This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Territory Manager assigns business objects (customers and leads, for example) to resources based on configurable business rules. It defines who owns what.
When concurrent programs are run, the territory assignment engine assigns business objects such as the following to resources:
customers
leads
opportunities
service requests
tasks
contract renewals
trade management claims and offers
Additional information on concurrent programs for sales is in the "Setting Up and Using Territory Assignment Program (TAP)" section of either the Oracle Sales Implementation Guide or the Oracle TeleSales Implementation Guide.
Territory implementations use all or a subset of the following components to build territories:
Territory Types: Required. Territory Types are the building blocks for all territories. A type is blueprint for territories, defined by a specific set of transaction types and corresponding matching attributes.
Self Service Named Accounts: Optional. Sales administrators use the seeded named account territory type to create named account territories. Sales managers then assign their named accounts to individual sales representatives. Sales managers use the alignment tool to create different territory assignment models and compare them.
Self Service Geographic Territories: Optional. Sales administrators create a self-service geographic type to create geographic territories and assign them to sales managers. Sales managers can then allocate their geographic region to their directs.
Concurrent programs enable territory definitions.
A stand-alone sales team search is available to any user.
Sales organizations use territories to automatically assign prospects to salespeople.
An example of a sales territory is: High-tech companies within a specific geographic area. This territory is defined using the following matching attributes:
Account Classification = High Tech
State = California
The resource assigned to the territory is Joe who is in Sam's sales group. When the assignment engine is run Joe is assigned to all high-tech companies that have an address in the state of California. Because Joe is in Sam's sales group, his manager and the other resources within his group can be granted access to these same companies.
Most customers fall into sales territories segmented along geographic or industry boundaries. Named accounts represent individual customers elevated from geographic territories and deemed by a sales organization as critical enough to have their own salesperson or account manager.
By their very nature, named account territories are difficult and complex to maintain and revolve around a decentralized business process.
Upper levels of sales management identify a set of named accounts and associate them to a sales division. The sales vice presidents responsible for the sales division distribute named accounts to their directs in a top down fashion through the sales hierarchy until all named accounts are owned by salespersons.
Proper territory alignment is frequently overlooked and can have a high impact on sales force productivity. Without any additional salespeople, studies have shown 2-7% increases in sales revenue due to proper territory alignments.
Sales managers start the year with compensation plans, named accounts, and quotas. They can then build and save what-if territories in an iterative manner until their alignment goals are met.
Sales managers export a territory alignment to spreadsheet, change named account assignments, and upload the changes for the alignment. Through the HTML interface they use analytic data to compare two alignments using graphs and a calculated balance index. When managers have finalized an alignment they can activate it, making it the one of record.
At the end of the alignment process, you can manually enter named account quotas into the Oracle Incentive Compensation Quota Planning module.
Geographies are centrally identified to a sales organization and distributed top down to individual salespeople. Ownership changes are reflected quickly to all levels of sales management and for incoming leads and opportunities.
At each level of the distribution process, the ownership of geographies is clearly and accurately communicated. Sales management interfaces are simplified for common administrative tasks such as the transfer of geographic territories between salespeople.
The following Oracle modules can use Oracle Territory Manager to assign business objects to resources:
Oracle Collections
Oracle Partner Manager
Oracle Field Service
Oracle Service Contracts
Oracle Trade Management
In Oracle Field Service, all high urgency service requests for internal IT support should go to the senior IT support person, John Gray. A territory is defined, with John Gray as the resource, using the following matching attributes for service requests:
Request Type = Internal: IT
Request Severity = High1
Request Status = Open
Request Urgency = Immediate
Oracle Territory Manager includes the following features:
Over 100 matching attributes through which to define territory rules
Territory Types for ease of territory creation for any usage (such as Oracle Sales or Oracle Service)
Assignment to individual resources, groups, or teams
Named account support
Self-service distribution of named accounts
Named account alignments with visual comparison of what-if territories
Export to spreadsheet for ease of territory maintenance
Self-service distribution of geographic territories
Configurable territory exception handling through Oracle Workflow
Ability to create custom matching attributes through a public API
Oracle Territory Manager uses resources defined in Resource Manager to assign resources to a territory. The following modules depend upon Oracle Territory Manager:
Oracle TeleSales and Oracle Sales: accounts, leads, and opportunities are assigned to sales agents based on territory definitions. Territory alignment uses past opportunity data in calculating metrics.
Oracle Incentive Compensation: uses the sales set up for accounts.
Oracle Service: incoming service requests or tasks are routed to appropriate resources.
Assignment Manager in Oracle Common Application Calendar: retrieves qualified resources identified in territories.
Oracle Trade Management: offers and claims are assigned to qualified resources.
Oracle Collections: delinquencies are assigned to the correct collections agents.
Oracle Partner Management: Partners are assigned to qualified resources.
Oracle Territory Manager depends upon the following modules:
Oracle Resource Manager: resources are defined and can then be assigned to territories.
Oracle Workflow: objects that end up in the catch all territory can start a workflow.
Oracle Trading Community Architecture: TCA provides customer information, customer hierarchy information, DUNS number, DNB annual revenue, and DNB number of employees.
Oracle Web ADI: The application uses Web ADI to export and import territory definitions to and from Microsoft Excel.
A usage is an Oracle Applications module that uses Oracle Territory Manager to assign resources. Following are the available usages:
Collections
Partner Management
Sales
Service
Service Contracts
Trade Management
Matching attributes are criteria used to identify territories. A matching attribute consists of three components: name, operator, and value. The following table describes each component:
| Components | Description |
|---|---|
| Name | The name of the matching attribute. It can be postal code, item, task priority, request status, job title, or others. |
| Operator | Use the operator to connect a matching attribute name and its values to make an attribute meaningful. The operator's list of values (LOV) depends on the data type of the matching atribute. Operators are Is Equal To, Contains, and Is Between. The default value for this field is "is equal to". You can use the Is Between operator for less than or greater than. For example, Is Between 0 and 5000000 or Is Between 5000000 and 99999999999. |
| Value | The selection from the LOV in this field is based on the selected matching attribute. For example, the LOV for the request status matching attribute can be Open or Closed. If the matching attribute is area code, then manually enter this field, for example, 408, 415, and so on. |
Transaction matching attributes are used to specify the criteria about how the territory module assigns resources to transactions. It is the first key decision point when Assignment Manager tries to assign resources to a document or a task.
For example, use area code, postal code, company name, or opportunity channel as the criteria to help assign qualified resources for transaction needs.
Different territory usages, like Oracle Sales or Service, use different sets of transaction matching attributes which are grouped by transaction type. For example, a sales territory has five predefined transaction types: account, lead, quote, proposal, and opportunity. Some examples of transaction matching attributes within the Account Transaction Type are company name, area code, and postal code. Opportunity channel is one transaction matching attribute for the Opportunity Transaction Type.
Note: You must enable transaction matching attributes before using them.
Sample List of Seeded Transaction Matching Attributes
Territory Manager includes seeded matching attributes for the following modules:
Oracle Sales and Oracle TeleSales
Oracle Field Service
Oracle Trade Management
Oracle Service Contracts
Oracle Collections
Oracle Partner Management
Among all the transaction matching attributes, there are three which should be explained to avoid confusion:
This transaction matching attribute defines a customer name.
In contrast to a Customer Name matching attribute, a Customer Name Range matching attribute is used to indicate more than one customer (or customer names) by entering appropriate values. This matching attribute captures a range of business names.
Business World Worldwide has the following branches and subsidiaries: Business World Motor, Business World Book, Business World Service, USA Business World, Russia Business World, and UK Business World. You can use the Customer Name Range matching attribute to group similar customer names together by using the following values:
Like “Business World%”: This value represents Business World Motor, Business World Book, and Business World Service.
Between “A% Business World” to “Z% Business World”: This value represents USA Business World, UK Business World, and Russia Business World.
Instead of entering the Customer Name Range values every time when defining a territory, you can use the Customer Name Range Group matching attribute to group these frequently used values together and give them a group name, for example, Business World. This matching attribute was developed so that businesses can conveniently group together all names of a company including its subsidiaries.
Create a Customer Name Range Group matching attribute called “Business World” with a grouping of the following values that you used for Customer Name Range:
Like “Business World %”
Between “A% Business World” to “Z% Business World”
In this way, you can use “Business World” as the Customer Name Range Group matching attribute to list all Business World related branches and subsidiaries in one step when you define a territory.
The purpose of having territory hierarchies is to make the territory assignments and searches more efficient. Territory hierarchies also have the ability to store the parent-child relationship among territories.
Parent-Child Territory
Any territory consisting of one or more subterritories is considered as a parent territory. For example, a West Coast territory could consist of three subterritories: Washington, Oregon, and California. This West Coast territory and the three subterritories have the parent-child relationship.
Features of a Child Territory (Subterritory)
To help maintain integrity in the hierarchy, each child territory logically inherits the matching attributes and values of the parent territory. Also, additional matching attributes and values can be added.
Territory Manager uses the Number of Winners field set to the top level of territory hierarchy to determine the winning territories. This field cannot be entered if it is not the top level territory, except for the Sales usage.
For the Sales and TeleSales usage only, you can set the number of winners separately from the top level territory down four levels (total of five levels). The number of winners applies to the next level of territories only. If you do not set the number of winners for a territory it defaults to the number of winners for its parent.
Territory winning rules are used in several different ways in the Oracle E-Business Suite. For example, Oracle Service tends to enter 1 in the Number of Winners field, which helps to select the most qualified resources for the service requests.
Multiple winners are commonly used in Oracle Sales to meet the business needs, but a single winner is also used in Sales. If the Number of Winners field is not set, then the number of winning territories defaults to one for the hierarchy under that top-level territory.
There are two possible outcomes based on values entered in the Number of Winners field:
If you enter 1 in the Number of Winners field, then Territory Manager assigns the transaction to a single territory in the territory hierarchy.
Use the territory ranking mechanism for breaking ties between winning territories. The highest rank of competing territories (which is represented by a lower number) wins against the lowest rank of the territories (which would be the higher number) in the same level of the territory hierarchy. Lower levels in a hierarchy always win over higher levels.
If you enter a number greater than 1 in the Number of Winners field, then Territory Manager assigns a transaction to multiple qualifying territories.
Use the Number of Winners field to limit the number of winning territories. However, if there are three territories that qualify for the criteria, but it can only have two winners, then ranking determines the final two winners among the three territories.
Note: Only active territories that have resources attached can be winning territories.
Rank is used to specify the priority of a territory among multiple winners. The choice is only random if no rank has been defined. The lowest rank of competing territories wins at the same level in the hierarchy. For example, from rank 1 to 10 for the same hierarchy level, rank 1 has the highest priority.
The following example shows how zip codes are used to set up three overlapping territories:
Territory 1: zip code Between 90001 and 90051
Territory 2: zip code Between 90020 and 90070
Territory 3: zip code Between 90049 and 90052
Note that the transaction value: zip code = 90050
The previous three territories are all qualified for this transaction. If the Number of Winners is set to 1, then the single winning territory in the following both situations is:
Condition A:
Territory 1: Rank 2
Territory 2: Rank 3
Territory 3: Rank 2
Winner can be either Territory 1 or Territory 3.
Reason: Territory 1 and Territory 3 have the highest rank. The Assignment Manager selects Territory 1 or Territory 3 randomly.
Condition B:
Territory 1: Rank 3
Territory 2: Rank 2
Territory 3: Rank 4
The winner is Territory 2.
Reason: The territory with rank 2 wins over the territories with rank 3 and 4.
Territory administrators create territory types based on transaction types and corresponding matching attributes. The territory types form the basis for creating territories.
Your Oracle Applications may be set up with more than one operating unit, or organization. For example, you have separate operating units for the United States and Europe. The enterprise information for each operating unit is kept separate. One territory administrator, however, can be responsible for both operating units and can work with territory information in each without needing to log out of one operating unit and log into the other operating unit.
Users who have access to more than one operating unit need to select the operating unit they want to work in on applicable screens.
For example, a territory administrator selects the United States operating unit and reviews the available service territories, then selects the Europe operating unit and reviews the available service territoriesfor Europe and creates an additional territory for Europe.
Matching attributes are seeded criteria used to identify territories. For example, country is a geographic matching attribute. Oracle Territory Manager has seeded matching attributes for the following usages and transaction types:
Collections: customer
Partner Management: partner
Sales and TeleSales: account, lead, opportunity, proposal, quote
Service: service request, service request and task, task
Service Contracts: contract renewal
Trade Management: claim, offer
In addition, you can create your own custom matching attribute through a public API. Before you can assign a matching attribute to a territory type, you need to enable it.
Role: Territory Manager Application Administrator
The Service Request and Task transaction type means tasks are created through a service request. If it is a stand-alone task, use the Task transaction type instead.
You cannot disable a matching attribute that is part of a territory type definition.
A territory type must be created and enabled for a usage, such as Collections, before territories can be created for that usage. A type already exists for named accounts for the Sales usage.
If you have access to multiple organizations, or operating units, then you can create territory types for each organization.
Only enabled attributes can be added to a territory type.
For example, your company is set up with two operating units, United States and Europe. You have been assigned the territory administrator roles for all usages. You create the following territory type:
Organization: United States
Usage: Service
Territory Type Name: Service Request Assignment
Transaction: Service Request
Attribute for Service Request Transaction: Request Severity
Attribute for Service Request Transaction: Request Status
A territory type cannot be deleted if territories exist for that territory type.