- Has your system administrator installed and configured a working Siebel Business Applications environment? (Prerequisite.)
For more information, see the Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using.
- Has your Communications Server administrator installed and configured your email server? (Prerequisite.)
- What communications drivers and profiles will you use for Siebel Email Response?
NOTE: Use the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server driver for connecting to all supported email servers.
Create communications profile names that correspond to all the mailboxes that you monitor, for example, customersupport@yourcompany.com and sales@yourcompany.com.
To obtain communications driver parameters (settings), see Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide. The values that you assign to driver parameters apply to every profile that uses that driver unless you add a profile parameter override value to the profile. Profile parameter overrides allow you to uniquely identify each profile. Step 4 explains these overrides.
For more information about communications drivers, communications driver parameters, and communications driver profiles, see Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide.
- What profile parameter overrides and values do you need to establish for each profile (email address) that you assign to the communications driver?
A profile parameter override is a setting that overrides the values on the driver that the profile uses. Note the following guidelines about profile parameter overrides:
- If you do not supply a profile parameter override, the default parameter value on the driver is used. Some required parameters do not have a default value, such as POP3 Account Name. You must provide values for all required parameters.
- If you supply a profile parameter override, the override value is used instead of the parameter value on the driver.
Each profile has parameter overrides that are necessary to connect to the email server account. For example, a common parameter override is From Address. The From Address parameter is passed to the SMTP server as the address that shows in the From field in an email reply. Values that you assign uniquely identify each profile. You add profile parameter overrides during Siebel Email Response setup procedures. For more information about driver profiles and parameter overrides, see Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide.
- Which email profiles (mailboxes) will receive Web-form messages and which will receive free-form messages?
Separate your email profiles into two groups, one to receive Web-form messages (such as, service requests) and one to receive free-form messages.
For each of these two groups of email profiles, separate the profiles into groups with the same types of email behavior (input arguments). You associate each of these profiles with a single response group.
These groups are the response groups and associated profiles that you create. For more information, see Setting Up Communications Driver Profiles and Setting Up a Response Group. Choose the following values for each group:
- Name. Select a meaningful name for each response group.
- Administrator email address. Select the email address to which you want to direct unprocessed email (email that cannot be processed due to a database error, a routing error, and so on) that is sent to the profiles in each response group.
- Description. Describe the types of email behavior that each response group controls. This information prepares you to set up input arguments for each response group.
- What email behaviors (input arguments) do you need for each profile type?
Input arguments provide information to a business service so it can process incoming email. Because input arguments control the way that email is handled, all profiles in a response group must have the same input arguments.
Using the response group description from Step 5, assign the input arguments to each group of email profiles. For a list of available input arguments, see Siebel Email Response and Business Services.
- Do you need to modify the workflows included with Siebel Email Response?
If you want to modify the predefined workflows, you must activate them in the Administration - Business Process screen before starting Siebel Server and receiving incoming email. For additional information about predefined workflows, see About Processing Email with Siebel Workflow.
CAUTION: If you modify a workflow, the modification is not upgraded when you upgrade your application. Re-create all modifications in the prebuilt workflows in the upgraded application.
For information about creating and modifying workflows, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.
- Which routing and queuing method will you use to route incoming email to agents?
By default, email messages are recorded in your database as activities or service requests.
Identify the routing and queuing methods that you want to use, such as manual assignment, Siebel Assignment Manager, or custom routing and queuing. For a description of the advantages and disadvantages of each method, see Routing and Queuing Methods Comparison Table.
For information about creating routing and queuing rules, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.
- Do you want to process email using real-time processing or nonreal-time processing?
Depending on your business requirements, you can set up Siebel Email Response for real-time or nonreal-time processing. For more information, see Real-Time Processing and Nonreal-Time Processing.
- Have you enabled your email server for Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)?
Siebel Email Response allows the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server driver to work with email servers that you enable for SSL. For more information, see Secure Sockets Layer Connections for the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server Driver.
