Siebel Life Sciences Guide > Planning Calls >

Tools for Planning Calls

• Siebel Life Sciences offers end users the following tools for planning their account calls:
• Targeting. For more information, see Targeting.
• Routes. For more information, see Routes.
• Activities. For more information, see Activities.

Targeting

Targeting using Global Target List Management is an extension of querying. In targeting, end users save the results of queries in a target list and then apply those saved lists to other views within Siebel CRM. In Siebel Life Sciences, a target list can be a set of contacts or accounts and can be applied to any view that contains contacts or accounts.

Using the account and professional targeting list views in the List Management screen, users can create advanced queries on contacts and accounts. Users can apply target lists to views individually or in combination with other target lists. If combining multiple target lists, users have the option of applying an intersection or a union of the lists. For more information on targeting, see the scenario Scenario 1: Users Create Target Lists and Creating and Applying Target Lists.

Routes

End users can create routes to schedule regular calls to groups of accounts. By defining a route, a user can plan the order in which to visit accounts and the determine a starting time for each account call. By arranging a group of accounts into an efficient route, users can minimize the amount of time spent traveling between accounts. After a route has been created, it can be used repeatedly to schedule future account calls. For more information on routes, see the scenario Scenario 2: Users Define Route Plans and About Defining a Route Plan.

Activities

An activity is a scheduled task or event. Activities represent the ways in which users spend their time. Although activities are typically performed or planned for opportunities, contacts, or accounts, they can also be personal tasks that users want to track. For more information on activities, see the scenario Scenario 3: Users Create Activities and About Creating Activities.

All activities with valid dates and times appear in the Calendar views as well as in the Activities views. The views in the Calendar screen provide a visual representation of each user's scheduled activities and appointments. For more information using the calendar, see Creating a General Activity in the Calendar.

Contact and Account Calls

Contact and account calls are a type of activity record. Although users create contact calls in the Contact screen, they actually record calls details in the Activities screen. For more information on scheduling calls, see Creating a Contact Call and Creating an Account Call. For information on recording calls, see Recording Calls.

Gantt Chart for Contact and Account Calls

An account-contact call planning Gantt Chart has been introduced specifically for the Japanese market in an earlier version of the Siebel Life Sciences application. The same functionality is now available for account calls and contact calls. Sales representatives can use these views to quickly create calls in a given timeline. For more information about Gantt Charts, see Planning Calls in the Weekly Call Planning Screen.