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How It Works - Dun & Bradstreet Data Blocks

Using D&B Data Blocks as data source requires the customer to have an agreement with Dun & Bradstreet for the product Direct+ Data Blocks. For ACD to function with Data Blocks, the customer needs to have credentials for the Direct+ Match API, and for the Direct+ Data Blocks API. The former is used to search for matching companies, and the latter is used for adding customer-specified data for a selected match.

Dun & Bradstreet Direct+ Connect API

When a search is performed, ACD uses the endpoint for Identity Resolution in the D&B Direct+ API, and when fetching company data for a selected search hit ACD uses the endpoint for Company Information by sending in the duns-number as a parameter along with the selected data blocks.

Country Support

The default country to search in must be configured, see configuration example for D&B Data Blocks.

Exclusion Criteria

The D&B Direct+ search is hard coded to exclude companies which are out of business.

Monitoring

Supports monitoring → Yes

The D&B Direct+ Data Blocks API provides a Monitoring feature that allows for auto-update. The provider fully supports this feature. It means, when enabled, the ACD will automatically: - register all companies with duns number to D&B Direct+ Data Blocks Monitoring - update company data during the nightly job in two steps process: 1. Re-pull data not older than 14 days from D&B API for all companies that failed to update before 2. Pull data not older than 4 days from D&B API for all other companies

The selected periods are described in the D&B Direct+ Data Blocks Monitoring documentation. It is noteworthy that failing to update a company in the selected period will require a manual update of the company.

Migrating from D&B Business Contacts

D&B is phasing out Business Contacts in favor of Data Blocks. Data Blocks identifies companies by their DUNS number, so the Business Contacts IDs stored in Lime CRM must be replaced before ACD can update your companies from Data Blocks.

  1. Agreement with D&B. You, as a customer of Lime CRM, need a Data Blocks agreement with D&B. Nightly updates are recommended, and require Monitoring to be included in the agreement.

  2. New provider ID property. Add a new text property on the company limetype for the DUNS numbers, for example acd_id_datablocks. This is recommended over overwriting Data provider ID (acd_id), since the old Business Contacts IDs are kept.

  3. ACD configuration. In the Administrator's pages, go to Settings -> Add Company Data and:

    • set Provider to Dun & Bradstreet Data Blocks (Direct+ API) and pick a Default country in the Dun & Bradstreet Data Blocks section,
    • set Provider id property to the new property,
    • redo the Field mapping, since Data Blocks uses different provider properties, see the D&B Data Blocks configuration.

  4. Credentials. Add the Data Blocks credentials to the application configuration. For Cloud installations, this is done by Lime Technologies.

  5. DUNS numbers. Follow the Onboarding instructions in the Administrator's pages (Settings -> Add Company Data -> Onboarding). In short: export your companies, let D&B add a DUNS number per company, import the DUNS numbers into the new property and click Clean up data.

    Note

    Clean up only includes companies where Last updated from data provider and Error message data provider are empty. Companies previously updated from Business Contacts already have a Last updated from data provider value, so clear it before cleaning up, for example with a bulk update from the company table.

  6. Nightly updates (recommended). Enable monitoring in the application configuration, see Monitoring and General configuration. For Cloud installations, this is done by Lime Technologies.