Adding an Initiative

Initiatives are not standalone objects. You can only create an Initiative that links to an existing Objective. An Objective can have one or more Initiatives linked to it.

Business Planning features are only available to Strategic Data users.

To Add an Initiative to an Objective:

1. Select Business Planning from the menu on the left.
2. On the Business Planning page, either click on the Objective to which you want to add an Initiative or Search for the Objective.
3. Select Add Initiative. The Add Initiative page will open.

4. Complete the Add Initiative page:

   You may see values listed below already assigned if you’ve added other Initiatives to this Objective in the past.

5. Add a name for the Initiative in the Name field.
6. Optional: Add a description for the Initiative in the Description field.
7. Select the calendar icon and select the Initiative end date or enter the Initiative end date in the Target Date field.
8. Optional: Measurement of Success section: Use this section to define criteria by which the success of this Initiative can be measured.
   • Describe Measurement of Success: Free-text field.
   • Form of measurement: Select Currency, Number, or Percentage.
   • Target Value: The Initiative's desired target value.
   • Actual Value: The Initiative's actual value.

9. Optional: Select Add Location. From the Country list, select a country and sub-location if necessary (i.e., United States of America > New York). You can add more than one location if needed.

   As a best practice, select all locations at the same level - that is, all at the country level or all with country and sub-locations.

10. Mark a check box to indicate the Initiative Type and select at least one Type (i.e., Industry > Banking). The Initiative can be associated with one or more industries, one or more practice areas, one or more key clients, or Other.

    Values for Type and Location are inherited from the parent Objective and will show in the linked Initiative. In the new Initiative, however, you can add Locations or Types appropriate to it by clicking the Add Location or Add Type button.

To Add a Company to the Initiative:

1. Click Add Companies. The Search and Add Company page opens.
2. Select either Search Public Contacts (all InterAction+ firm Contacts) or List (Marketing Lists in your InterAction+™ database).
3. Enter the Target Company name in the search field and click the Search icon .

4. When you have identified the appropriate company, click . The company is saved to the Selected Company panel on the right. You can select additional companies while you are here in the Search and Add Companies page. You can select up to 1,000 companies.

   If the company that you want to add is not in the InterAction+ database, you can add a new company by clicking Add a New Company.

5. Optional: Involved refers to the names of employees involved with this Initiative. The logged in user will be entered in this field by default.
   • To add or change employees, start typing the employee's last name in the Search Employees field.
   • Select the name(s) of the employee to be involved in the Initiative.
6. Save your changes.