Email in Wave | Instant Messaging | Sharing Conversations | Playback Conversations | Photos in Wave | Embedding Wave | Orkut | Mobile Devices | Editing | Collaboration | Collaborative Editing | Organization | Searching in Wave | Spell Checker | Wave Extensions | Forms in Wave | Twitter Extension | Bug Tracker Integration | Federation | Language Translation

OpenOffice.org remains the most popular open source answer to Microsoft’s ubiquitous Office suite. OpenOffice.org is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. Many of the components are designed to mirror those available in Microsoft Office. It supports the OpenDocument standard for data interchange as its default file format, as well as Microsoft Office ‘97-2003 formats – among many others and can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

OpenOffice.org is based on StarOffice, an office suite developed by StarDivision acquired by Sun Microsystems in August 1999. The source code of the suite was released in July 2000 with the aim of reducing the dominant market share of Microsoft Office by providing a free, open and high-quality alternative to users. OpenOffice.org is a free software, available under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The project and software are informally referred to as OpenOffice, but this term is a trademark held by another party requiring the project to adopt OpenOffice.org as its formal name.

Google Docs handles the nuts and bolts of daily office work, such as composing and editing text documents, crunching numbers in a spreadsheet, and creating slide show presentations. It can read and write the native Microsoft Office formats so you can share files with co-workers and friends. This free online service conveniently lets you do your work anywhere and collaborate with other users. Google Docs requires no software installation or additional hardware, resulting in tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.

Google Docs is compatible with all of the most popular file formats, including DOC, XLS, ODT, ODS, RTF, CSV, PPT, etc. The familiar desktop feel makes editing a breeze. Multiple people can view and make changes at the same time. There’s an on-screen chat window for spreadsheets, and document revisions show you exactly who changed what, and when. Viewing a presentation together is a breeze, as anyone joined in a presentation can automatically follow along with the presenter.

TARGUSinfo Lead Verification

EDU Interactive has selected TARGUSinfo as its strategic partner for real-time lead verification. TARGUS improves lead quality and conversion rates by verifying leads the instant they are submitted. On-Demand Lead Verification services not only validates that the individual pieces of a prospective consumer’s contact information are accurate, but also confirms that they belong together and relate to that consumer.

TARGUSinfo Integration

Integration with LeadGenisys facilitates the seamless passing of leads through TARGUS for a final quality check before accepting them from a vendor and delivering them to the client. LeadGenisys allows us to enable or disable TARGUS in real-time for a client based on lead source, program of interest, location or prerequisite. We are able to customize for each client whether a lead is accepted or rejected based on each of the 20+ possible TARGUS decisions returned. For clients using TARGUS, LeadGenisys includes a detailed summary of leads accepted and rejected based on TARGUS decisions in the daily lead reports.

About TARGUSinfo

TARGUSinfo, the leading provider of On-Demand InsightSM, provides unique identification, verification, scoring and location solutions that enable communication service providers, retailers, call-center operators, Web-based marketers and others to dramatically increase the quality of their services and the effectiveness of their marketing.

This weekend I received an invitation to open a free Google Voice account. Google Voice (formerly GrandCentral) is currently available by invite only. If you haven’t already heard about it, Google Voice is a service that makes using your current phones much better!

Here’s what it offers:

• A personal phone number that rings all of your existing phones when people call
• All of your voicemail in one inbox with unlimited online storage and free voicemail transcripts sent to your phone and email
• Low-priced international calling to over 200 countries and free SMS
• Other powerful features like the first phone spam filter to protect you from unwanted callers, the ability to ListenIn™ on your voicemail messages while they are being left, conference calling and more

After spending some time tinkering around with it I have to say that in general I am impressed. I can’t wait for Google to launch an official API for Google Voice!

SugarCRM API Integration

EDU Interactive completed another successful integration of Lead Genisys with Sugar CRM for a valued client this week. In real-time Lead Gensiys delivers new leads directly into Sugar and sends an email alert, notifying the assigned user that a new leads has been received. Lead Genisys also handles the complex reporting requirements that the Sugar CRM Open Source Edition does not include. Sugar Open Source is at the forefront of integration with its open source, standards-based architecture which enables applications to be seamlessly integrated with each other. The Sugar SOAP API makes tasks like inserting and relating records, and assigning records to users at the time of inserting them a breeze.

About SugarCRM

According to the Info Tech Research Group SugarCRM is becoming a disruptive force in the small enterprise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) market. Its commercial open source model, CRM appliance option, low price, and strong set of CRM features are impacting more traditional methods of CRM delivery and the perception of CRM value among small enterprises. Despite its small size compared to other vendors, SugarCRM scored highest in the Product Index of its evaluation, due to its broad features and extremely flexible deployment options.

Secure Connection

Lead data should be transferred in an encrypted format in order to comply with all laws and ensure the security and privacy of the data. Sending data over secure connection encryption at least 128-bit SSL encryption (through HTTPS web services, etc) is recommended.

Real-Time Lead Delivery

Lead data should be transferred in real-time. The amount of time that elapses between the prospective student submitting the request for information and that new lead record arriving in your CRM should be no more than a couple seconds. You can’t follow up on a hot lead if your provider is waiting until the end of the day to batch deliver them.

Source, Campaign and Placement Variables

Vendor optimization requires more than just the vendor name that generated the lead. Wherever possible I suggest requiring vendors to pass along a campaign and/or placement variable. This will allow lead quality reporting to be performed for each vendor at a much deeper level. By providing all of your vendors with detailed feedback related to their individual campaigns and placements you will be helping them, to help you, generate higher quality leads.

Unique ID Exchange

Every lead transfer should include a unique identifier (a lead id) and also be returned one upon success. If both parties append their own lead record with the other party’s unique ID, then monthly reconciliation and reporting become much simpler. This can be as simple as the auto-increment id of a database table, as long as it is unique to your own system and if referenced, you can locate the lead record in question very easily.

Meaningful Error Messages

An invalid submission should return a meaningful error. Generic errors like “Invalid Value” do not help in the troubleshooting process. If the email address is invalid, return an error like Invalid Email Address. The system response should be an easily parseable format, I suggest XML which lends itself nicely to nested errors and response codes.

Test Mode

There should always be a test mode that vendors can easily switch to and send leads. Not only is it helpful launching new vendors, but old vendors still want to test new transfers and when you edit the validation requirements. The leads delivered in test mode must follow different business rules to prevent them from being distributed to enrollment reps and counted in the performance reporting.

I recommend reading the Risk Management Guide for Information Technology Systems from the National Institute of Standards and Technology if you are interested in learning more about securing web applications.

Talisma iServices API Integration

EDU Interactive completed another successful integration of Lead Genisys with Talisma CRM for a valued client this week. In real-time Lead Gensiys creates, sources and assigns new leads in Talisma. Remarketing efforts seamlessly update existing lead records. Lead Genisys also automatically pulls complex reports from Talisma and processes the data to drive business decisions.

Talisma CampusCRM

Talisma CRM is a Client Relationship Management software product which encompasses enrollment management, student retention, student services, education finance, alumni relations and more.

Campus Management

Talisma CRM was aquired by Campus Management Corp in November 2008 as part of an agreement with nGenera Corporation that included the asset aquisition of its subsidiary, Talisma Corporation.

Technical Details

The integration utilized the Talisma iServices Web Service using the SOAP protocol. SOAP is a simple XML-based protocol which allows communication between applications running on different operating systems, with different technologies and programming languages.

Who offers an API?
Many of the larger, more reputable online companies offer API integration to some or all of their services. A few companies that have mature APIs are Google, Yahoo, Salesforce, Digg, Flickr, Basecamp, etc. With the internet’s growing number of disparate systems, programs and languages, APIs are rapidly growing in popularity and use.

What is a real-world API usage example?
My most recent usage was the Google adWords API. Let me take a step back, Google adWords is the platform for Paid Search Marketing on Google and their Search Network. I interfaced programmatically with our clients’ data (via the API) to pull custom reports and send that information each day in an easy to read, easy to understand HTML email. Without API access, I would have had to login, navigate to the right report, copy/paste the pertinent data, manually construct the email and send it out for each of my clients.

How about another real-world example?
At EDU interactive we deliver our clients’ high-quality web leads in real-time through 3rd-party APIs. Instead of forcing our clients to use an overly simplified home-grown solution or sending emails/cumbersome spreadsheets to deliver the data, we seamlessly deliver the leads directly into each customer’s CRM solution. CRM – Customer Relationship Management – is a broad term used to describe a system or software used to track a lead/prospect through the various points of contact and conversion milestones. If a new customer does not already have a CRM or similar solution in place, we can suggest one of many commercial solutions that makes sense considering their requirements and budget, while providing the necessary API access.

Is it right to give attribution to the last click? Does this give too much credit to search? What if you could measure all of the consumer touch points and create algorithms that properly weight credit for each? Methodologies are being developed and tested that will change the way we attribute credit for Web and search campaigns, creating a model for multiple digital platforms in the future. Some call it Multiple Attribution Protocol. In my opinion, this was the most interesting topic. This protocol examines the life of the relationship with the consumer, providing a weighted attribution, and credits the most significant points of contact with the sale or conversion. Each point of contact impacts the others, and nothing can be defined in a vacuum. The most-recent-exposure reporting approach is where only the final point of contact is credited for the sale or conversion.

Brand Awareness, Offline Purchases and Pass Along (Telling a Friend) are not accounted for in the Multiple Attribution Protocol at this point. Hopefully some day, new technologies will enable us to include these missing areas in some capacity.