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Modifying Siebel Business Processes

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After reviewing the predesigned business processes and your existing business processes, you may need to customize these business processes or create new business processes. This requires an evaluation of your existing business processes, as well as careful documentation of the user requirements that are not met by the predesigned business processes.

Researching Existing Business Process Information

If your current business processes are supported by software, you should gather information on how the software supports these business processes. You should also understand the limitations of the current software that you want to address in the new business process, so that you can overcome these limitations in the new business process.

Companies generally collect detailed business requirements by evaluating a business process with a group of business users who work with the business process. Evaluation of current business processes provides a helpful reference point as the new business process is designed or validated. Existing business processes can come from documented formal business processes, management guidelines, written guidelines of process rules or approval paths, and internal procedures (written or unwritten).

In a facilitated session, generally a work group will evaluate a business process by walking through each step, detailing requirements along the way. If you are participating in a facilitated session, you should choose a set of business processes that most closely address a specific business objective. As you walk through each step of a business process, you can then record business requirements associated with each step. In general, each step in a business process relates to a specific view in the relevant Siebel application. If a step does not relate to a specific view, it may be a step that is always performed manually, or it may be a task that the Siebel application does not support.

You gather business requirements that you will then turn into system designs. There are three types of requirements you should consider collecting when you evaluate your chosen business processes:

Functional requirements. Functional requirements describe how the business process will behave. Examples of functional requirements include business rules, field additions and changes, and reporting requirements.
Non-functional requirements. Non-functional requirements are necessary to support the operation of the business process. Examples of non-functional requirements include backup, performance and scalability, and administration needs.
Integration requirements. Integration requirements depend on how the business process will receive or send data between systems. Examples of integration requirements include the data conversion approach, batch frequency, integration synchronicity, and data volume handling.

In gathering business requirements, the goal is to determine the most appropriate way to meet user needs in the Siebel application. For example, if a user requests that upon completing a specific step within one Siebel screen, another action should happen, the implementation team will determine the best way to implement that request using the Siebel application. The ideal method will require as little application customization as possible.

When customization is necessary, Siebel Workflow allows you to configure workflows without coding. This simplifies future upgrades to your Siebel application. Of course, your company's priorities and architectural principles may require application changes at the code level. This depends on your company's business objectives, and, in some cases, the span of your company's overall Siebel solution.

After you have gathered as much information as you can about existing business processes, review the information you have collected to determine whether there are areas for improvement in the business process or whether a new process might be useful. Consider the following possibilities:

Are there new management guidelines to follow?
Are there current problems that need to be solved?
Are there customer satisfaction issues to address?
Are there business processes that you would like to automate?

NOTE:  Siebel Systems uses Requisite Pro from IBM/Rational to record business requirements. These business requirements are linked to the business processes, so that work plans can be generated at the process level and complete business process solutions can be designed and built.

Implementing Business Process Modifications

Siebel business processes are blueprints for your successful implementation and are easy to modify. All business processes are developed using Corel iGrafx Flowcharter 2003. Siebel business processes also contain an add-in to Corel iGrafx that allows you to navigate to the Siebel views that support a business process.

While Corel iGrafx (purchased separately) comes with its own user documentation, it is simple to modify a business process within this tool. Corel iGrafx provides a drag-and-drop user interface, so symbols within the diagrams can be easily moved, changed, and reordered. If your company needs a unique approach to implementing a Siebel business process, a Siebel-trained business analyst on your project team can identify other relevant Siebel views and link these views to the business process diagram. As you modify the business process to meet your company's needs, you should be sure to capture detailed business requirements, as described in Researching Existing Business Process Information.

Business Processes and Siebel Business Process Designer

It is necessary to determine how each business process will be implemented. Some business processes should be implemented through a workflow in the Siebel application, which then enforces a specific set and sequence of tasks.

An implementation that requires a workflow is typically one that:

Is performed infrequently
Is complicated
Is performed by low-skilled workers
Has regulatory requirements

Siebel Business Process Designer allows you to define, manage, and enforce your application workflows. Because Siebel applications are flexible and support multiple ways of meeting your company's business needs, it is up to the project manager to select the most appropriate method based on the company's technical architecture and business processes. Generally, a technical member of the project team configures Siebel Workflow according to the specifications of the business process and the business requirements. However, it is a good idea for project leaders and business users to have an overview of the types of actions Siebel Workflow can address to make sure that business processes are designed and implemented in a way that meets the business requirements. For more information on Siebel Workflow and the Siebel Business Process Designer, see Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide.

Business processes that are highly variable or that require flexible-use scenarios that are coordinated with other business processes are not good candidates for a workflow-based implementation. For these business processes, configurators need to identify the many different scenarios necessary to complete the steps. Configurators should then modify views, data tables, and business components as necessary to support each scenario. Effective implementation of these business processes typically involves user training with supporting documentation, which may include online help. For more information on customizing your current Siebel online help system, see Siebel Developer's Reference.

There must be a balance between the flexibility a company allows its users and the restrictions it puts in place. Rules should be present to guide the users, whether the business process is implemented in Siebel Workflow or not. These rules can be provided as procedural guidelines or they can be configured into a workflow, but it is important to remember that an extremely restrictive application can decrease productivity and cause work to be redone.

Deploying Your Business Processes

Once a business process is developed to meet your company's needs, configurations must be tested before the business process is rolled out to users. It is important to confirm that a business process works from start to finish. The effectiveness of the business process lies in the entire process, not in any individual step or view. Organize your testing phase around business processes, not around Siebel views or steps within the business processes.

As new business processes are deployed, it is crucial that users are trained on the new ways of doing things. Introduce users to the new business processes (whether or not workflows have been employed) to give them a chance to learn the new functionality and the new flow of work. Little to no training may result in low user acceptance, decreased productivity, and errors—problems which can impact revenue. You should train users on the procedures for completing their tasks in the context of a business process. Relating an individual user's steps to the overarching business process can motivate individual users because they can see how their actions impact the larger process, the organization, and the customer's experience.

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