Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide > Managing Your Partners > Communicating with Your Partners >

Using Partner Alerts

Partner alerts are text messages that you send to your partners or to selected groups of recipients and which are displayed on the partners' home pages.

You can create a new message in the Alert Administration screen. You can enter the message in plain text or in HTML format. You can use an HTML authoring tool to create the message and then paste the HTML code into the new message.

Partner alerts support basic HTML tags. When a user is creating the body of a message in the Alert Administration screen, More Info form, the user can move the the cursor to the icon that looks like the letter "i" to display a list of the tags that are supported:

Do not use HTML tags other than these. Do not use tags that define the HTML document, such as <HTML>, </HTML>, <body>,</body>, or <header>, </header>.

The partner employees to whom you have sent this message will see the abstract in the Partner Alerts applet of their Siebel Partner Portal home page between the activation date and the expiration date that you specified. This applet lists abstracts of their partner alerts in an order that depends on the priority you gave each alert. The abstract is a hyperlink, which partners click to see the entire message.

You can also add literature or products as attachments, if desired. The recipients can view them through tabs that appear after they click on a hyperlinked abstract on the home page.

There are three types of messages currently defined:

Creating Partner Alert Keywords

Optionally, you can assign one or more keywords to each message, so you can specify which partners see messages with specific keywords by using Siebel Personalization.

Keywords can be reused across multiple messages. Keywords are entered separately for each message. Because they are free-form, you must be very disciplined when you enter them if you plan to use them for personalization across messages. Personalization will compare the keyword to attributes of the person logging into the Portal and only display those messages with a keyword corresponding to the profile.

For more information about personalization, see Personalization Administration Guide.

Creating Partner Alerts

Use the Alert Administration screen to create a partner alert.

To create a partner alert

  1. Navigate to the Alert Administration screen.
  2. In the Partner Alerts list, click the menu button, then click New Record.
  3. Enter information in the fields of the new record and the More Info form.

    4. Field
    Comment
    Priority
    Choose the priority of the message. This determines where the message appears in the list of partner alerts on your partners' Siebel Partner Portal home pages. Messages with the highest priority will be at the top of the list.
    Type
    Choose the type of the message. This determines which type of partner the message is displayed for. Select Partner Alert to display the message for employees of registered partner companies, Program Information to display the message for self-registered individual partners, or Public Information to display the message for unregistered anonymous users.
    Partner
    You must select the Partner check box for the alert to be displayed to partners.
    Message Body
    Type in the text of the message, including HTML formatting code if desired.
    Abstract
    Enter a brief abstract that summarizes the message. This will appear as a hyperlink on your partners' Siebel Partner Portal home pages.
    Keywords
    Enter Keywords that the user will be able to search on to find this message. You can also use keywords for personalization.
    All Users
    Select this check box if you want the message to appear to all partner users. Do not select this check box if you want to direct the message to specific partner companies or specific positions.
    Activation
    Enter the date when the message will first appear to your partners.
    Expiration
    Enter the date when the message will no longer appear to your partners.
    Created
    Automatically filled in with the date and time the message was created.
    Created By
    Automatically filled in with your login name.

  4. If you want to add literature as an attachment to the message:
    1. Click the Literature view tab.
    2. In the Literature list, click the menu button, then click New Record.

      3. The Add Literature dialog box appears.

    3. In the dialog box, select the Literature records you want to add.
    4. In the dialog box, click OK.
  5. If you want to add a product as an attachment to the message:
    1. Click the Product view tab.
    2. In the Products list, click the menu button, then click New Record.

      3. The Add Internal Products dialog box appears.

    3. In the dialog box, select the Products you want to add.
    4. In the dialog box, click OK.
  6. If you want to specify partner organizations to which you will send the message:
    1. Click the Recipients view tab.
    2. If it is not already selected, select Recipient Partners in the Show drop-down list.
    3. In the Recipients list, click the menu button, then click New Record.

      4. The Add Recipients by Partner dialog box appears.

    4. In the dialog box, select the partner organizations that will receive the alerts.
    5. In the dialog box, click OK.
  7. If you want to specify positions to whom you will send the message:
    1. Click the Recipients view tab.
    2. Select Recipient People in the Show drop-down list.
    3. In the Recipients list, click the menu button, then click New Record.

      4. The Add Positions dialog box appears.

    4. In the dialog box, select the people who will receive the alerts.
    5. In the dialog box, click OK.

 Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide 
 Published: 18 April 2003