Target Group Details

The left pane displays the LISTSERV Maestro explorer tree, with the "Target Groups" subtree. This subtree contains all target groups.

The pane on the right shows additional information about the currently selected target group:

• Target Group Based On: Displays the type of the target group. The following types are supported: Subscriber Dataset, Subscriber List, LISTSERV List, Uploaded File, Database Access by Maestro, and Database or LDAP Directory Access by LISTSERV. See below for more details

• Description: The description of the target group.

• Status: The current status of the target group:

  • Incomplete: The definition of this target group has not yet been completed. It may be partially defined and in this state while the target group administrator is still editing it.

  • Complete: The definition of this target group has been completed, but the target group has not been enabled for use in the Define Recipients wizard for the recipients definition of a job. A target group in this state has been completed by the administrator, but has not been opened to allow users access.

  • Enabled: The definition of this target group has been completed and the target group has been enabled for use in the Define Recipients wizard. A target group in this state has been completed by the administrator, and has been enabled for use as a recipients definition.

• Enable or Disable: Depending on the current enable/disable state of the target group, select from the menu: Enable to enable a currently disabled target group or Disable to disable a currently enabled target group. (Alternatively, use options that are available in the right-click menu of the target group node.) This is a shortcut for the setting that is made on the Summary screen of the Target Group Definition wizard.

What are Target Groups?

When defining the recipients of a job in the recipients wizard by choosing one of the standard recipients types, such as Select Recipients from a Database or LDAP Directory, the user must have an understanding of which recipients to target with the job. The user must also have some technical knowledge of the method used to define and retrieve those recipients from whatever source.

For example, with Select Recipients from a Database, it is necessary to know in which database the recipients are stored, and in which table, as well as how to retrieve exactly those recipients from this table that will be targeted for the job.

Similarly, when working with the LDAP variant of the Select Recipients from a Database recipients type, it is necessary to have some basic knowledge about LDAP directories and how to supply LDAP search filters.

In many situations, this knowledge is not possessed by the same person. A marketer may know exactly which recipients to target with a certain message, but may not have the database expertise to retrieve them. On the other hand, the database administrator has the technical skills to pull information from the database, but may not be the best person to decide who will or will not receive a certain message.

Target groups take these different roles into consideration and offer separate steps in defining recipients. This way, users can execute the recipient definition steps where they have the most knowledge and expertise.

Target groups are defined by the target group administrator, who is usually a user with knowledge about the underlying data sources (like a database) used for jobs. This person knows where the data is stored and how to retrieve it (for example, how to write a SQL statement to get the data from the database). With this knowledge, the target group administrator creates one or more more target groups. Target groups are similar to predefined recipients, complete with a name and description.

The end user, who defines the actual recipients for a job, (for example the marketer) can then simply go into the recipients wizard for that job and choose the correct target group. This way, the end user does not have to worry about the technical details that underlie the process of actually retrieving the recipients from their source.

To make this concept even more useful, most target group types can also be parameterized when the target group administrator defines the target group.

• A target group without parameters is a fixed target group. The end users can choose this target group as the recipients group or not. Once chosen, however, users have no further influence on which recipients will actually be used. Useful examples of "fixed" target groups are groups like "All our customers", "All Subscribers", or more detailed "All male customers above 40" and so on.

• A target group with parameters is less fixed. It allows end users a certain influence over the recipients that will be selected. The parameters are defined by the target group administrator when the target group is created and edited. A useful example would be a target group like "All customers in a certain country", where the parameter would be the "country." The target group administrator would have left this value open when defining the target group. Instead, a drop-down menu with possible countries for end users to choose from would be defined. Then, when the end users select this target group in the recipients wizard, they would also select the country, to further specify which recipients they actually want to use. Another example would be a group like "All customers of a certain gender in a certain age range", where the gender (in form of a drop-down menu) and the minimum and maximum ages (in form of input fields) would be parameters.