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Specifying Telephone Formats

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Default telephone formats are specified in the List of Values view. You can only have one default telephone number format per country. The default format is applied when you enter only numbers, without slashes, dashes, or other formatting symbols.

Before users enter telephone numbers:

• Set the default country. See Setting Up Locales. The default phone format is determined by the locale setting.
• Define formats for countries outside the default country. See Specifying Non-North American Telephone Formats.

If a user enters a telephone number from a country for which the format has not yet been specified, the telephone number may be formatted incorrectly.

NOTE:  If you define any new telephone formats, coordinate with communications administrators who specify CTI functionality and define dialing filters. For more information, see Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide.

North American Telephone Formats

The default format for North American telephone numbers is (000) 000-0000. The telephone formatting logic for North American telephone numbers works as follows:

• If the user enters 10 digits in a telephone number field, it is formatted as (123) 123-1234.
• If the user enters more than 10 digits, the first 10 digits are formatted as (123) 123-1234, and the rest of the digits are used as the extension number. The user can enter up to 40 digits.
• If the user enters fewer than 10 digits, an error message appears.
• If the user begins the telephone number with a leading zero, an error message appears.

This telephone formatting logic is followed even when the default country is not in North America.

Specifying Non-North American Telephone Formats

If your users need to enter telephone numbers for countries outside North America, you must specify telephone number formats for those countries.

To specify non-North American telephone formats

1. Choose View > Site Map > Application Administration > List of Values.
2. Query the Type field for the entry PHONE_FORMAT to see existing telephone formats.
3. Add a new record and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table. For more field information, see Working with Lists of Values.

   Field	Comments
   Display Value Language-Independent Code	Enter the format string. Use the number zero (0) to represent required digits, the character # to represent optional digits, and other formatting characters to represent how the telephone number should appear. Do not include any alphanumeric characters other than 0. For example, to format an Australian phone number, which includes a two-digit area code and a six- or eight-digit number, use (00) 000# 000#. You do not need to include characters to represent the country code in the format. When a user enters a number, the country code is automatically shown if the default country is different from the country code. The maximum number of digits allowed in the format is 12. Any digits beyond 12 are used as the extension number. For example, even if the format is 000-000-0000-0000, 14 digits entered as 12345678901234 display as 123-456-7890-12x34.
   Order	Enter the country code of the new format.
   Type	Enter PHONE_FORMAT or choose it in the drop-down list.

4. Follow the instructions in Clearing the Cache.

International Telephone Formats

To enter an international telephone number (a telephone number for a country other than the current default country) in a telephone field, the user must specify the country by preceding the telephone number with a plus sign (+) followed by the country code (for example, +44). If the user does not enter a country code, the default country code is assumed.

After the user indicates the country by entering the plus sign and country code, the telephone formatting logic for international telephone numbers works as follows:

• If the user enters exactly the same number of digits in a telephone number field as there are in the telephone format for the indicated country, the entry is formatted as specified.
• If the user enters more than the number of digits in the telephone format for the indicated country, the first digits are formatted as specified and the rest of the digits are used as an extension number. The user can enter up to 40 digits.
• If the user enters fewer than the number of digits in the telephone format for indicated country, the entry is accepted without an error message. (This is to accommodate telephone numbers of different lengths.)
• If there is no List of Values telephone format entry for the indicated country, the number is accepted, but not formatted. No error message is returned.

Unformatted Telephone Numbers

When you change or add a telephone number format, the existing telephone numbers are not updated automatically.

CAUTION:  When entering telephone numbers, users can enter letters in place of digits, but computer telephony integration (CTI) features, such as outbound dialing, do not work for these numbers. Queries for such numbers must include the letters, not the numeric equivalents. Siebel eBusiness Applications do not detect or warn users if they enter Q or Z (letters that do not appear on all telephones).

Examples

Table 8 shows how telephone numbers would appear under various circumstances. In this example, the default country is the United States and the default format is the North American format, (000) 000-0000. Another format has been entered for England (country code 44): 00.000-000.

Table 8.  Telephone Number Format Examples

User Enters	Number Is Formatted As
1234567890	(123) 456-7890
1234567890123	(123) 456-7890 x123
123456	Error message: "Invalid data has been entered."
+4412345678	+44 12.345-678
+441234567890	+44 12.345-678 x90
+4412345	+44 12345
+2512345	+2512345
?0+4412345678	?0+4412345678 (you see the '?' and the '0')
?0HelloWorld	?0HelloWorld (you see the '?' and the '0')

The telephone format has no effect on sort order.

When performing a query on a telephone number, do not include any format characters such as (,), -, ., x, or spaces.

You can query for only country 61 by typing +61* but you cannot query for only North American telephone numbers this way, because +1* returns all telephone numbers. To query for North American telephone numbers, use not like +* instead.

Table 9 gives examples of how to query telephone numbers.

Table 9.  Querying Telephone Numbers

Desired Query Result	Query Criteria
(123) 456-7890	1234567890
+61 (123) 45.67.89 x0	+611234567890 (if 61 is defined as a country code)
Country code 61 telephone numbers	+61*
All telephone numbers	+1*
415 area code numbers (North America only)	415*
Null telephone numbers	is null
415 area code or null (North America only)	415* or is null
(800) SKY-PAGE	800SKY*

When the user performs a query using a telephone number, the country code of the default country automatically prefixes the query (unless the default country is in North America, in which case no prefix is added). For example, if the default country is Germany, and the user types "0181" in the telephone field of a query, the German country code (+49) is added to the query (that is, +49*0181*).

To find a number for a country other than the default country, the user must specify the country code in the query. To avoid limiting the query to one country, the user must refine the query and remove the country code portion of the query specification.

To see a demonstration of this behavior, look at the Contacts screen. Every number for a country other than the default contains a "+n" at the beginning, while every number for the default country code appears as local (no +). Numbers that have the "+n" require explicit queries (country code plus number) while local numbers are returned normally.

Importing Information with EIM

Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM) manages the exchange of data between Siebel database tables and other corporate databases. When you use EIM to import information that includes international telephone numbers, the numbers are handled as described in the previous sections.

For more information about EIM, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide.

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