Change to "Contacts" in the XM Directory is whack - Anyone Else Having Issues?

mklubeck
As mentioned here ; I do understand the limitations and changes with this new interface.
You can learn more about importing the contact list here and distributions here.
Hope it helps!

Deepak
Thanks for that. Nothing that I saw (I'm the brand Admin) covered changes to the interface. And we weren't migrated until this month. No "action is required" is misleading as there should have been things on my to-do list...like informing all of my users that "Contacts" will no longer be how they find their information. And that the look and feel when you get there is different. And the process for adding contacts manually is different (and IMO, broken).

mklubeck
You can contact your AE/CSM to get back to the same previous interface.

Deepak ? For how long? I thought the migration was happening to everyone by Dec 2022? I read the article (thanks again for the link), but it doesn't touch on the problems with manual creation of contacts. Especially adding embedded data.

mklubeck
As mentioned at the very bottom of same page it is mentioned regarding the distributions tab it isn't available in XM Directory Lite.
"For admins, being able to tell whether or not you have XM Directory Full or XM Directory Lite on your license is easy. Admins of XM Directory have access to many more features than the average XM Directory Lite user, including the Summary tab, the Directory Contacts tab, and Directory Settings.

However, even if you’re not an admin, you can often tell whether you have XM Directory Full or XM Directory Lite in one of the following ways:

1. In addition to the Segments & lists tab, XM Directory Full users have access to a Distributions tab. XM Directory Lite users do not have this feature. (Note: it is also possible the ability to distribute surveys was revoked for your account. Check one of the surveys in your account - if it has a functioning Distributions tab, you’re an XM Directory Lite user. If it doesn’t, you could still be either.)


2. XM Directory Lite users cannot have multiple directories. If you see a dropdown at the top of your directory, that means you are definitely an XM Directory Full user.

Deepak
Now you're confusing me. I know what I have (XMD Lite). I wasn't asking about that at all. And "what exactly" isn't available? When I manually add a contact, I cannot easily add the embedded data portion of the contact record. It is now a tedious, cumbersome process which is far from intuitive.
You said I could go back to Contact List only..."You can contact your AE/CSM to get back to the same previous interface." and I asked, for how long because the documentation says everyone is transitioning (migrating) to XM Directory (lite or full) by Dec 2022. Is that what you were trying to explain?

mklubeck
I was just giving additional information on things which are not available. To answer your question yes you can contact your Account Executive and they will be guide you on the timeline.

The most disappointing part about directory is very!! slow speed. Creating a new contact takes several minutes using the recommended workflow process. That means we cannot create a contact and then use it to authenticate a new survey immediately, which is something we used to do all the time. Or put info from one survey into a directory, redirect to another authenticated survey, and use the saved info. With contacts, it was almost instant. API calls are faster, but I think they are also throttled a bit now. Anyone found a great workaround?

YanL Not really a workaround, but I have experienced problems due to the slowness LIKE:
Person A take survey #1. We update their data in a Contact List based on their answers. We then email them a link to survey #2 which pulls in their responses from survey #1 from the contact list. Like you noted, it used to work fine, it was near-instantaneous. NOW, we have to delay the follow-on email for 1 hour (shortest time you can choose) to give the system time to process the change so we don't get an error.
This nearly breaks creating business process automation when you want to push a user from one survey to another, keeping the data available.

YanL Also, just FYI, I've opened a ticket with support (perhaps you should do the same?) because my business process automations (we would push someone with a redirect link in the End of Survey function in Survey Flow to another form using the Response ID as the external data reference) no longer work due to the delay in updating the contact list.

mklubeck We also opened several tickets with support about the slowness, and got something along the lines of "that's the expected behavior now, get used to it". Very frustrating, especially having to change multiple processes that have worked flawlessly for years.

YanL Are you the brand admin? I'd have the brand admin make noise...I am. As you say, it breaks processes. I'd list some of the processes and why it breaks them. I just opened a ticket to this effect and they "escalated" it...I expect I may hear the same answer (expected behavior) but I will follow up with my Relationship Manager and explain how it breaks functionality they used to provide. I can't do a redirect with a passed through ResponseID to open the next form and pull down the responses from the first...and on some the user didn't even know they were being shuttled to a second form...
So I plan to keep making noise. If it's expected behavior the question is why are they purposefully breaking functionality?

mklubeck I am a brand admin, and I also talked to my account rep, and they reached out to the team. So yeah, noise has been made. And agreed about breaking functionality with no suitable replacement. Both contact list triggers, which still sort of work, and new workflows are slowed to minutes instead of milliseconds. API webservices work for now, but we were warned that they may be throttled in the future.

https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/52275#Comment_52275This is very concerning - we definitely have a couple key processes that rely on that functionality.
We also have at least one survey that may be ongoing during the migration which uses a contact list for the authenticator and pulls in info from a different contact list via API. I'm not at all confident the migration won't break that process.

ccosart , YanL, All: I am finding that a 30 second delay between the redirect (But we can't do force a delay in a redirect) should work. I currently have the Input message (AND ERROR MESSAGE) read "Please wait 30 seconds and try again by hitting Next" AND also allowing 25 or more attempts at authentication. DEFINITELY NOT what I want, but it's a band-aid on a very deep wound.

ccosart It will most likely break, sorry.. When we were migrated, we noticed that the old contact list triggers were delayed by about 30 seconds to 1 minute. When we tried to redo it with Workflows (their new recommended process), we had delays of over 4 minutes. Now, these delays are to create new contacts; I believe updating contacts is a little faster, but I haven't timed it.

mklubeck You can built in a delay, actually. In the 2nd survey (after the redirect), you can put a block before the authenticator, and have a timer on that block that submits a page in 30 seconds. You can put a gif loading spinner or something on that block, or a countdown, or messages that appear after a pre-programmed delay (e.g., please wait while we XYZ). So -- the user would be redirected to the 2nd survey, wait for 30 seconds on that block, and then automatically proceeds to the authenticator, etc.

YanL
Yes, there is a (significant) delay in updating also. Thanks for the workaround for the delay on the second form! I'm definitely going to use that. I'll have to create a template of the question...and a local knowledge base article for my (super) users. NOT ideal, but at least we can make it function. Thanks for that. Perhaps we should suggest they create a new community called Q-Hacks, for workarounds.

This thread seems to have died, but I just want to add that the transition is catastrophic on multiple levels for users. There are no support files for Lite. After the support pages says that Lite exists, there's no reference to it again, so until someone at Qualtrics respond with some gaslighting response to your query, you have no idea what features you have or don't have. And what don't you have? EVERYTHING. You cannot sort or filter your contacts at all -- at all, ever, period. You cannot update your contacts by exporting and importing csv files, despite the support pages telling you that you can. It's not possible to do use Qualtrics for any professional purpose if you have Lite. Maybe if your goal is to send a survey to ten people, it would be sufficient. But hundreds? You're screwed.

gideunz I feel your pain. I am very frustrated also, but there a few (at least one https://www.qualtrics.com/support/iq-directory/getting-started-iq-directory/migrating-from-contacts-to-xm-directory/ ) support page on the differences between XM Directory (not Lite specifically) and the Contact List Legacy.
We have been able to export and import csv files. We have found 7 specific things that we can no longer do - one big one is the inability to export the contacts sorted or in the same order (of contacts and of fields) as used on import. That has caused a ton of issues.
On the thread dying...I wonder if during the holidays, admins didn't encounter problems yet? I'm now seeing a weird one with a Contact Trigger (the file is updating the wrong contact list! They have similar names "key requests" vs. "key request PI" it's updating the longer name when we clearly identify the shorter one!)