| Oracle® Application Integration Architecture Oracle Communications Order to Cash Integration Pack Implementation Guide for Siebel CRM, Oracle Communications Order and Service Management, and Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Release 11.3 Part Number E37675-02 |
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This chapter provides an overview of the process integration for Customer Management and describes the Synchronize Customer Account and Synchronize Customer Special Rating Profile business flows.
The process integration for Customer Management lets you synchronize customer information between Siebel customer relationship management (Siebel CRM) and Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM). You create customers in Siebel CRM and send their account information to BRM. You update customer data in Siebel CRM and resynchronize it to BRM through the process integration for Customer Management. This is a one-way synchronization process.
The process integration for Customer Management delivers the following business flows:
The Synchronize Customer Account business flow enables the following integration flows:
The Create/Sync Customer Account integration flow interfaces customers to BRM as part of the process integration for Order Lifecycle Management.
See "Understanding the Synchronize Fulfillment Order Billing Account Business Flow" for more information.
The Update Customer Account integration flow updates account information (such as address, name, contact, and status) from Siebel CRM to BRM.
The Synchronize Customer Special Rating Profile business flow synchronizes friends and family list updates from Siebel CRM to BRM.
The assumptions for the process integration for Customer Management are as follows:
Siebel CRM is the customer master and manages all aspects of the lifecycle from creation to updates for a customer. The process integration for Customer Management is a uni-directional flow from Siebel CRM to BRM.
Initial loading of customer data is not supported.
An order line can have only one bill-to account.
If order line items reference a service account that is different from the billing account, then the Siebel CRM billing account is propagated as a paying account in BRM, while the Siebel CRM service account is propagated as a non-paying sub-ordinate account in BRM.
Customer accounts and billing profiles are first synchronized to BRM during order processing.
Once synchronized to a particular billing system, a customer account is kept synchronized by real-time integration flows.
The Customer Account Sync integration that occurs during order processing can assume that if an account has been created in BRM, it is current and up-to-date.
The Customer Account Sync process during order processing synchronizes accounts to one billing system instance (BRM) at a time. The order management system can synchronize the same customer to additional billing system instances by calling the Customer Account Sync service multiple times.
See "Configuring Multiple BRM Instances for Communications Integrations" for more information about configuring multiple billing instances.
The Siebel CRM account hierarchy is not synchronized to BRM. Instead, the billing account and service account relationship on a Siebel CRM order line is sent to BRM as a parent account and child account, respectively. BRM supports a single parent for a child account.
The process integration for Customer Management requires the following data to successfully create customer data in BRM:
Accounts must be of type Residential or Business and the account class must be Customer, Service, or Billing.
In Siebel CRM, accounts can have any number of contacts or addresses associated with them, but account creation in BRM requires the following:
The primary contact (must be explicitly set) and address for the account.
The contact and address that is associated with the billing profile that is used in the order.
For an account's primary address, the city, state, country, and zip code.
For an account's primary contact, the last name.
For a bill profile, all bill profiles that are synchronized for an account and its related parent and child accounts must have the same value for Bill Frequency.
For a bill profile address, the city, state, and zip code.
For a credit card bill profile, the credit card number, expiration month and year, and cardholder name are required. Card verification value (CVV) number is optional.
For an automatic debit bill profile, the bank routing number and account number are required.
Account information is captured at the beginning of the order process. When a customer places an order, the first step of the process is to determine whether the customer is new or existing. If this is an existing customer, the customer record can be found and selected, and the customer order details are captured. If this is a new customer, a new account is created.
The billing preferences (bill medium, bill frequency, payment type, billing type, billing contact, bill cycle data, and so on) are also captured. After the account information is captured, the order details are captured. The order is submitted to the order management system for processing. Customer data is created in billing as part of the Order Fulfillment flow.
See "Understanding the Synchronize Fulfillment Order Billing Account Business Flow" for more information about the Order Fulfillment flow.
Subsequently, customers can call in to request changes to their contact information, address, and so on. These changes and updates to other attributes are supported through the Update Customer Account integration flow.
Figure 18-1 illustrates the overall flow for the Create/Sync Customer Account integration flow.
Table 18-1 provides information on Siebel CRM attributes mapped to BRM as part of the Create/Sync Account integration flow.
Table 18-1 Siebel Entities Created or Synchronized to BRM
| Entity/Attributes in the Siebel CRM User Interface | Entity/Attributes in BRM Customer Center | Comments |
|---|---|---|
|
Account |
Account |
-- |
|
-- |
Account Number |
Integration sets this to the Common ID. |
|
Account Type |
Business Type |
Only Siebel CRM Account Type of Residential or Business is supported. Uses the CUSTOMERPARTY_TYPECODE DVM. |
|
Name |
Company Name |
Only set for Account Type of Business. |
|
Currency |
Currency |
Uses the CURRENCY_CODE DVM. |
|
-- |
-- |
Notes: Integration does not explicitly set the status when creating the customer account in BRM. BRM defaults the status to Active. The integration creates a two-level hierarchy in BRM with a paying parent and a subordinate service account when the billing account and the service account on the order line are different. See "Overview of the Synchronize Fulfillment Order Billing Account Business Flow" for more information. |
|
Contact |
-- |
The integration only syncs the primary contact that is tied to the Account in Siebel CRM to BRM. |
|
Mr/Mrs |
Salutation |
Uses the CONTACT_SALUTATION DVM. |
|
First Name |
First Name |
-- |
|
Last Name |
Last Name |
-- |
|
Phone |
Phone Number |
The integration maps different Siebel CRM phone number types (home, work, fax, mobile) to BRM Phone Type and Number using the PHONENUMBER_TYPE DVM. The phone number format should match the supported format in BRM. See "Using BRM with Oracle Application Integration Architecture", Validating Customer Contact Information in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Concepts for more information about phone number formats. |
|
Job Title |
Job Title |
-- |
|
|
|
-- |
|
Address |
-- |
The integration only synchronizes the primary address that is tied to the Account in Siebel CRM to BRM. |
|
Address |
Address |
In addition to Address, fields for City, State, Postal Code, and Country are mapped. Uses the following DVMs: ADDRESS_COUNTRYID, ADDRESS_COUNTRYSUBDIVID, PROVINCE, STATE. |
|
Billing Profile |
BillInfo |
-- |
|
Name |
Name |
-- |
|
Frequency |
Billing Frequency in Months |
Uses the CUSTOMERPARTY_BILLPROFILE_FREQUENCYCODE DVM |
|
-- |
Currency |
Integration passes account-level currency. Uses the CURRENCY_CODE DVM |
|
Billing Schedule |
Billing Day of Month |
If the Billing Schedule is not set in and sent from Siebel CRM, then BRM defaults the Billing Day of Month. See "Setting Business Policies for Billing" in Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management Configuring and Running Billing Guide for more information about the billing schedule. |
|
-- |
PayInfo |
-- |
|
Payment Method |
Payment Method |
Only Bill Me, Credit Card or Auto-Debit is supported. Uses the CUSTOMERPARTY_PAYPROFILE_PAYMETHODECODE DVM. |
|
Contact Last Name, First Name |
Name |
When the payment method is Bill Me, the Contact Name on the Siebel Billing profile is mapped to BRM PayInfo Contact Name. When the payment method is Credit Card or Auto-Debit, either the Credit Card owner name or Debit Account name is mapped to BRM PayInfo Contact Name. |
|
Bill Media |
Delivery Preference |
Applicable only when the payment method is Bill Me. Uses the CUSTOMERPARTY_PAYPROFILE_DELIVERYPREF DVM. |
|
Email Bill To |
Email Address |
Applicable only when the payment method is Bill Me. |
|
Address |
Address |
In addition to Address, fields for City, State, Postal Code, and Country are mapped. Uses the following DVMs: ADDRESS_COUNTRYID, ADDRESS_COUNTRYSUBDIVID, PROVINCE, STATE. |
|
Credit Card # |
Credit Card Number |
Applicable only when the payment method is Credit Card. |
|
Expiration Month & Year |
Credit Card Exp |
Applicable only when the payment method is Credit Card. |
|
Security Code |
Security ID |
Applicable only when the payment method is Credit Card. |
|
Account # |
Debit Num |
Applicable only when the payment method is Auto-Debit. |
|
Bank Routing # |
Bank No |
Applicable only when the payment method is Auto-Debit. |
|
Bank Account Type |
Type |
Applicable only when the payment method is Auto-Debit. |
Customers can call in to make changes to their account information. The customer service representative (CSR) uses Siebel CRM as the front-end application to capture these customer data updates. The process integration for Customer Management synchronizes these customer updates to BRM through the Update Customer Account integration flow.
Note:
Updates are synchronized to BRM only for accounts that have been created through the order fulfillment flow.Over time customer attributes such as name, address, contact information, billing, and payment information can change. As and when customer data is changed in Siebel CRM, the process integration ensures that these changes are synchronized to BRM in real time, thereby ensuring the customer data is both consistent and current between both the applications.
A provision exists for optionally synchronizing account status updates from Siebel CRM to BRM.
See "Account Status Synchronization Methodology" for more information about the synchronization of the account status.
Figure 18-2 illustrates the Update Customer Account integration flow.
The account status synchronization feature enables propagation of account status changes from Siebel CRM to BRM.
As delivered, the account status propagation to BRM is disabled. If implementers choose to use this feature, they must explicitly enable it by changing a configuration setting in the AIAConfiguration.xml file.
See EnableAccountStatusSync property in "Configuring the Process Integration for Customer Management" for more information about this configuration setting.
The account status synchronization feature is designed as part of the collections process integration and should ideally be used with it and not as an independent or standalone feature.
See Oracle Application Integration Architecture Siebel CRM Integration Pack for Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management: Agent Assisted Billing Care Implementation Guide for more information about collections.
To support collections, the integration synchronizes collection actions generated by BRM as credit alerts in Siebel CRM. Various actions such as notifying the customer regarding unpaid dues or suspending or canceling services due to delinquency are delegated to Siebel.
Siebel can be extended to automate the generation of change orders for suspending or canceling services based on the generated credit alerts. Alternatively, the Siebel collection agent can manually submit change orders for suspending or canceling services. Either of these approaches ensures that changes in the service asset state are communicated correctly to BRM and both the applications are synchronized considering the service state.
As part of the collections lifecycle, if the customer continues to be delinquent and must be written off and his account inactivated, this feature (if enabled) ensures that the account status change in Siebel CRM is propagated to BRM.
It is recommended that the account in Siebel CRM be inactivated only after all the services (and account-level subscription products) have been canceled. This is because inactivating an account in Siebel CRM that has active services propagates that account status change to BRM resulting in the cancellation of services in BRM. This is because BRM cascades the status change from the account to all its bill-infos and services and products. An important practice is to inactivate the account in Siebel CRM only after all the services (and account-level subscription products) have been canceled (the cancellation orders fulfilled and asseted).
As delivered, Siebel does not have logic to restrict changes to account status. Therefore, it is also recommended that the ability to inactivate an account be restricted to authorized users and roles in Siebel CRM because inadvertently inactivating accounts with active services can result (when the account status propagation is enabled) in those services being canceled in BRM.
Once a service that supports special rating has been purchased and the order fulfilled and asseted, the customer can use the Siebel Special Rating Profile to make changes to their friends and family list. Updates are then synchronized to BRM.
The Synchronize Customer Special Rating Profile business flow uses the operation ProcessInstalledProductSpecialRatingSetList on the ProcessInstalledProductSpecialRatingSetListBRMCommsProvABCSImpl composite for this purpose. The specification group on the installed product enterprise business message (EBM) is used to communicate the list entries.
See "Supporting Friends and Family Lists" for more information about purchasing services that support special rating.
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