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Siebel Applications Administration Guide > Ongoing Application Administration Tasks > Working with Telephone FormatsTelephone formats specify how phone numbers are formatted when users enter the numbers in phone number fields. You can have only one phone format for each country code. The phone format is applied only when users enter numbers without other formatting symbols, such as a slash (/), or dash (-). Before users enter phone numbers, perform the following tasks:
If a user enters a phone number from a country for which the format has not yet been specified, the phone number might be formatted incorrectly. NOTE: If you define any new phone formats, coordinate with communications administrators who specify CTI functionality and define dialing filters. For more information, see Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide. CAUTION: If you modify the phone formats that are provided with your Siebel application, make sure that you thoroughly test the changes. North American Phone FormatsThe default format for North American phone numbers is (000) 000-0000. The phone formatting logic for North American phone numbers works as follows:
This formatting logic is followed even when the default locale is not North America. International Phone FormatsAn international phone number is a phone number for a country other than the current default country. To enter an international phone number in a phone number field, the user must enter a plus sign (+), followed by the country code. For example, the user can enter +44. If the user does not enter a country code, the default country code is assumed. When a user enters an international phone number in a phone number field, the formatting of the number depends on the following:
Table 5 describes the formatting logic. If there is no phone format for the indicated country, the number remains formatted in the same way that the user enters the number. No error message appears. Maximum Length for International Phone NumbersTable 6 shows how to calculate the safe maximum length for international phone numbers. In the formulae in this table:
Figure 1 shows an example. Specifying Phone FormatsIf your users must enter phone numbers for countries for which a format has not been entered in your Siebel application, you must specify phone formats for those countries.
NOTE: When you change or add a phone format, the existing phone numbers are not automatically updated. CAUTION: When a user enters phone numbers, the user 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 Business Applications do not detect or warn users if they enter Q or Z (letters that do not appear on all phones). Examples of Formatting of Phone NumbersTable 7 shows how phone numbers appear under various circumstances. In this example, the default country is the United States. Therefore the default format is the North American format, (000) 000-0000. The 00-000-0000 format has been entered for country code 91. Sorting Phone NumbersPhone numbers are stored in the Siebel database without special format characters, so the special format characters have no effect on the sort order. Querying Phone NumbersWhen performing a query on a phone number, do not include any format characters such as commas (,), hyphens (-), periods (.), the letter x, or spaces. You can query for only country 61 by typing +61* but you cannot query for only North American phone numbers this way, because +1* returns all phone numbers. To query for North American phone numbers, type the following: not like +1*. When you use a phone number in a query, the country code of the default locale is automatically added to the query, unless the default locale is North America. If the default locale is North America, no code is added. For example, if the default locale is Germany, and the user types 0181 in the phone field of a query, the German country code (+49) is added to the query. The query becomes +490181*. 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 phone number for a country other than the default contains +n at the beginning, while every phone number for the default country code appears as local (without a plus sign). Phone numbers that have the +n require explicit queries. The user must specify the country code and the number. Local numbers are returned normally. Table 8 provides examples of how to query phone numbers. Importing Information with EIMSiebel 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 phone numbers, the numbers are handled as described in Working with Telephone Formats. For more information about EIM, see Siebel Enterprise Integration Manager Administration Guide. Updating the Phone Format with EAI AdapterWhen you update the phone format using Siebel EAI Adapter, the plus (+) sign and the country code are required, but the phone format can be in any form (not only US format). |
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