Siebel Order Management Guide Addendum for Industry Applications > Overview of Order Management > Basic Concepts of Order Management >

About Products and Assets

The following concepts related to products and assets are important in complex order management. For more information on order management products and assets, see Siebel Order Management Guide.

Installed Assets and Billing Items

Installed assets are the assets that are served to a particular account. Installed assets include both products and services. A line item from an order becomes a service item if it is marked as a trackable asset in the product record.

Billing items are the services that are billed to a particular account.

Sometimes installed assets are installed at one account location, but are billed to another account location. For example, a company might have 150 phone lines installed at two different locations, yet receive the bill for all 150 phone lines at one of those locations. In that case, the location that receives the bill might only have 50 installed assets (the ones installed at that location), but have 150 billing items.

The service account and billing account for each line item are specified during the quote-and-order process. For customer end users creating quotes and orders in Siebel eSales, the service account and billing account are automatically defaulted for every line item. Employee end users may need to select the service account and billing account.

Service Products

A service product is a product that is not a physical product, although it is often associated with one. For example, a service that is delivered over time, such as telephone or electrical service, is considered a service product. A service product may have physical components. For instance, a residential electric service would include a meter. A product becomes a service product if it is marked as one in the product record.

Customizable Products

Your Siebel application provides the capability to build products composed of multilevel product hierarchies. A product may have other products as subcomponents, and those subcomponents may in turn have other products as their subcomponents, and so on.

Most customizable products are composed of multiple parts and can be configured in different ways, depending on the customer's needs. Here are some examples of customizable service products:

• A service that is delivered over time, such as telephone or electrical service. Such a service includes installation, monthly line usage, and usage-based items, such as long-distance calls.
• A bundle of services and products, such as service for a telephone line, options on that line—such as voice-mail and call waiting—and a phone.

Each product, regardless of its position in the hierarchy of a customizable product, may in turn have one or more specified attributes. For example, a telephone may be available in beige, taupe, or blue. These colors are the telephone's attributes, and provide another way that the product can be customized.

Customizable products can be sold as bundled products. When purchased as a bundle, different pricing structure may be used. For example, if a business purchases 10 phone lines, they may get a price break on the cost per month. Or with the addition of voice mail to an order, the user may have the option to add another option at a reduced cost. For more information about products and attributes and how they are handled in Siebel applications, see Product Administration Guide.

Simple Product

Simple products may have attributes that can be selected, but do not have subcomponents. For example, a telephone might come in different colors, but not have subcomponents to select.

Service ID

A service ID is a unique identifier of a service item, such as the phone number for a phone line.

When a customer orders a quantity of a certain product or service, such as a dozen phone lines, each phone line becomes an individual line item and can be given a separate service ID. End users can either explicitly ungroup the items to assign service IDs, or they will be automatically ungrouped when the quote is converted to an order.

The Service ID field is a text field, typically populated by your company's asset management system.

Integration ID

An integration ID is a unique identifier that is assigned to each trackable asset when it becomes a line item in a quote or an order. The integration ID does not appear on the screen.

NOTE:  It is important that this field not be used for other purposes, as this may affect the functions of the Order Line Items, Quote Line Items, and Assets.

Service Point

A service point is an asset that is installed at a particular service location and represents a network delivery point, such as a phone jack or a gas pipe. A field on the Quote and Order forms lets you select a service point based on the product type. The use of Service Points requires the Siebel Premises module. For more information, see Applications Administration Guide.