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About Case Management

The process of case management varies depending on the agency using Siebel Public Sector. To a social service agency, a case often represents a request for benefits. To a law enforcement department or national security agency, a case typically refers to an investigation. To a tax agency, a case can be an audit, an attempt to collect taxes due, and a taxpayer inquiry about a tax bill. Case management functionality in Siebel Public Sector is designed to meet the needs of a broad range of case management uses.

Although each type of case has specific requirements, and individual agencies have unique procedures for managing cases, many of the underlying case management processes are similar. Users create cases in Siebel Public Sector and assign owners to cases. Users can add supporting documentation, notes, and other details to the case. They can associate the case with accounts, contacts, and addresses. The case owner, and possibly other agents, must complete a set of activities to process the case. Users might arrange meetings for the case. They can use time sheets to assign their time to cases and then submit these time sheets to their managers for approval.

Cases Home Page

The Cases Home page is a useful starting point that provides quick access to case management functionality. By combining a specific case view with a predefined query, the central section of the home page incorporates a set of links that users can employ to navigate to frequently used case data. An administrator maintains these links using the View Links view of the Administration - Application screen. Users can create personal view links using the View Links view of the User Preferences screen. For more information, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide and Siebel Fundamentals.

Case Records Management

Users can create new case records for an individual, a household, or a group of individuals. Examples include: an employment agent opening a case when a jobless person files for unemployment benefits, a tax agent starting an audit of a married couple who file tax returns that seem to be inaccurate, and an investigator opening a case to scrutinize a motorcycle gang suspected of several crimes. The case management module can capture actions and interactions.

Using a configured workflow, case records can also be automatically created from events in external applications. Additionally, you can load case records in bulk using Oracle's Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager. For more details about using Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.

Development of Case Tasks Using iHelp

Agencies might want to define business processes for case management using iHelp, which provides instructions using a step format, and includes embedded view navigation links. iHelp is a guidance tool that delivers real-time assistance as users navigate through Siebel Public Sector. In addition, iHelp can highlight important fields and buttons on the view associated with each step of the task to draw the user's attention to the controls to use to complete the task. These tasks are available from the Cases Home page and from anywhere in the Cases screen by clicking on the How Do I button in the toolbar. For more information about using iHelp, see Siebel Fundamentals.

Case Activity Plans

Agencies can incorporate standard practices for case management into activity plans that are associated with cases to make sure that all cases are handled in a consistent manner. An activity plan is a set of tasks (activities in the Siebel data model) that users must complete to finish processing the case. An administrator can create the activity plans using the Activity Templates view of the Administration - Data screen. In the template, administrators can assign each discrete activity a description, priority, duration, and other details. When creating case activity plans, the Type field value is set to Case so that the activity plan is available from the Cases screen. Developers can use workflows to automate the process of adding activity plans to a case record. For more information, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide, Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide, and Activating Siebel Public Sector Workflows.

Case Relationships

Users can relate case records to other case records. The ability to associate one case to another is useful for tracking purposes if a citizen previously applied for benefits, or if multiple investigations have common aspects. When you add a case record as a related case to another case, the latter case is also added as a related case to the former. For example, if you add Case A to the list of related cases for Case B, then Case B is automatically included in the list of cases related to Case A.

Case Audits

Each case record includes a Siebel Audit Trail that stores changes that users make to fields in the case record. Administrators can specify and adjust the audited fields using the Audit Trail view of the Administration screen. You can grant administrators and managers access to the Siebel Audit Trail of a case to see the users who made changes to a case record. You can make the Siebel Audit Trail visible to a broader group of people who need insight into a case's history. For more information about the Siebel Audit Trail, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.