Common Components

This chapter covers the following topics:

Collaboration

Sales organizations are composed of teams that include many team members. Budget, Offer, and Claim collaboration enables you to communicate and coordinate the efforts within the team to deal with problems and track them. You can create contact points for different trade promotion objects and activities (budgets, offers, claims, and so on), communicate with the team members through notes and attachments, assign and keep track of tasks, and add or remove team members or groups from the activities of the trade promotion object.

Note: Page level security has been enabled for the Notes, Team, and Tasks options. You can access these options in Trade Management objects such as offers and budgets only if you belong to the team that has access to these objects. However, Admin users can access these options irrespective of the team to which they belong.

About Notes, Tasks, and Attachments

This guide contains a brief overview of Notes, Tasks, and Attachments and provides examples specifically related to Oracle Trade Management. For detailed information about these products, see the Oracle Common Application Calendar User Guide and the Oracle Common Application Calendar Implementation Guide.

Notes

Notes enables you write and record information that you would like to communicate to others who deal with a trade promotion object at various levels. You can create any number of notes, and edit and modify notes. In Oracle Trade Management, you can associate notes to trade promotion objects such as budgets, offers, quota, and claims. When you create a note, you must select a category. This enables all the users concerned with that category to view the notes.

For example, to create a note for the approvers of an offer, you must select the category--"Approval" and create the note. This enables the approvers to view this note when the offer is submitted for approval.

Tasks

Tasks enables you to assign follow-up activities such as resolving problems related to the budget, offer, or claim. A task may be a follow-up action, a reminder, or a daily work assignment. For example, a support manager of a company may want to create a task for an employee stating, “Please call back customer by 9:00am.” This task specifies that the employee must call back the customer.

Attachments

Attachments are used for sharing and storing information about trade management activities. You can add files, text, or web addresses as attachments to budgets, offers, and claims. After you add the attachments, the associated team members can access and download them.

For example, you create an offer for a customer to offer an incentive if the customer displays a product banner in his store for one month. The customer performs as expected and raises a claim. You have a photograph of the banner display as proof of performance. You scan this photograph and add it as an attachment to the claim.

Creating and Editing a Note

The following procedure describes how to create and edit a note for a budget. You can also use this procedure to create and edit a note for any trade promotion object.

To create and edit a note for an existing Oracle Trade Management object, log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User.

Navigation: Budget > Budgets > Budget Name > Collaboration > Notes > Create.

Notes:

Creating a Task

The following procedure describes how to create a task for an offer. Use this procedure to create a task for any other trade promotion object. However, a budget cannot have any tasks associated with it.

To create a task for an existing offer, log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User.

Navigation: Trade Planning > Offers > Collaboration > Tasks > Create.

Notes:

Adding and Modifying an Attachment

The following procedure describes how to add an attachment to an offer. You can also use this procedure to add an attachment for any other trade promotion object.

To add an attachment to an existing offer, log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User.

Navigation: Trade Planning > Offers > Offer Name > Collaboration > Attachments > Create.

Notes:

You can add files, text, or url as attachments. To modify an existing attachment, navigate to the object, make the required changes and save the changes.

Adding or Removing a Contact Point

Contact points for trade promotion objects serve as a reference to direct customers for further information. You can specify contact points for a budget, offer, or claim. A trade promotion object may have any number of contact points. Contact points can be defined for one of the following:

This procedure describes how to create a contact point for an existing offer. Use this procedure to create contact points for any object.

Log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User.

Navigation: Trade Planning > Offers > Offer Name > Collaboration > Contact Point.

Notes:

Adding or Removing Groups and Users From an Offer

The Team option enables you to add or remove other groups or users to the activities of budgets, offers, quotas, or claims. By using this option, you can assign access to team members. The access that the group or team member gets depends upon the group type that the team member belongs to.

For example, if you add the Administrator Group to a budget, then all the team members belonging to that group will have administrator rights on the budget.

The following procedure describes how to add users to an existing offer. Use this procedure to add users to any other trade promotion object.

Log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User.

Navigation: Trade Planning > Offers > Offer Name > Collaboration > Team.

Security and User Types

Oracle Trade Management provides different access levels based on the security group. Under this rule, the owner of the an object such as a claim, budget, offer, and so on, can change the all the fields including the Owner field. A member of the security group can update claim information except the Owner. A non-member cannot update any field. An application profile option is also provided to disable this feature, if necessary.

The security of the object is ensured by dividing the users into different types. Each user type has defined access permissions that determine the actions that users can perform on the claim. Only those users who create or own the trade management object can view and update parameters of the respective object. The authority to view and edit an object also depends on the hierarchy.

For example, a Vice President of Sales or a Regional Sales Director may view and update objects, such as offers that belong to their reporting subordinates. Offer owners can select users to view the promotional activity vertically through the sales hierarchy while limiting visibility across the hierarchy. For example, peer Sales Representatives of the same region who manage separate account bases may be denied editing rights, and in some cases viewing rights to each others promotional activities.

The following table describes the different user types and the access levels in Oracle Trade Management. These user types apply to all the modules in Oracle Trade Management.

User Types
User Type Access Level
AMS:Admin Group Update all the fields:
  • Including the fields that are locked by locking rules

  • Excluding the fields that are locked by the system

Owner Update all fields:
  • Including the Owner field

  • Excluding those locked by system

  • Excluding those locked by locking rules

    The Owner can add team members

Team Member with Edit Metrics Update all fields:
  • Excluding the Owner field

  • Excluding those locked by system

  • Excluding those locked by locking rules

    A team member with Edit Metrics, who is also the owner of the offer, can add other team members

Team Member without Edit Metrics View the object (budget, offer, claim, and so on)

User Profile Overview

Oracle Trade Management includes a few attributes that you may modify. The Profile link displays the profile page with items such as passwords, calendar preferences, navigation preferences, default currency and other attributes.

Access to many of the tabs is controlled by a responsibility. Each user is given a responsibility which determines what tabs are displayed and what rights a user may have. You can modify user profiles based on your preferences. The changes that you make to your user profile do not affect the functionality of the application.

Changing Password

To change your password, log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User, and click the Profile link.

Navigation: Account Setting > Change Password.

Setting Calendar Preferences

You can set your calendar preferences to modify the manner in which the calendar items are displayed in your personal calendar. You can modify the weekly setup, add new resources to your calendar, create new groups, and subscribe to group calendars.

Log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User and click the Profile link.

Navigation: Calendar.

Notes:

Personalizing Navigation and Display

Navigation preferences, display preferences, and quick menu enable you to switch responsibilities and set default responsibilities, specify the manner in which data must be displayed, and customize the quick menu.

Log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User and click the Profile link.

Navigation: Personalization > Navigation Preferences.

Notes:

Setting Application Preferences

Application preferences enables you to set general preferences for data display, and also specify the default searches that each of the tabs in Oracle Trade Management must display.

To set application preferences, log into Oracle Trade Management as Oracle Trade Management User and click the Profile link.

Navigation: Trade Management.

Notes:

You can set general preferences such as the default country, time zone, and number of rows that a search should return. You can also specify the default searches that each of the tabs in Oracle Trade Management must display.

Trade Profile

Manufacturers may deal with multiple customers. Each customer may have different preferences for payment, such as different means, methods, and frequency for payments. The trade profile of a customer can store the frequency for paying a customer, the customer's preference for receiving the payment in check or in credit, as well as any threshold amount whereby a customer gets paid only if the customer's accruals reach the threshold limit. Based on these preferences and schedule setups, you can set Autopay to periodically reimburse customers for their accruals.

The trade profile of a customer serves the following main purposes:

Similarly, distributors may deal with multiple suppliers or manufacturers. Each supplier may have different preferences for payments and approval communication. The trade profile of a supplier can store the frequency of debit, the threshold tolerance on an offer, and approval requirements and communication methods.

Related Topics

Set Up Customer Trade Profiles, Oracle Channel Revenue Management Implementation Guide

Set Up Supplier Trade Profiles, Oracle Channel Revenue Management Implementation Guide

Creating Ship and Debit Supplier Trade Profile, Oracle Channel Revenue Management Implementation Guide

System Parameters

System Parameters define the basic functionality for budgets, offers, and claims. System Parameters includes the following components:

System Parameters enables the Administrator to setup the following information for claims:

Custom Setups, Mandatory Rules, and Locking Rules

Custom Setups

Custom Setups generally serve the following purposes:

For a budget, however, the last function does not apply since a budget almost always requires approval. The only time when a budget does not require approval is when the one and only approver according to approval rule setups is actually the budget owner himself.

Mandatory Rules

Mandatory Rules enable you to control data entry by mandating that certain fields must always be entered on screen by users. In addition to data mandated by system, mandatory rules can be created to make other data fields mandatory.

For example, Business Unit in a budget is not a system mandatory field. Ordinarily users have a choice to select value for it or not. If the Management wants to ensure that users always select value for this for reasons such as proper classifications, reports, and so on, a mandatory rule may be created for Business Unit.

Locking Rules

Locking Rules are another way for organizations to control data entry by disallowing updates to certain data at certain statuses.

For example, you cannot update certain fields and information after an offer becomes active because they are locked.

Note: By design, locking rules are ignored for the Oracle Trade Management Super User responsibility. Whenever a user is logged in as Oracle Trade Management Super User, the user can update the fields that are locked.