10 Configuring the Process Integration for Collections Management

This chapter discusses how to set up Oracle Billing and Revenue Management (Oracle BRM) and Siebel Customer Relationship Management (Siebel CRM). In addition, it discusses how to work with domain value maps (DVMs) and cross-references, how to handle errors, and how to configure the process integration for collections management.

This chapter includes the following sections:

Section 10.1, "Setting Up Oracle BRM"
Section 10.2, "Setting Up Siebel CRM"
Section 10.3, "Working with DVMs"
Section 10.4, "Working with Cross-References"
Section 10.5, "Handling Errors"
Section 10.6, "Configuring the Process Integration for Collections Management"

10.1 Setting Up Oracle BRM

To set up Oracle BRM:

Specify pay types to process.
Set the minimum overdue balance to process.
Set the number of bill units retrieved during step searches.
Set up invoice reminders.
Define collections features.
Configure how Collections Manager determines dates.

For more information, see Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Collections Manager Guide, "Setting up Collections Manager."
Create views on Oracle BRM and configure pin_collections_process to record start and end time.

10.1.1 Setting up Collection Action Names in Oracle BRM

As stated in Section 8.1, "Process Integration for Collections Management Overview," the process integration for collection management synchronizes collection actions between Oracle BRM and Siebel CRM. The collection actions are mapped to Siebel CRM as credit alerts using the DVM COLLECTION_ACTIONNAME.xml.

As delivered, DVM mappings exist for the following collections actions:

Impose Late Fee
Courtesy Phone Call
Courtesy Email or SMS Reminder
Courtesy Dunning Letter
Demanding Phone Call
Inactivate Services of Billinfo
Harsh Dunning Letter
Refer to outside agency
Writeoff Billinfo
Close Services of Billinfo
Inactivate the Account

Of the 11 collections actions, these 4 collections actions are seeded in Oracle BRM and are available as part of the product installation.

Inactivate Services of Billinfo
Close Services of Billinfo
Writeoff Billinfo
Refer to outside agency

Before you use the process integration, the implementer has the option of either adding these remaining 7 collection actions in Oracle BRM or run the collection integration process with the 4 seeded values listed previously. If the implementer's intent is to add these additional collection actions, then they must be entered manually in the Oracle BRM Collection Manager:

Impose Late Fee
Courtesy Phone Call
Courtesy Email or SMS Reminder
Courtesy Dunning Letter
Demanding Phone Call
Harsh Dunning Letter
Inactivate the Account

Caution:

Use caution when manually entering these action names in Oracle BRM because any change in spelling or case breaks the Sync Collection Action integration flow. The DVM lookup fails due to a mismatch of strings.

Note:

If the intent of the implementer is to use new or different collection action names, then explicit changes must be made in the COLLECTION_ACTIONNAME.xml DVM before you use the process integration.

10.2 Setting Up Siebel CRM

For some Siebel CRM interfaces, in Siebel, you must set the process property UTCCanonical to Y.

For more information about which Siebel CRM interfaces require you to enable the UTCCanonical process property, see instructions for ACR 474 and ACR 508 in the Siebel Maintenance Release Guide.

The credit alert appears in the customer service supervisor's queue by default, and the supervisor assigns the credit alert to a customer service representative (CSR). Siebel CRM can also be customized to automatically assign these credit alerts to a CSR based on a set of criteria as defined by the service provider.

To set up Siebel CRM:

Extract and copy the .ifb files from the ACR 463/EIM folder.
Place the ProcessAlertsAndBillingProf.ifb file on the server path: Siebsrvr/Admin

To configure Siebel CRM:

Make sure that the Siebel server is running.
Make sure that the Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM) component is online.
For creation of the EIM job:
1. Go to SiteMap, Administration - Server Management, Jobs
2. Click the New button and select Enterprise Integration Manager in the Component/Job tab.
3. Complete the following parameters on the Job Parameters applet: Configuration file = ProcessAlertsAndBillingProf.ifb. Enter appropriate settings for Error Flag, Trace Flag, and SQL Trace Flag
Click the Submit Job button.
Make sure that the status changes to Success for the job that you have run.
After the EIM job is done, query the IF_ROW_STAT column of EIM_ALERT_CUT table to ensure that all the records have been loaded in the Siebel base tables correctly.
Check the Siebel CRM user interface (UI) to ensure that the data appears in corresponding views of the Credit Management screen.

For more information, see Configuring Siebel Business Applications, Configuring EIM Interfaces.

For Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)-based collection flows, during the transfer of data from Oracle BRM to Siebel CRM, ODI creates some temporary tables in the Siebel database. Once the data is successfully written to the Siebel EIM table, these temporary tables are dropped. Therefore, the Siebel database administer must grant create table privilege so that ODI can create the temporary tables.

For more information about using ODI, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Data Integrator

10.3 Working with DVMs

Domain value maps (DVMs) are a standard feature of the Oracle service-oriented architecture (SOA) Suite that enables you to equate lookup codes and other static values across applications, for example, FOOT and FT or US and USA.

DVMs are static in nature, though administrators can add maps as required. Transactional business processes never update DVMs-they only read from them. They are stored in XML files and cached in memory at run time.

DVM types are seeded for the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management: Agent Assisted Billing Care flows. Administrators can extend the list of mapped values by adding more maps.

Table 10-1 lists the DVMs for the process integration for collections management:

Table 10-1 Collections Management - DVMs

DVM	Description
COLLECTION_ACTIONNAME.xml	DVM mapping for action name
COLLECTION_PRIORITY.xml	DVM mapping for priority
COLLECTION_STATUS.xml	DVM mapping for status
COLLECTION_SUBSTATUS.xml	DVM mapping for sub-status
CURRENCY_CODE.xml	DVM mapping for currency code

Caution:

DVMs are stored in the Metadata Services (MDS) repository, which uses the database persistence, and are managed using tools provided by JDeveloper or Foundation Pack.

For more information, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Working with Message Transformations," Working with DVMs and Cross-References.

10.4 Working with Cross-References

Cross-references map and connect the records within the application network, and they enable these applications to communicate in the same language. The integration server stores the relationship in a persistent way so that others can refer to it.

Table 10-2 lists the collections management cross-references:

Table 10-2 Collections Management - Cross-References

Cross-reference Table Name	Column	Description
CUSTOMERPARTY_ACCOUNTID	BRM/ SIEBEL	Used for cross-reference lookup for account ID.
CUSTOMERPARTY_BILLPROFILEID	BRM/ SIEBEL	Used for cross-reference lookup for billing profile ID.

10.5 Handling Errors

Handling Oracle BRM errors:

In case of any error, error details are logged to a file called CollectionsErrorLog.txt. This log file is available at <User_Home>/DISHome/CollectionsHome

Here <User_Home> is the UNIX user home path. For example, /slot/ems2880/oracle/DISHome/CollectionsHome

Handling Siebel CRM errors:

After every EIM load, check the value of the IF_ROW_STAT column in the EIM_ALERT_CUT table. The status is imported for successful loading. If the status is not imported, errors occurred during data load from the Siebel EIM tables to the Siebel base tables. Perform the following actions for this type of error:

From the Jobs view in the Administration - Server Management screen, navigate to the Tasks View in the same screen.
Get the task number from the Task field.
Navigate to the Siebsrvr\Log directory in the server and locate the log file by querying with the same task number.
The log file contains details of every level of EIM processing and errors if any.
Run the EIM job with appropriate .ifb property values after modifying the values for failed records.

For more information about EIM Error handling, see EIM Administration Guide, "Resolving Import Processing Problems."

For more information about the errors generated by Oracle BRM and Siebel CRM applications, see the documentation for that product.

For more information about setting up error notifications using these values, see Oracle Fusion Middleware Infrastructure Components and Utilities User's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Using Error Notifications" and "Using Trace and Error Logs."

10.6 Configuring the Process Integration for Collections Management

Configure these properties in the AIAConfigurationProperties.xml file. The file is located in <AIA_INSTANCES>/config/. Entries in the AIAConfigurationProperties.xml file are case-sensitive. See Table 10-3.

For more information about reloading updates to AIAConfigurationProperties.xml, see the Oracle Fusion Middleware Developer's Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack, "Building AIA Integration Flows."

Table 10-3 AIAConfigurationProperties.xml - Property Values

Property Name	Value/Default Values	Description
AIAHome	No default value. A value is entered during installation.	This property contains the absolute path to AIA Home.
BatchSize	Default value = 5000 After installation, administrators or users can change this value.	This property specifies the number of messages to dequeue in one batch. For information about changing batch size default value, see Section 10.6.1, "Changing the BatchSize Default Value."
Default.SystemID	SEBL_01	This property gives the system ID of Siebel CRM.
IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_CreatedStart	Default value = 100. After installation, administrators or users can change this value.	This property indicates the starting value of the batch number (IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM) for the rows for new collection actions created in the Siebel EIM table.
IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_CreatedEnd	Default value = 199 After installation, administrators or users can change this value.	This property indicates the end value of the batch number (IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM) for the rows for new collection actions created in the Siebel EIM table.
IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_UpdateStart	Default value = 200 After installation, administrators or users can change this value.	This property indicates the starting value of the batch number (IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM) for the updated collection actions in the Siebel EIM table.
IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_UpdateEnd	Default value = 299 After installation, administrators or users can change this value	This property indicates the ending value of the batch number (IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM) for the updated collection actions in the Siebel EIM table.
IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_Error	Default value = 50 After installation, administrators or users can change this value.	This property defines the value for the IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM for the unsuccessful collections actions during importing from the Siebel EIM table.
AL_SOURCE_CD	Customer	This property is used to update the AL_SOURCE_CD value in the Siebel EIM table.
AL_TYPE_CD	Credit	This property is used to update the AL_TYPE_CD value in the Siebel EIM table.

10.6.1 Changing the BatchSize Default Value

Changing the BatchSize default value has dependencies on the batch size that is defined in Siebel. Before you make any changes to this property, check Siebel documentation to find out the optimal batch size and accordingly make changes to this property.

For example, if the BatchSize property is changed to 5000 and the IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_CreatedStart = 100 and IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM_CreatedEnd = 199, then ODI can simultaneously dequeue 5000*100 = 500000 records into Siebel EIM table. Siebel batch size for the EIM table load must match so that it can manage this data upload from ODI.