LexisNexis InterAction 5.5

LexisNexis Interface Software has announced the release of InterAction 5.5, the latest upgrade to its customer relationship management solution for professional services organizations. InterAction 5.5 seeks to extend firms’ ability to leverage relationship intelligence in the global marketplace; expand the scope of data firms can centrally capture and manage; and provide new reporting capabilities to give customized and tailored access to relationship intelligence in virtually any layout or format.

Said LexisNexis InterAction vice president / general manager John McDonnell, “InterAction 5.5 provides more ways to collect information, more ways to distribute that information to professionals, marketing and business development teams, and more ways to leverage Relationship Intelligence internationally.” The solution is based in the Microsoft .Net framework, a new report writing tool, is complemented by dozens of modifiable, out-of-the box reports, and provides users complete control and flexibility over presenting InterAction Relationship Intelligence. “Relationship intelligence” is a fairly recent term. Press material not-so-simply describes the niche as “a firm-wide asset that reveals the unique and complex connections between people, companies, relationships, experience and expertise, empowering professionals to leverage who and what they know to uncover new revenue opportunities, differentiate themselves from the competition and enhance client service.” Sample reports include a “Who Knows Whom”, activities, opportunity win/loss, marketing event analysis, change reports, customized overview reports, marketing and working list inclusions, and contact type. InterAction reports can also be created in Microsoft Reporting Services, Crystal Reports and most of the more common file formats. And the new release has globalization in mind, adding support and enhanced mailing capabilities for users in “virtually any country.”

InterAction and its related modules now support Unicode data, enabling multi-national customers to integrate contact data into InterAction from all users and sources from all languages except bi-directionals such as Arabic, Farsi and Hebrew. Additionally, the user’s home country and language can be configured within all InterAction environments and reports. The upgrade also provides Microsoft Outlook calendar synchronization. Users can add calendar appointments into InterAction “with a single click of a button,” and the system will automatically log meeting date, subject matter, location, time, participants and notes entered into the Outlook calendar form.

Addressing relationship intelligence, InterAction has added document-linking capabilities to version 5.5 for firms that have not otherwise implemented a document management system. Now firms can securely link virtually any document type, even those attached to an email message, to activities related to specific people, companies or projects, thus ensuring that all aspects of an interaction are captured and accessible in the centralized repository. Clearly high on the product, Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP marketing technology director Gregory Trinh claimed that “InterAction’s new reporting facility will significantly enhance our ability to respond quickly to […] information requests by enabling us to aggregate and deliver internal and external information.” And now InterAction throws down the gauntlet to its competitors: “The breadth, depth and quality of this new release demonstrates LexisNexis’ commitment to the InterAction platform and to ensuring that it continues to raise the bar by which all professional services CRM solutions are judged,” said McDonnell.

LexisNexis Interface Software is a leading provider of information and services solutions, featuring its flagship Web-based Lexis and Nexis research services, to a wide range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate, government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. The company is a member of Reed Elsevier Group plc and does business in 100 countries with 13,000 employees. LexisNexis Interface Software is the no. 1 provider of CRM solutions enabling professional services firms and similar relationship-based organizations in creating relationship intelligence.

Its flagship product, LexisNexis InterAction, is a relationship intelligence providing program which is internet-enabled, allowing the viewing of information through knowledge management platforms, corporate portals, intranet, extranet and wireless devices.