The integration of social media into cross-media programming formulas is developing more and more. This continued integration creates opportunities. When consumers or companies indicate that they are receiving messages from sponsors or third parties, the profiles of these parties can be sold as potential leads. It is essential here to have the data available in a central location and in a flexible manner. RTL's goal is to make better use of the lead generation market in the next couple of years. To achieve this goal, it should be possible to receive the profile data online and in real time, assess it and, where possible, use it for commercial purposes.
Business requirements
During the exploratory meetings for the project, the following requirements were clearly put forward:
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Central, unambiguous storage of high-quality profile data;
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Direct link to all relevant applications within and outside of RTL (e.g. EmailVision, RTL's e-mail marketing partner);
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Real-time processing of registrations, deregistrations, anonymisations;
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Full legally sound processing of the personal details, within the limits set by the Data Protection Act;
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Maximum independence from the IT department for everyday use of the system;
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High availability of the system during and especially also outside of office hours.
Based on these points, EclipseIT introduced the concept of a single point of truth (SPOT) database. This is the beating heart at the centre of an architecture of business functionalities.
The project
EclipseIT performed the technical development in direct collaboration with RTL. The project and the system itself were called Databak, due to its character of central registration. From the very first day of the project, EclipseIT took responsibility to achieve good results. For this, collaboration was constantly pursued by the project team, with the future users on one side and the future technical administrators on the other. It is EclipseIT's view that this collaboration is essential for the pursuit of a fully independent customer organisation once the project results have been delivered.
The solution
The business requirements stated require a highly flexible system in which every conceivable piece of data (text, dates, pictures, video, music) can be stored. EclipseIT designed, developed and implemented a system for the central registration of data for RTL. The functional administrators and data analysts are now able to add and remove supplying and receiving systems in real time, with an IT effort being required for these modifications.
Metadata-controlled
To offer the required level of flexibility, the Databak system does not have a predefined structure. The entire structure can be created by the functional administrators or data analysts using control tables, or metadata. They can also modify the structure in real time to suit changing needs.
Whenever the functional administrators or data analysts define a new competition using the metadata, the data model is automatically adapted straight away. This immediately allows Databak to receive this new data. Not only is the data model dynamic and metadata-controlled, the authorisation of supplying systems also makes full use of the metadata registered.
Robust
The robustness of Databak can be illustrated from two perspectives:
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The robustness is created because the data model is controlled by metadata. All modifications to the structure of the processed profile data are only made in the metadata. No modifications are required in the underlying programmes!;
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The robustness is enhanced by Informatica Powercenter Real Time Edition in combination with a Microsoft SQL Server 2008 database. The data can be processed from and to Databak in real-time using web services and in batches using interface files. The beating heart of all communication, the Powercenter server, has shown its value as a stable and professional platform.