Configuring Interact to work with your touchpoint consists of two main components:

While these two components of configuration take place in two different areas, they are related. The Interact API needs to reference several of the configuration elements within the design environment. You and the person working with the Interact API must work together to agree on naming conventions, element purpose, and so on. This is an iterative and collaborative process. As the person works with the Interact API and the touchpoint, you may need to create more events and interaction points. As you design the interaction in the design environment, you may have more requirements for the person working with the API.

There are several elements of the Interact configuration referenced by the Interact API. However, only the following three elements are referred to by name:

When working with the Interact API, you must reference these elements by name. These names must match, however they are case-insensitive. The names myinteract, myInteract, and mYiNtErAcT all match.

There are other elements of the Interact configuration you can use in the Interact API to enhance your interaction, including smart segments, campaign start and end dates, offers, and interactive flowcharts.

During runtime, the Interact API does request information from interactive flowcharts and treatment rules, however the API calls for that information indirectly. For example, the API never calls an interactive flowchart. However, the API does call an event requesting a re-segmentation, which runs all of the interactive flowcharts associated with the interactive channel. Likewise, when the API requests offers with the getOffers method, that starts a sequence of events that includes referencing the treatment rules.

The Interact API references the following elements of Campaign:

Since these elements are shared across the whole of the design environment, you must decide standards for these elements across your organization. Some of this information you must provide to properly call the Interact API—such as audience ID—and some you request with the API—such as offer attributes.

You can also reference the score for an offer with the Interact API. In general, this is the marketing score assigned on the interaction strategy tab. This score is relevant for Interact only, not your entire Campaign environment. You can modify or override the marketing score from the interaction strategy tab. For more information about the Interact API, see the Interact Administrator's Guide.

When a runtime session starts, that is, when the visitor initiates a contact, the Interact API triggers a startSession. This call can include the following steps.

As the visitor interacts with the touchpoint, the Interact API can perform several actions including triggering events, requesting profile information, and changing the audience level of the visitor. When the visitor reaches an interaction point in the touchpoint, the Interact API can request one or more offers or trigger an event. When the visitor leaves the touchpoint—by logging out, hanging up, or timing out, the runtime server ends the runtime session.

This is a basic overview. There are many optional features you can enable which allow you to influence offer recommendation, for example, the learning module. For more information about these optional features, see the Interact Administrator's Guide.