (see page 10):

      1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Statuses
      2. Select at least one tag for each status.

 

Custom Registration Properties
If any of the Flows you configure in Signal will activate for Custom Reg Properties (see page 10):
      1. In each event, go to Plan > Configure.
      2. Under Custom Registration Properties, select at least one tag for each custom reg property in the              event.

Standard Registration Properties
These tags are set up for you automatically, with names identical to the properties themselves:
Complete, Badge Printed, On To Do List, Invoice Generated, and Test.

You only see them in Signal, where, just like Custom Reg Properties, you can activate Flows for
them(see page 10). There’s nothing to edit on Certain Platform.

 

Attendee Types
(Optional– for use with filters – see page 10.)
      1. In each event, go to Plan > Event Setup > Attendee Types.
      2. Select one or more Tags for each attendee type on which you may wish to filter registrations. (See
          Filters on page 10.)

Events
(Optional– for use with filters – see page 10.)
      1. In each event you may wish to include in a filter (for example to ensure that only registrations for
          that event are passed to Eloqua):
      2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Details.
      3. Select one or more Tags for the event.

 

Registration Questions
(Optional– for use with mapping Certain fields to Eloqua fields – see page 11.)
      1. In each event in which you use registration question to capture data from attendees, and wish to
          pass those answers and/or questions to Eloqua:
      2. Go to Plan > Event Setup > Questions.
      3. Select just one Tag for each question. (Selecting more could result in duplicate data in Eloqua.)

 

Recording an Event’s Campaign Name

If any of your Flows in Signal will include an action to ‘Trigger Campaign’ or ‘Create/Update Contact’ (see
page 13) where the campaign is set per event rather than using the same campaign for all events, then you need to set up an event question to record the Campaign Name for each event.

      1. As an Administrator in Certain Platform,
         go to Account Settings > Management > Event Data
      2. Add an Event Question, such as ‘Eloqua Campaign Name’

In each event:

      3. As an Event Planner or Administrator in Certain Platform,
          go to Plan > Event Setup > Custom Event Data
      4. Enter the Eloqua Campaign Name for that event in the custom question field.

 

Opening Certain Signal

When Signal is activated for your account, the Account Settings > Implementation menu—available to
Administrators—includes an extra option:

• Signal Real-Time Data Integration
Click that link to open Certain Signal in a separate window; it runs separately from Certain Platform.
Note: To return from Signal to Certain Platform at any time, click

 

Setting up a Connection

  What are Connections?

A Connection in Certain Signal specifies how to connect to your instance of Eloqua – your Target application.

You can actually have multiple connections, perhaps to Eloqua and another application. (Other target
applications are covered in separate guides.)

Each Flow (see page 8) requires a Connection. Multiple flows may use the same Connection.

You can set up a Connection before configuring your first Flow, but you also have the option to do so while configuring a Flow. This guide assumes you’re setting up the Connection first.

 

  Adding a Connection

As an Administrator you may set up one or more Connections for your account. You need only do so once – you can then use them in the Flows you set up (see page 8, below).
      1. Go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Real-Time Data Integration.
      2. As noted above, Certain Signal opens in a separate window.

      3. Click Connections in the left navigation panel.

      4. Click Add A Connection on the Connection List page that opens.

      5. Enter the details in the Connection Setup screen that opens.

                • Target: Select Eloqua as the third-party app to connect to.
                • Connection Name: Enter a name of your own choice. This could be just ‘Eloqua’ or ‘Eloqua
                   Connection’, for example.
                • Service URL: Enter the beginning of the Eloqua URL to which you are redirected when you
                   log in to Eloqua: the part starting with “https://” and ending with “eloqua.com”.
                   For example: https://secure.p03.eloqua.com
                • Authentication Type: Select the authentication type to be used: ‘Basic Authentication’ or
                  ‘OAuth2’.
                              • Basic Authentication – using an Eloqua username and password.
                                 If you select this option, complete the following two fields
                                            • User Name – An Eloqua user, likely to be one set up for integrations only,
                                               such as ‘MyOrganization/Integrationuser”. but could be a regular user.
                                               This user must have the minimum permissions described on page 1.
                                            • Password – The Eloqua password for that user.
                              • OAuth2 – our recommended best practice, this is an industry-standard secure
                                method of authentication.
                                If you select OAuth2 then you also enter the following five fields:
                                            • Grant Type: Select ‘Authorization Code’
                                            • Client Id and Client Secret: These two long strings of characters are
                                               unique to the OAuth2 app your Eloqua administrator has set up, as
                                               explained under ‘Eloqua Credentials’ on page 2.
                                            • Access Token URL: Use the default value.
                                            • Refresh Token URL: Use the default value.
                                            • Scope: Use the default value if there is one.
                • Test Connection URL: Use the default value.

                • Force Update: Relevant only for ‘Add to List’ actions. If selected, then if Eloqua already has
                  a record for the Contact whose data is being sent, that Contact will be updated where any
                  details in Certain differ — for example, their phone number.

6. Click Save & Test.
7. If the test is successful, click Close. If it’s not, check that the values in step 5 are all correct.

 

Setting Up Flows

  What is a “Flow”?

A flow is a configuration to manage the flow of data from Certain to Eloqua. You create Flows from the
landing page in Signal: see Configuring a Flow, below. You may configure several flows for an account, which might all use the same Connection (explained above).

You only need to configure a flow once at the account level. When a flow is complete, it will start picking up data for each event in that account within about a minute.

The minute’s delay is because Signal runs independently from Certain Platform. So if you edit a flow then the same slight delay occurs before that change takes effect in the processing of the registrations.

 

  The Flow List

As an Administrator in Certain Platform. go to Account Settings > Implementation > Signal Real-Time Data Integration.

As noted above, Certain Signal opens in a separate browser window.

The main screen in Signal is the Flow List, which lists all flows.

The Status column shows whether a flow is completely set up.

The Active column shows whether the flow is running. Click the toggle button to change a flow from Active to Inactive, or vice versa.

 

  Configuring a Flow

Click ADD A FLOW to start setting up a new flow – see screenshot overleaf.

The configuration consists of:
                • Name
                • ‘Live’ or ‘Test‘ status. (See immediately below.)
                • Source: What information the Flow will look for, and what it will activate for in your events.
                  (See page page 10.)
                • Filters: Optional filters to narrow down that information. (See page page 10.)
                • Destination: Where and how that information goes into Eloqua. (See page page 11.)

 

‘Live’ or ‘Test’

The Live toggle switch determines whether your Flow is Live or Test:

A Live Flow will pick up all live registrations in live events. It will ignore test registrations, even in live events.

A Test Flow picks up all test registrations: that’s all registrations in test events, plus any registrations
marked as ‘Test’ in live events."

Best Practice: Set a new flow up as Test—and test it—before setting it to Live

 

 

Flow Data Source

Next, specify the Source of data for the flow (optionally applying Filters).
The Source of a Flow is what the Flow will watch for in your data in Certain and when it will activate, based on that data.

For example, it might watch for any change to a Registration Status, and activate if an attendee’s status has changed to a status tagged as ‘Registered’.

 

  Available sources

You set a flow to watch for any one of the following:
                • Registration Create Update: When a registration is created or updated.
                • Registration Status Change: When a registration’s status changes.
                • Session Registration Status Change: When a registration’s session registration statuchanges.
                • Event Create Update: When an event is created or updated.

Note: You can always save an incomplete Flow and complete it at a later date. As soon as a Flow is complete, it will start picking up data after the usual minute’s delay.

 

  Activate for …

Choose what the flow should activate for by selecting one or more tags in each appropriate object’s dropdown list

As shown in the screenshot above, you can activate for tags applied to Registration Statuses and/or
Registration Properties. Other options may be added depending on what the Flow is watching for:
                • If the Flow is watching for Registration Status Change, you must activate for Registration                             Statuses.
                • If it’s watching for Session Registration Status Change, you must activate for Session                                   Registration Statuses.
                • And if it’s watching for Event Create Update, you must activate for Event Statuses.

The tags available for selection are those set up for that object; see page 3.

For example, the tags for Registration Statuses include Registration Status tags, which you can apply to:
                • standard registration statuses at account level (see page 4)
                • custom registration statuses at event level (see page 4)

 

 

Flow Filters

You can filter the data going into a flow by selecting fields in any of these three filter types:
Event fields, Profile fields, and Attendee Type tags.
The flow will only include a registration if it meets the rule(s) specified in the filter.

• Event
Available fields:
— standard event fields (e.g., Event Code)
— custom event fields
— event tags
• Profile
Available fields:
— standard profile fields (e.g., Position)
— custom profile fields
• Attendee Type Tags
Available fields:
— tags that can be applied to Attendee Types

Note: For custom fields you can only select “enumerated” questions – those that have pre-configured
answers; that is, questions that are of types Select, Multi-select, Checkbox, or Radio.

 

Flow Destination

Select Eloqua from the integrations set up by Certain for your account. (Eloqua may be the only one.)

  Setting up a Destination

                1. Give the Destination a name of your choice,
                2. Select the Connection to use.
                    Note: You can instead click New Connection to add a connection; the process to set one up                                 is the same as described on page 5.
                3. Select the action for this connection from those listed as available:
                    • Add to List
                    • Create/Update Contact
                    • External Activity (available only if the Flow is activated for Session Registration Statuses)
                    • Form Post
Your choice of action determines the other configuration options.
If the action is ‘External Activity’, the following two fields are displayed.
Select a value in each drop-down list; the values to choose from are automatically populated by
Eloqua.
                   • External Asset Type
                   • External Activity Type

 

  Mappings

The Available Mappings option is available for most actions

A mapping specifies how each target field in Eloqua matches a source field in Certain.
Select a mapping from the drop-down list.

If nobody has set any mappings up yet, or you need something other than one of the existing mappings, click New Mapping to add one:

                1. Give the mapping a name of your choice.
                    Best Practice: For multiple mappings, used for different flows, make the names self-                                     explanatory. For example, ‘Contact Mapping’ and ‘Form Mapping’
                2. The left column lists Eloqua fields: the “target” fields.
                    Under each one is the default “source” field in Certain matching that target field.
                    For example: target field ‘Company’ defaults to source field ‘Organization’, meaning the value                    of the Organization field in Certain will populate the Company field in Eloqua.
                3. By default, only the First Name, Last Name and Email fields are mandatory. Select the                                  checkbox next to a target field to make it mandatory.
                    • If a required field is missing, there’ll be a validation error when the flow tries to update                                 Eloqua. This is not normally fixable, so would not go into the Retry Queue.
                4. Click the x after a source field label to delete that field. Click to add a new one.

Note: You can concatenate multiple source fields for the same target field, and even type fixed text.
For example, for target field ‘Title’ you could choose source fields ‘Position’ and ‘Organization’,
separated by two spaces and “@”:

 

The Certain fields you can choose from as the source of the data going into the target fields in
Eloqua include:

                    • Profile Standard Fields
                    • Profile Custom Fields
                    • Registration Standard Fields
                    • Registration Custom Question Tags – one field for the question, and one for its answer
                      (See page 5 about not using the same tag for more than one question.))
                    • Registration Standard Properties
                    • Account Standard Fields (Account Code)
                    • Event Standard Fields (e.g., Event Code and Event Name)
                    • Event Custom Fields
                    • Flow Fields (Flow Name)
                    • Macros (e.g., Current Date)

 

                5. In the second column you can select a transformation option for each field.
                    The default of no selection means the data will be sent to Eloqua unchanged.
                    The options are:
                              • lower case
                              • Proper Case
                              • UPPER CASE
                              • Trim (This removes extra spaces.)
Note: You can select more than one transformation for a field. For example, you could change it to
Proper Case and trim it.

 

                6. At the end of the list you can Add Target Fields and select source fields for them.
                    To delete a field from the mapping, click DELETE at the end of that row.
                    If you’ve selected a mapping then two other buttons are enabled with self-explanatory labels:
                              • Edit Mapping
                              • Preview Mapping
                    A third button is also enabled:
                              • Refresh Target Fields

Use this if you don’t find the target field you were expecting in an existing mapping.
Technical note: This is likely for new fields added since a connection was created since the target
fields are cached when a connection is tested. A refresh updates the cached mappings. 

 

 

  Campaign ID

The Campaign ID is required if your action is ‘Trigger Campaign’ or ‘Create/Update Contact’.
(Note: ‘Campaign ID’ in Signal refers to the ‘Campaign Name’ in Eloqua)
There are two options:
                • Select Campaign ID Based on Event Question
                   If you have a unique campaign for each event, use a custom event question to specify the                          Campaign Name. (See page 5.) Select that question here.
                • Campaign ID
                   To move all attendees to a single campaign, regardless of event enter the campaign Name

Note: If you specify both an event question and an account-level Campaign ID, then the event questionbased campaign will take precedence.

 

  Form

If the selected action is Form Post, then complete the following:
                • Select A Form – Select the Eloqua form to which the data will be sent,
                • Form URL – This is populated automatically based on the form selected.
                • Mapping – The target fields are pre-populated based on the form selected. You then select                          the target fields and map them to the source (Certain) fields, as described under Mappings                         above.

 

 

Metrics Dashboard

To see the statistics available in Signal, click Metrics in the left navigation panel
when looking at flows.
The choices in the new navigation panel you then see for Metrics depend on the flows and their targets.
The first one will be Insights, as illustrated and described below.
Other links will be, for example, to Leads Created and Form Posts; those each work in the same way as
Account Insights.

 

  Account Insights

Select whether you want to see Live Flows or Test Flows. Select the period for which you want to see the data; for example, for the last 15 minutes, 1 hour or 4 hours, or a number of days.
There are three tabs: Summary, Troubleshooting, and Activity Feed.

• Summary tab
This is the default tab on the Insights page, as shown here. The figures shown depend on the flows and
actions. For some of them you can click the number to drill down further – for example, click Unique
Registrations to see the registrations processed by any flows in your selected time frame.

You can filter or search for records when you’ve drilled down. For example, filter on an Event Code to
see only the registrations in that event.

The figures listed below are shown. Remember these are for the whole account: all events and registrations.
For each of these, you can click the number to drill down to details.

 

                • Changes Processed: The number of registrations processed. Increments each time a                                    registration is created or updated in Certain and then processed by a flow in Signal.

Note: This will often include the same registration more than once. For example, creating a
registration and then updating it twice would total three “changes”.

                • Unique Registrations: The number of registrations processed, counting any single registration                   only once. You may find this the most relevant figure on the page.

                   It’s likely to be lower than Changes Processed. For example, if Joe Citizen’s registration was
                   processed three times then Changes Processed will have increased by 3. But since those                              changes were all for the same registration the Unique Registrations will have increased by                          only 1.

                • Actions Triggered: The number of actions triggered by flows. If you only have one flow with                       one action, then this could be the same as Changes Processed. The more flows you have, and                     the more actions configured in those flows, the more actions may be triggered.
                • Actions Not Triggered: Only displayed if registrations were processed by flows without actions
                   being triggered. This could be caused, for example, by a registration having an untagged                            status.
                • Active Flows: The number of flows actually processing registrations during the selected period.
                   This is not related to whether the flow are shown as ”Active” or ‘Inactive” on the Flow List.
                • External Activities: The number of External Activities created in Eloqua by flows.
                • Form Posts: Relevant for Form Post actions – the number of form posts.
                • Leads Created: The number of leads created in Eloqua by flows.
                • Leads Updated: The number of leads updated in Eloqua by flows.
                • Registration Activity in Certain: Overview information.
                • Processing Status: A pie chart comparing the numbers of failures and successes.
                 
Drilling down into the failures provides a high-level view for troubleshooting.
For example, you can see why an action has failed. If that’s something you can address, then once
you’ve done so you can expedite the fix in Signal by going back to Flows and clicking Retry in the left
navigation panel — see Retry Queue on page 16.

 

• Troubleshooting tab

The second tab on the Insights page shows information you may find useful for troubleshooting.

For example, if some registrations are not processed because a Registration Status isn’t tagged, this gives
you the chance to rectify that so that the registrations can be processed on the next retry.

The numbers shown are as follows. Click a number to drill down to see details of the actual records,

                • In Retry Queue: If an action fails, it joins the Retry Queue—see page 16—and will be tried                            again. (Maximum automatic retries per action = 3.)
                • Total Retried: The number of retries. If an action was retried twice, that would have added 2 to                    this number.
                • Retried Abandoned: The actions that failed three retries.
                • Validation Errors: No retries possible because failed validation. For example, a contact that                          could not be created because a mandatory target field had no value in the source field.
                   (See ‘Mappings’ on page 11.)
                • Retry Activity: A chart showing retries by time.
                • Retry Processing Category: A chart showing retries by category – “General”, “System”, “Config”,
                   “Connection”, etc.
                • Connection Activity: A chart showing activity per connection over time.

 

• Activity Feed tab

The third tab on the Insights page lists the registrations processed, noting success or failure, Registration
Code, Event, Flow, etc.

This is a rolling history, by date. Think of it as another way to access lower-level data you could see by drilling down in the Summary or Troubleshooting tabs.

 

 

The Retry Queue

When an action fails it usually joins the “Retry Queue”, where it takes its turn to run again. (Failures that
can’t be resolved, such as missing mandatory fields, are exceptions: they don’t join the queue.) An action can be retried up to three times, after which it does not rejoin the queue.

To see the Retry Queue, click Retry in the left navigation panel on the Flows page: Causes of failure include ones under your control as a planner, such as a registration with a status that hasn’t been tagged, and technical ones such as a connection being down.

Where you can resolve the cause of a failure, such as tagging a registration or setting a flow back to being active, that’s all you need do. The action should succeed when retried.

For other failures that don’t resolve themselves, you probably need to contact your administrator or ask
Certain for help.

The interval between retries depends on the severity of the reason: the more serious the reason the sooner the retry.

 

Filtering the Queue
You can filter the records shown in the Retry Queue using these three filters:

Integration: Probably only one option, ‘Eloqua’, unless you have multiple integrations set up.
Status: ‘All Statuses’, ’Retry’, ‘Error’, ‘Failed’, or ‘Done’.
Category: ‘All Categories’, ‘General’. ‘System’, ‘Config’, ‘Certain API’, ‘Connection’, etc.

Submitting to the Queue
When you click an item in the Retry Queue, you see its full details.

If that knowledge is enough for you to solve the problem, then once you have done so you can click Submit to Retry Queue, which adds the item straight to the front of the queue.

 

Replaying a Flow

If you change an aspect of a flow while it has been running for some time, such as changing its filters, you
may want to replay that flow for the same registrations as before, as if the changes had been made earlier.

This is not something that you can do directly, but you can ask Certain to arrange it for you. You may be able to specify a date range or even an event.