This chapter covers the following topics:
The Leads Processing engine comprises the qualification engine, the rating engine, and the channel selection engine.
The Qualification Engine confirms that there is sufficient interest for a selling interface to engage the prospect through a touch point. See The Qualification Engine.
The Rating Engine grades leads using business-specific logic appropriate to different campaign strategies, regions, or products. Rating enables the business to prioritize follow-up and response handling activities for effective cost and resource management. See The Rating Engine.
The Channel Selection Engine channels the leads to a set of resources for assignment - direct or indirect, depending on its quality or domain. A sales channel is direct when routed to the sales force within the company and indirect when routed to partners or value added distributors. See The Channel Selection Engine..
The engines are based on a generic rules model, which consists of Guards, Rules, and Precedence.
Guards are used to group rule sets into domain-specific buckets. They parse rule sets into groups based on business-specific practices. Each rule set defines the set of leads to which it applies such as product-specific, campaign-specific, and country-specific lead processing for each stage of lead evaluation.
Guards can have multiple conditions. There is an implicit AND across conditions and an implicit OR within conditions. For example, if the Guard is defined as Country = France, Germany, UK; Product Category = Printers, Desktops, then this is interpreted as evaluate all leads that originate from countries France or Germany or UK for product lines Printer or Desktops.
After the rule sets are bucketed into different groups, the Precedence of each rule set is used to determine the order of evaluation. For example, if the attributes of a lead are matched with a Country-specific and a Campaign-specific rule set, by assigning the Country-specific rule set a higher precedence, this rule set is evaluated before the Campaign-specific rule set.
For precedence, 100 is higher than 1.
Reports
The Leads Processing History and Rule Performance Reports help you analyze the effectiveness of the rule sets in an engine. To troubleshoot rule set issues, see the Rule Diagnostics Report.
Using the guards, after the correct rule sets are selected, the rules of each rule set determine the conditions and action to be performed on the lead. For example, if certain conditions are true at the time of evaluation, the lead is set to qualified, or rated A, or channelized to Direct Sales.
Rules are evaluated in precedences from 1-n, where 1 is evaluated first. On evaluation, the winning rule set with the highest precedence is used to select the rule set result. If more than one winning rule set has equal precedence, the best or the highest ranked result, wins.
Add attributes to the rule set.
When a lead is run through the Leads Processing Engine, it is processed by the Qualification Engine (QE) first. In this release, the QE has two primary functions:
Qualifying a Lead: A lead can be qualified when the attributes of the lead indicate interest in the purchase of a product. Some of these attributes can be: the lead has attended a product event, or the budget has been approved, or the purchase time frame is less than a year. Such details suggest that it is worthwhile for a sales team to follow up with the lead, and possibly arrive at a sale.
Disqualifying a Lead: A lead can be disqualified when the attributes indicate that the lead is not genuinely interested in the purchase of a product. If the lead belongs to the Student category, or has an incomplete or incorrect e-mail address, or belongs to a competitor company, such leads can be filtered. They need not be pursued to a sales closure.
At the end of the qualification process, a lead may be qualified or disqualified. All qualified leads are routed to the Rating engine. All disqualified leads are routed to the Channel Selection engine.
Each rule set is a grouping of rules. The rule set is defined by its Guard. The rules with a guard define the criteria and outcome.
The QE identifies the rule sets that can evaluate the lead by comparing the guard values in the rule set with the attributes of the lead being processed. For example, if the lead has Campaign A as an attribute, the QE searches for a rule set with Campaign A as a guard value.
After the matching qualification rule sets are identified, the engine starts evaluating the rules of each rule set, starting with the rule set of the highest precedence.
When a rule set wins, i.e., all the qualification rules of the rule set are met for the lead, the engine stops evaluation. Depending on the outcome, the lead is then qualified or disqualified, and the winning rule set is logged into a history table for analysis.
If no rule sets win, the lead is set to the value specified in the OS: Default Qualified Flag for Lead Qualification Engine profile. The default value for this profile is No.
In the case where two rule sets win, and one rule set qualifies the lead, and the other disqualifies, the lead is qualified by the QE.
After a lead is qualified by the Qualification Engine, it is processed by the Rating Engine (RE). The RE prioritizes the leads based on their attributes, and assigns them ratings. The rating helps the sales representative decide the importance of a lead, and accordingly follow up with the lead.
When a lead is run through the RE, the engine first identifies the correct Rating rule set to evaluate. This process finds all matching rule sets by applying the lead attribute values against each rule set's guard values. For example, if the lead has Campaign A as an attribute, the RE looks for rule sets with Campaign A as a guard value.
After a matching Rating rule set is identified, the engine starts evaluating the rules for each rule set, starting with the rule set of the highest precedence. The RE evaluates the rules in the order of evaluation assigned and stops when it finds a rule that matches the lead.
When a rule wins, that is, all the criteria are met for the lead, the RE stops evaluation. The lead is then assigned a rating, and the winning rule set is logged into a history table for analysis.
If more than one rule set with equal precedence win, the highest rating is selected.
If no rule sets win, the rating set in the OS: Default Rating for Lead Rating Engine profile is used. The default value for this profile is Cold Lead. This profile value must not be set to blank.
Ratings must be set up before rating rule sets are defined. Use this procedure to set up ratings.
Navigation: Log in with the Oracle Marketing Superuser responsibility, and navigate to Administration > Leads > Setup > Rating.
Notes
Grade: Enter a grade for the lead. The lead is rated with this grade.
Precedence: The value you enter sets the precedence for the grade. The precedence is used when attributes of the lead match with more than one grade. In this case, the lead is assigned the grade with a higher precedence. For precedence, 100 is higher than 1.
Enabled: Select the Enabled check box to include this grade to rate leads.
Note: When you create a rule set, the grades that you just set up may not appear in the drop-down lists. You must restart the apache to reload data from the database.
The Channel Selection Engine (CSE) is responsible for distributing leads to the appropriate teams for further follow up and action. Based on channel selection rules and the lead attributes, a lead is assigned to a channel.
Examples of channels are Inside Sales, Direct Sales, Indirect Sales, and Partner.
The CSE is similar to the Qualification and Rating engines. When a lead is run through the CSE, the engine first identifies the correct Channel Selection rule set to evaluate. This process finds all matching rule sets by applying the lead attribute values against each rule set's guard values. For example, if the lead has United States as its Country attribute, the CSE looks for rule sets with United States as a guard value for Country.
After the matching channel selection rule sets are identified, the engine starts evaluating the rules, starting with the rule with the highest precedence. Each rule has an order of evaluation associated with it. The Channel Selection Engine evaluates the rules in that order and stops when it finds a rule that matches the lead.
When a rule wins, i.e., all the criteria are met for the lead, the engine stops evaluating channel rule sets. The lead is then assigned to the selected channel and the winning rule set is logged into a history table for analysis.
If more than one rule set with equal precedence win, the highest ranked channel is selected.
Channels must be set up before channel selection rule sets are defined. Use this procedure to set up channels.
Navigation: Log in with the Oracle Marketing Superuser responsibility, and navigate to Administration > Leads > Setup > Channel.
Notes
Indirect: Select this check box if this is an indirect channel.
Precedence: Set the precedence for this channel.
The precedence is used when the attributes of a lead match with more than one channel. In this case, the lead is assigned the channel with a higher precedence. For precedence, 100 is higher than 1.
Note: When you create a rule set, the channels that you just set up may not appear in the drop-down lists. You must restart the apache to reload data from the database.
Some best practices that you can use when you are working with the Leads Processing Engines are listed below:
The Qualification Engine must not be used to both qualify and disqualify leads.
If you use the Qualification Engine only to disqualify leads, it is recommended that you migrate your existing qualification rule sets to the Rating Engine. This ensures that the disqualified leads do not appear in sales representative queues.
Create your channel selection rule sets in such a manner that all the disqualified leads are isolated and treated differently. A sales representative may work on them and if found suitable, change the Qualified flag to Yes.
Create rule sets using the Campaign attribute. By doing so, leads generated from a specific campaign are processed by the specific rule sets. This helps you identify leads generated for a campaign, and you can track their progress in the sales pipeline.
For example, you want to track leads for campaign VisionVideos. When you create your rule sets, use Campaign as a guard and select this campaign. Hence, all leads that result from the VisionVideos campaign are processed by this rule set.
This Rule Flows report allows you to query across the Qualification, Rating, and Channel Selection engines for rule sets based on certain guard values.
This report supports multiple rule set groupings in the Rules Engine setup to track rule sets across processing flows. The rule sets are grouped based on the engine type. For example, Qualification rule sets are displayed first, then Rating, followed by the Channel Selection rule sets.
Search By
Date Range
Guard values - Country, Campaign, Custom Setup, and Product Category
Processing Stage
Rule Set Status
You can remove unqualified leads from the AS_SALES_LEADS table by running a concurrent program. Based on the following conditions, leads are deleted:
The lead is unqualified, and it is not converted to opportunity
The status of the lead is the same as the value in the OS: Default Status for Leads profile.
Unqualified leads that have been converted to opportunity will not be deleted by this program.
Note: After leads are purged from the system, any Trend reports set up in Oracle Daily Business Intelligence (DBI) or a custom application will be affected.
Use the following details to run the Purge Unqualified Sales Leads concurrent program.
Responsibility: Oracle Sales Administrator
Parameters:
From and To Date - Enter a date range indicating the leads created during this period.
Debug - Enter Yes if you want to see debug messages.
SQL Trace - Enter Yes if you want to trace SQL
Schedule: Once
See Section Running Concurrent Programs for the steps to run the concurrent program.
Various system profiles can be set up to assign resources to leads based on the Leads Processing Engine results. Depending on the requirements in your organization, you can also define custom functions to route leads to appropriate resources.
You can set up the application to automatically assign resources to a lead whenever an agent or salesperson creates or updates the lead. This is achieved by assigning values to selected profiles.
OS: Assign New Lead
To enable automatic lead assignment, set the value of this profile to N. This is the default value. When this profile is set to N, a call to the Territory Manager API automatically assigns resources to the lead using the territories defined in Territory Manager. The first person the program assigns becomes the lead owner. The rest of the resources in the territory become sales team members on the lead.
If the lead creator is a valid sales agent or salesperson, the lead creator is added to the lead sales team when the lead is created.
OS: Auto Convert Lead to Opportunity
If this profile is set to Y, an opportunity is created for all qualified indirect leads, and the partner matching workflow is launched.
OS: Lead Incubation Channel
All immature leads are assigned to a particular channel. The channel is decided by the value in this profile. The lead owner of an immature lead is determined by immature lead assignment.
OS: Default Resource ID Used for Sales Lead Assignment
Set this profile to a resource who will handle any lead that is not matched with any territory. If this profile is not set, the lead is assigned to the agent or salesperson who created or updated the lead.
Note: If both the resource in OS: Default Resource ID Used for Sales Lead Assignment and the user who created or updated the lead do not have a valid sales role assigned to them, then the leads you import will not be accessible from either Oracle Sales Online or Oracle TeleSales.
OS: Calendar Setting Required for Assignment
Set this profile to Yes if the territories in your organization use agent availability as one of the criteria for assigning agents. This enables the automatic assignment of lead owners based on availability. This profile is set to No by default.
Apart from setting this profile, you must also make sure that each resource has a calendar set up for them.
For more details, see the Oracle CRM Application Foundation Implementation Guide.
See Setting System Profile Options to set values to these profiles.
An immature lead is a lead that is not yet ready for a sales representative to spend time on. It is a low quality and low grade lead that needs to be matured by the marketing team before it is assigned to a sales team.
The Channel Selection engine assigns all immature leads to a specific channel, such as an Immature channel. This channel is decided by the value in the OS: Incubation Channel profile. When a lead is assigned to the immature channel, the owner is decided by the value in the OS: Default Lead Marketing Owner profile.
If the OS: Default Lead Marketing Owner profile is not set, the Territory Assignment program assigns all immature leads to the resources identified to act on immature leads.
The Maturation Assignment page in the Administration > Leads tab can be used to provide information about the territory assignment setup.
Note: The Maturation Assignment page will be obsolete from the next release. Use the Sales Channel to group the immature leads, and the Territory Assignment program will assign them to an appropriate resource based on the Channel Qualifier.
Use this procedure to add one or more resources to manage immature leads.
Navigation: Log in with the Oracle Marketing Superuser responsibility, and navigate to Administration > Leads > Processing Rules > Maturation Assignment.
Notes
Owner: Select this check box to indicate that a sales person must be the owner of the lead assigned.
You can implement custom rules for lead assignment by implementing the Lead Routing Engine user hook.
Hook Name: AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF
Package Name: AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF_CUHK
Purpose
If you are implementing custom lead routing rules, then create a package body according to these specifications.
Note: Do not commit in this package body. After the transaction is complete, Oracle application code will issue a commit.
This user hook will be called when an agent or salesperson is creating and updating a lead in the Lead tab, and from the Import Sales Lead concurrent program whenever the routing engine is called.
The calling package is AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF.GetOwner.
API name
Get_Owner_Pre
Procedure Specification
PROCEDURE Get_Owner_Pre(
p_api_version_number IN NUMBER,
p_init_msg_list IN VARCHAR2 := FND_API.G_FALSE,
p_validation_level IN VARCHAR2 := FND_API.G_VALID_LEVEL_FULL,
p_commit IN VARCHAR2 := FND_API.G_FALSE,
p_resource_id_tbl IN AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF.NUMBER_TABLE,
p_group_id_tbl IN AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF.NUMBER_TABLE,
p_person_id_tbl IN AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF.NUMBER_TABLE,
p_resource_flag_tbl IN AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF.FLAG_TABLE,
p_sales_lead_rec IN AS_SALES_LEADS_PUB.SALES_LEAD_Rec_Type,
x_resource_id OUT NUMBER,
x_group_id OUT NUMBER,
x_person_id OUT NUMBER,
x_return_status OUT VARCHAR2,
x_msg_count OUT NUMBER,
x_msg_data OUT VARCHAR2
)
IS
l_resource_count NUMBER;
BEGIN
-- Standard Start of API savepoint
SAVEPOINT GET_OWNER_PRE_PVT;
-- Standard call to check for call compatibility.
IF NOT FND_API.Compatible_API_Call ( l_api_version_number,
p_api_version_number,
l_api_name,
G_PKG_NAME)
THEN
RAISE FND_API.G_EXC_UNEXPECTED_ERROR;
END IF;
-- Initialize message list IF p_init_msg_list is set to TRUE.
IF FND_API.to_Boolean( p_init_msg_list )
THEN
FND_MSG_PUB.initialize;
END IF;
-- Initialize API return status to SUCCESS
x_return_status := FND_API.G_RET_STS_SUCCESS;
-- Api body
l_resource_count := p_resource_id_tbl.count;
IF l_resource_count > 0
THEN
x_resource_id := p_resource_id_tbl(1);
x_group_id := p_group_id_tbl(1);
x_person_id := p_person_id_tbl(1);
ELSE
x_resource_id := NULL;
END IF;
-- END of API body
-- Standard check for p_commit
IF FND_API.to_Boolean( p_commit )
THEN
COMMIT WORK;
END IF;
-- Standard call to get message count and IF count is 1,get message info
FND_MSG_PUB.Count_And_Get
( p_count => x_msg_count,
p_data => x_msg_data );
END Get_Owner_Pre;
END AS_LEAD_ROUTING_WF_CUHK;
In Parameters
The following table lists the standard input parameters.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| p_api_version_number | For the Oracle Sales 12 application, this is set to 2.0. |
| p_init_msg_list | Should the message stack be initialized? By default, this is set to FND_API.G_FALSE. |
| p_validation_level | The validation level of the pass-in value. By default, this is set to FND_API.G_VALID_LEVEL_FULL. |
| p_commit | Should a commit be issued for the whole API at the end? By default, this is set to FND_API.G_FALSE. |
The following three parameters store the available resources for this customized package to decide the owner of the sales lead. Their data type is TABLE of NUMBERs.
p_resource_id_tbl
p_group_id_tbl
p_person_id_tbl
The following table lists other input parameters.
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| p_resource_flag_tbl | This parameter specifies the source of the resource:
|
| p_sales_lead_rec | This provides the whole definition of a sales lead. This record is provided to help decide the sales lead owner. |
Out Parameters
The following three parameters store the result of this user hook:
x_resource_id
x_group_id
x_person_id
Together, they set the sales lead owner.
If x_resource_id is NULL, the owner is decided based upon Oracle's logic.
For example, x_resource_id=1001, x_group_id=10, x_person_id=100. The resource with the resource ID 1001, group ID 10, and person ID 100 will be assigned as the owner of the sales lead.
The following table lists the standard output parameters.
| Parameter | Definition |
|---|---|
| x_return_status | The return status. If your code completes successfully, then FND_API.G_RET_STS_SUCCESS must be returned. If you get an expected error, then return FND_API.G_RET_STS_ERROR, otherwise return FND_API.G_RET_STS_UNEXP_ERROR. |
| x_msg_count | The message count. Call FND_MSG_PUB.Count_And_Get to get the message count and messages. |
| x_msg_data | The messages. Call FND_MSG_PUB.Count_And_Get to get the message count and messages. |
Some lead statuses are seeded in the application. They are New, In Progress, Converted to Opportunity, Dead Lead, and Loss.
Use the following procedure to define alternate statuses.
Navigation: Log in as an administrator, and navigate to Administration > Sales > Opportunity > Status Code.
Notes
Status Code: You cannot view the status code. It is for internal use only.
Meaning: You can view this in the drop-down list when you select a lead status.
Win Loss Indicator: Select Neither in this region. The other options are reserved for opportunity statuses.
Apart from the seeded attributes, you can add custom attributes to meet your specific requirements. For example, you may want to set up rule sets based on a complex business logic, and the seeded attributes do not meet the requirements completely. For seeded attributes in Oracle Leads Management, see Seeded Attributes.
To create custom attributes, log in with the Oracle Marketing Superuser responsibility, and navigate to Administration > Leads > Setup > Custom Attributes.
Time frames determine the expiration date of a lead. The expiration date of a lead is the maximum length of time frame relative to the creation date. You can assign number of days to a time frame.
Some seeded examples:
Within 1 week : 7 days
1-3 months : 90 days
The time frame periods can be customized to suit your requirements. However, the time frame itself cannot be modified, and new ones cannot be created. You must enable the time frames that you want to use in your organization.
To create custom time frames, log in with the Oracle Marketing Superuser responsibility, and navigate to Administration > Leads > Setup > Timeframe.
Notes:
When you enter the new period and click Update, the time frame is added with the new period. There may be multiple periods defined for the same time frame.
Similar time frames cannot be enabled at the same time. Deselect any, if enabled.
Seeded time frames cannot be removed.