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Workflows and Business Services for Asset-Based Ordering

Siebel Order Management uses workflows to specify what processes occur—and in what order—in asset-based ordering. When users complete work on a view, these workflows take them to the new view that they need next. For example, when an employee end user clicks the New button on the Installed Assets list, a workflow is launched that displays the Quote details screen and pre-defaults the account information and price list information.

There are two types of workflows in your Siebel application that control complex order management, as follows:

• Functional. These workflows provide the business logic such as the setting of different action codes. These workflows are used by both the customer application and the employee application.
• User Interface. These workflows control flow from view to view. On this level, the workflows do different things because the views in a Web site are different from the views in an employee application.

You can use Siebel Business Process Designer to modify workflows. You can:

• Use predefined workflow processes to automate and simplify the order processes available to your end users and customers. For example, when an order is filled, a workflow process automatically creates assets from the items and adds them to the customer's service profile in the Accounts screen.
• Customize the predefined workflow processes to match your business processes. For example, some organizations particularly those involved in selling to consumers may want to bypass the Quote step in the New order process and move immediately to an Order.
• Create new workflows to match your own business processes.

For more information about Business Process Manager and how to use it, see Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide.

NOTE:  It is very important that the professionals within your organization responsible for customizing the shipped workflow processes have received the required Business Process Designer training for successful implementation of customized workflows. The in-depth knowledge of this tool is a critical success factor.

For details about the workflows provided with Order Management, see Workflows for Asset-Based Ordering.

These workflows use business services to implement their logic. For information about Order Management business service methods, see Business Service Methods Reference.