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Defining Proposal Template Sections


After you have created your Word documents and a record for your template, define the structure of your proposal template.

A proposal is made up of sections, which divide and subdivide your proposal. Depending on your needs, a single section might contain multiple components or a single component.

The type of a section depends on the nature of the data it contains. For example, file sections contain documents, chart sections reference Siebel charts, report sections reference Siebel reports, and so on.

You define the structure of the proposal template by creating sections in the Administration - Document screen > Proposal Templates view, which are associated with the template record you created for this template. You must create top-level sections. Optionally, you can add subsections to these. Your proposal structure can have multiple levels of sections, because a subsection can contain other subsections.

These tasks are a step in Process of Creating Proposal Templates.

Creating Top-Level Sections for Proposal Templates

First, you must create top-level sections.

To create top-level sections

  1. Navigate to the Administration - Document screen > Proposal Templates view.
  2. In the Template Explorer list, in the left frame, click the plus sign (+) next to the template record that you created for this proposal.

    The Sections folder appears in the Explorer list.

  3. In the Explorer list, click the plus sign (+) next to the Sections folder.

    The Sections list appears in the right frame.

  4. In the Sections list, create a new record.
  5. In the Name field, enter a name for the section, which will not appear in the proposal itself.
  6. In the Sequence field, specify the order in which this section should appear in the proposal.
  7. In the Section Type field, indicate the type of section you are creating.

    The following table describes the section types available.

    Type
    Comments

    Chart

    Inserts a Siebel chart. The chart can be placed in the left margin, right margin, or centered, and you can change the x, y, and z axes.

    File

    Contains only proposal text in DOC or TXT format.

    Locator

    Pulls in documents from the Siebel Encyclopedia. For example, if you create a locator section, Siebel Proposals can dynamically pull in documents from the encyclopedia that are related to the products the opportunity is interested in. For instance, if you want the proposal to dynamically insert text related to the products on the opportunity, use a locator. The file types must be DOC, TXT, or RTF. If more than one marketing document meets the locator criteria you specify, Siebel Proposals inserts each.

    Organization Chart

    Creates a slide and pulls in organization charts for the account or opportunity associated with the template. Charts are automatically centered.

    Report

    Dynamically inserts a Siebel report (such as Siebel Quote).

    When inserting reports, the Proposal engine converts the Actuate report to HTML and inserts the HTML version as a table in your proposal. When designing reports to be included in Siebel Proposals, you may want to review headers and footers, because HTML sometimes crops these.

    Only Actuate reports can be included. Microsoft Access reports cannot be included.

    Table

    Pulls Siebel application data into a table format. You select fields to be included, the sequence of the fields, and the column length. By selecting a table section, you also allow creation of a related table section. See Adding Related Table Subsections to Proposal Templates.

  8. Complete the fields applicable to your section type.

    Table 77 describes the fields that you should complete for each type of section.

  9. Repeat Step 4 through Step 8 to add all the top-level sections that are needed.
    Table 77. Selected Fields in the Proposal Template Administration View
    Section Type
    Field
    Comments

    All

    Condition

    Conditions can be applied to all section types. For information about conditions, see Using Conditions in Proposal Templates.

    File

    N/A

    Only the Condition field is applicable.

    Chart

    Business Object

    The Siebel business object from which the chart information is coming (for example, Opportunity). Select from the Business Objects dialog box, which lists all available Siebel business objects.

    Chart or Table Name

    The name of the chart applet you want to insert into this section (for example, "Opportunity Chart Applet - Current Opportunity Analysis"). The list contains all available applets.

    Search Spec

    Any search criteria you want to use to restrict data for the chart. For example, Revenue > 500000.

    Width

    How wide the chart should be in the proposal document. The default width is 400 pixels.

    Height

    How high the chart should be in the proposal document. The default height is 300 pixels.

    Category

    With charts that provide multiple X-axis options, this field allows you to set the option to use for the X-axis. For example, in the Lead Analysis by Rep chart, the X-axis can be Sales Representative or Quality.

    Function

    With charts that provide multiple Y-axis options, this field allows you to set the option to use for the Y-axis. For example, in the Lead Analysis by Rep chart, the Y-axis can be Number of Opportunities, Opportunity Revenue, or Average Opportunity Revenue.

    Series

    This field allows you to set the Z-axis you wish to use for charts that provide multiple Z-axis options.

    Chart Location

    Location of the chart on the proposal page: Left, Right, or Center. Any text components you include in your chart section will wrap around the chart. For example, if you put your chart on the left, the text component will be inserted to the right of the chart.

    Locator

    Information Retrieval Method

    Select the relationship to use to find literature. For example, Oppty Competitor Lit, which is the literature on competitors associated with the opportunity.

    Retrieved Literature Category

    Indicate the type of literature you are looking for (for example, brochures, or specification sheets). This helps you to filter out the documents from the encyclopedia that you want to include in the proposal.

    Organization Chart

    Business Object

    The Siebel object from which the information is taken. Select from the Business Objects dialog box, which contains all available business objects from your repository.

    Chart or Table Name

    The name of the applet that contains the organization chart data. For example, the Opportunity Organization Analysis applet.

    Report

    Business Object

    The Siebel business object from which the report information is coming (for example, Opportunity). Select from the Business Objects dialog box, which lists all available Siebel business objects. For example, to include a quote report in your proposal, you would select Quote.

    Report Name

    The name of the report you want to insert in this section. Select from the Reports dialog box, which shows all available reports. For example, you might choose Proposal Quote.

    Link Spec

    Specifies the data to insert in your report. In the previous quote example, the Link Spec is Opportunity, Id/Quote, Opportunity Id. The syntax of the Link Spec is:

    <Parent Business Component Name><Comma><Parent-ID Field Name><Slash><Child Business Component Name><Comma><Child-ID Field Name>

    Descriptions of these fields can be found in Siebel Tools Online Help. The Child-ID-Field-Name may vary, depending on whether the relationship between your parent business component and child business component is one-to-many or many-to-many. You or your system administrator can find Link Spec information in the Siebel Repository.

    You can include only Actuate reports.

    Search Spec

    The search criteria. For example, if you want to insert only the Active Quotes for the Opportunity, your Search Spec is Active = 'Y'.

    Table

    Business Object

    This is the Siebel object from which the information is taken. Select from the Business Objects dialog box, which contains all available business objects from your repository. For example, if you want to include a list of products being offered to the opportunity, the business object is Opportunity.

    Chart or Table Name

    This is the name of the applet where the table data is stored.

    In the example used for Business Object, the applet is Opportunity Product Applet.

    Width

    Width represents a percentage of the space available between the template margins. If you choose 100, that equates to 100% of the space between the template margins. If you enter 125, that represents 125% of the space between the borders.

    If left blank, the width of the columns in the table is based on pixels.

    Table Fields

    Click the select button to open the Table Fields dialog box; then, for each field you want in the table, add a new record and enter the following information:

    • The Field Name of the field; for example, Product.
    • The Sequence in which you want the field listed.
    • The Width of the column in the table; column Width is measure in pixels. The default (and minimum) column width is 100 pixels. A second way to define column width is by percentage of the table width. When a value is entered into table width, column width equates to percentage of total table width. For example, if there are three fields and table width is set to 100, field widths of 25, 65, and 35 would equate to 25%, 65%, and 35% of the total width of the table. In this example, if the table width was not set, the field widths would equate to 25, 65, and 35 pixels.
    • The Alignment of the data in the field: Left, Center, Right.

Adding Subsections to Proposal Templates

After adding top-level sections, you may want to add subsections to one or more of them.

To add subsections to an existing section

  1. Navigate to the Administration - Document screen > Proposal Templates view.
  2. In the Template Explorer list, in the left frame, click the plus sign (+) next to the template to which you want to add a subsection.

    The Sections folder appears in the list.

  3. In the Template Explorer, click the plus sign (+) next to the Sections folder for this template.

    The Explorer list shows the sections for this template, and the Sections list appears to the right.

  4. In the Template Explorer, click the plus sign (+) next to the section to which you want to add a subsection.

    The Sections, Related Table, and Components folders for this section appear in the list.

  5. Click the plus sign (+) next to the Sections folder for this section.

    The Sections list appears, listing all subsections under this section.

  6. Use the Sections list to add a subsection in the same way you used it to add a top-level section, as described in To create top-level sections.

NOTE:  When a proposal is generated, a section is generated before any of its subsections and is displayed above a subsection in the finished document.

Adding Related Table Subsections to Proposal Templates

After adding a Table Name section, you can add related tables that provide detailed information for the first table. For example, if the tables subsection contains a quote record, the related table can contain the quote line items. The relationship between the information is essentially a parent-child-grandchild relationship; the opportunity is the parent record, the quote table is the child, and the related table containing the quote line items is the grandchild.

To add a related table

  1. Navigate to the Administration - Document screen > Proposal Templates view.
  2. In the Template Explorer list in the left frame, click the plus sign (+) next to the template to which you want to add a related table.

    The Sections folder appears in the list.

  3. In the Explorer list, click the plus sign (+) next to the Sections folder.

    The Sections list appears in the right frame.

  4. In the Sections list, add a new section or edit an existing section.
  5. In the Section Type field, select Table and enter the table name.
  6. Complete all necessary fields.
  7. In the Explorer list, click the plus sign (+) next to the Related Table folder.

    NOTE:  The Related Table folder in the Template Explorer is used only for the Table section type. This folder can be edited only if a table has already been added.

  8. In the Related Tables dialog box, complete the fields as described in the following table.
    Field
    Comments

    Business Object

    Select the Siebel object to which this table is related.

    Table Name

    Select the name of the related table applet.

    Field Name

    Select the fields to be displayed in this table. If none are selected, all fields appear. The width is interpreted the same way as the parent table section. If the width of the table section is set, the width of the fields is used as percentages instead of pixels.

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