This chapter covers the following topics:
Resource Manager enables other modules and applications to use resources no matter where they were created. It acts as a central repository for various types of resources. You can further define your resources by organizing them into groups and teams and assigning various roles to them. Whether or not resources are created in Resource Manager, you can import various types of resources, such as employees, suppliers, parties, or partners, which are created in other Oracle applications into Resource Manager. Once imported, they become available for other modules and applications to use. You can also update information about resources (which were created in other applications) by using a variety of concurrent programs to synchronize your information.
Resource Manager can be accessed from Forms and HTML depending on use and who is using it. Furthermore, depending on whether or not it is used as a stand-alone module, or if it is integrated with other applications or modules, its appearance can change. For example, when coupled with the HTML Calendar, Resource Manager appears as a tab labeled "People". This section covers the following topics:
Resource Manager provides lists of resources, as individuals, groups, and teams, for applications to access and manage their resources. Defining and organizing your resource information makes your resources available to the calling application modules for work action.
Use Resource Manager to:
Import employees from Oracle HRMS, parties and partners from Oracle Receivables, and supplier contacts from Purchasing.
Identify resources as salespeople. The only resource you can define in the Forms-based Resource Manager is a salesperson. In the HTML-based Resource Manager, you can define and identify employee resources as salespeople. This employee information is also recorded in the Oracle Human Resources Management System (HRMS) tables and automatically becomes a CRM resource.
Assign additional attributes to the resources so that these resources can be used by other applications. In the Forms-based Resources window, you can enter or view additional information in the Service, Interaction Center, Compensation, or Receivables tab for any selected resource.
Create a resource group and team structure by using Resource Manager to better manage resources for particular business needs. Team resources can be created in the Forms-based Resource Manager only.
Assign individual resources with resource roles and role types to groups and teams. This allows you to assign groups of people with the appropriate resources to specific tasks.
Example
Sue Smith, a new sales manager at Vision, Inc. wants to establish all her employees and outside contacts in the E-Business suite. She imports her subordinate group of salespeople from HRMS, her list of top ten customers (parties) from various customer accounts, and her list of plant managers (supplier contacts) from the companies that design and engineer her products. To make sure her sales team gets paid their commissions, she defines each one as a salesperson. This information is recorded in the HRMS tables.
To make her organization more efficient, Sue decides to create two resource groups, one of all her outside salespeople and one for all her inside sale people. She also decides that an upcoming sales campaign will need a group of cross functional people to target her goal. So she also creates a team called Campaign Z. This team is made up of ten sales people, six marketing representatives, two collateral writers, and a project manager to oversee the group.
Resources are defined as the employees, supplier contacts, parties, and partners that are used by the different CRM components to accomplish business objectives. The following table describes all five resource categories used in Resource Manager.
| Resource | Description |
|---|---|
| Employee | An employee is a person who has been hired to work for a company. Resources of type "Employee" are imported as resources from Human Resources Management System (HRMS). Examples of an Employee resource include a Sales Representative or a Field Service Engineer. |
| Supplier Contact | A supplier contact is the contact information for a person or agency that sells raw material or goods. Resources of type "Supplier" can be imported as resources from the Oracle Purchasing (PO) application. An example of a supplier contact is a Sales Representative or Field Service Engineer who is a contact for a vendor. |
| Party | A party is an entity that can enter into a business relationship. Resources of type "Party" can be imported as resources from Oracle Receivables. An example of a party is a customer. |
| Partner | A partner is one of two or more persons who contribute capital to establish or maintain a commercial venture and who usually share in the risks and profits. A Partner resource can be imported as resources from Oracle Receivables. |
| Other | Other objects such as assets, equipment or property. Examples include but are not limited to meals, furniture and audio/visual equipment. |
Resources can be organized into groups and teams. Each group or team is defined in one of two ways, a role or a role type.
A role can encompass one or more job descriptions and job titles (Field Service Representative), or functions within the applications (such as default marketing approver, MES_Publish, and Channel_Manager). You assign roles to resources, resource groups, and resource teams. For example, the seeded roles for Sales include manager, administrator, approver, and representative. The seeded roles for TeleSales include manager, administrator, and agent. You can define custom roles for your business needs. Ensure that a role type exists so that you can associate the new role.
A role type is a collection of roles associated with a particular CRM module. Examples are Sales, TeleSales, Marketing, Sales Compensation, Support, and Call Center are all role types. Role types are seeded by the different modules that access the Resource Manager. You can define custom role types for your business needs.
Example
Think of role types as a "family" and its members as having the various "roles" with in the family.
Sales (role type)
Roles: manager, administrator, representative, and sales approver
Role attributes are associated with each role, and define its responsibility within the group. In addition to these responsibilities, a role attribute can also be designated as active (currently), and seeded (available out-of-the-box).
There are four seeded role attributes that can be associated to roles at role creation:
Member: Default when another attribute is not chosen (Lead, Administrator, Manager.)
Lead: Used in the context of team lead.
Administrator: Used to grant this user permission to view information about other group members. In the HTML-based Resource Manager, only a user in a group with either the Administrator or Manager group member role attribute can update group member and group hierarchy information.
Manager: Used to set up the group reporting hierarchy. For example, all the forecasts for a group of sales representatives will roll up to the person with the Manager role attribute in that group. In addition, a user with the Manager group member role attribute can update the group member and group hierarchy information in the HTML Resource Manager.
You use these role attributes to define how a resource is reporting hierarchy. This hierarchy is used in sales product families, such as Sales Online and TeleSales, to control the data access privilege (customer, sales lead, and sales opportunity) as well as sales forecast rollup and incentive compensation plan through the group functionality. It is also used for workflow notifications and escalations. For example, if you set up an escalation for service requests and tasks, notifications for members of groups go to the manager.
Example
The following table lists example role types, and the seeded roles associated with each along with their attributes.
| Role Type | Seeded Roles | Role Attribute |
|---|---|---|
| Sales |
|
|
| TeleSales |
|
|
The following concepts are useful in understanding the groups function in Resource Manager.
A group is based on the similar functionality or the roles of its members. It can consist of individual resources and groups. For example, Linda's group includes individual resources, John, Mark, and Carol, as well as another resource group, Mary's group. A resource can belong to one or many groups at one time.
Roles and responsibilities are commonly associated with all members of a resource group, but not all group roles need to be filled. For example, a sales group has one sales manager and a few sales representatives. The sales manager and the sales representative are job roles assigned to the group members.
Each member can have multiple roles defined within a group. For example, Mid West Sales Group consists of only two people due to resource constraints, one of them plays two roles, sales manager and field sales agent, at the same time.
Multiple roles can be assigned to a resource group. For example, Group A has three resources (an employee, a Party, and a Partner). Those three resources play a role in Group A, even if they have different roles assigned to them individually. The Party can have an individual Team role but the role it plays in group A is the Manager role.
Individual resources can be assigned to a group, and a group can belong to another group or to multiple groups. Resources therefore can be organized through a group hierarchy with a parent-child relationship.
Important: A group can belong to multiple groups but only one parent at a given point of time.
Example
Jack William and Frank Nelson are sales representatives who belong to the Product A group and directly report to Pat Smith, the Sales Manager of Product A. However, Jack and Frank indirectly report to Jeff Walsh who leads the Field Sales Group as Field Sales Manager. The Field Sales Group and the Product A group have a parent-child relationship. You can use the group hierarchy to view direct reporting or all reporting information for a resource. Refer to the Viewing Group Hierarchy procedure in the Implementation Guide for detailed information.
You create Teams only in the Forms-based Resource Manager. The following concepts are useful in understanding the Teams function in Resource Manager.
A team is a collection of cross-functional resources. Team members are chosen for their availability and qualifications. You define a team to organize the necessary resources to accomplish an objective or a particular task. Teams consists of groups and individual resources that work together to efficiently complete a project. A resource can belong to multiple resource teams. For example, a solution team can have support and sales groups as well as a TeleSales agent as an individual resource.
Each team member, whether or not it is an individual resource or a resource group, can have multiple roles assigned to a team. For example, a team member can have both Sales Manager and Sales Representative roles due to resource constraints in a team.
You can assign multiple roles to a team. For example, a solution team plays a support manager role, and a sales approver role at the same time while sales demand is strong.
A salesperson is any person involved in the sale or support of products and services. Salespeople are typically field personnel, but can also be support groups and other product specialists involved either directly or indirectly in generating revenue for the organization.
Depending on their relationship to the sales organization, salespeople can be internal employees or external people or organizations. Employees, Parties, Partners, and Supplier Contacts can all be further defined as salespeople by having sales numbers and relevant information assigned to them after being imported to the Resource Manager. However, these imported resources always carry their original resource categories of Employee, Party, Partner, or Supplier Contact. These resource categories never change.
Example
Your company partners with Vision Enterprises to promote certain products. Vision Enterprises can be imported as category “Partner” from Oracle Receivables and be given a sales number and relevant information, thus Vision Enterprises becomes a salesperson and can be assigned to your group or team, still with the same category "Partner" for marketing campaign or opportunities.
In addition to imported resources, the only resource you can create, and not import, is a salesperson in HTML.
There are several name fields that are associated with Resource Manager:
Employee Name
Source Name
Resource (Preferred) Name
Salespersons Name
User Name
An Employee Name is usually your legal name. It is also the Source Name which you can see in the Forms UI. The Source Name derives from HRMS before the resource is imported, or when a resource is created in Resource Manager.
The Resource (preferred) Name is the name that is available to the other modules or applications from Resource Manager. For example, perhaps your first name is difficult to pronounce and you have always used a nickname. That nickname is your resource name.
The Salesperson Name is not visible in either of the Forms or HTML UIs but is recorded in the Resource Manager Salesreps table. However, there is a Salesperson Name field in the HRMS application.
The User Name is generally one brief name that is used for e-mail and logging into applications and it never changes.
An employee can be created in HRMS. When the employee is imported into Resource Manager, the full name is populated in the Resource Name and Source Name fields. If the resource is also a salesperson, then the salespersons name is populated with the resource name. Any changes made to the resource name, are automatically reflected to the salespersons name.
Note: The resource name and salespersons name are always the same regardless of resource category. The source name and employee name are always the same for category Employee.
Example
Penelope Smith joins Vision Enterprises as a salesperson. Her employee data was created in HRMS, and imported into Resource Manager.
| Resource Name: | Penelope Smith |
| Source or Employee Name: | Penelope Smith |
| Salespersons Name: | Penelope Smith |
Her customers know her by the nickname Penny. So she changes her resource name in the HTML version of Resource Manager to Penny since that is what she prefers people to call her.
| Resource Name: | Penny Smith |
| Source or Employee Name: | Penelope Smith |
| Salespersons Name: | Penny Smith |
Later in the year she marries and decides to use her husband's last name, Jones. So HRMS changes her last name as requested and the Resource Administrator runs the Synchronize Employees concurrent program. At this time, she prefers to use her given name so customers will not be confused.
| Resource Name: | Penny Smith |
| Source or Employee Name: | Penelope Jones |
| Salespersons Name: | Penny Smith |
Later in the year, she decides that she wants to append her new last name to her maiden name. The Resource Administrator changes her resource name accordingly which is reflected in her salespersons name as well. In this example, the Synchronize Employees concurrent program was run.
| Resource Name: | Penny Smith-Jones |
| Source or Employee Name: | Penelope Jones |
| Salespersons Name: | Penny Smith-Jones |
Later in the year, she decides that she wants to append her new last name to her maiden name. The Resource Administrator changes her resource name accordingly which is reflected in her salespersons name as well. In this example, the Synchronize Employees concurrent program was not run.
| Resource Name: | Penny Smith-Jones |
| Source Name: | Penelope Jones |
| Employee Name: | Penelope Smith-Jones |
| Salespersons Name: | Penny Smith-Jones |
The entire CRM suite uses Resource Manager to import and view resources, define resources (salespeople), define roles and role types, create teams and groups, and organize resources within those teams and groups.
For example, the following CRM modules use Resource Manager to define or schedule resources:
Marketing uses Resource Manager to set up marketing groups and execute marketing campaigns.
Service uses group and team lists of resources from Resource Manager for service request assignments.
iSupport uses Resource Manager to set up support groups to fulfill service and support needs.
Incentive Compensation uses Resource Manager to set up sales representatives and sales compensation group hierarchies.
Call Center uses Resource Manager for call center routing.
Sales Online uses Resource Manager to set up a sales hierarchy.
Oracle Common Application Calendar also uses Resource Manager:
Forms-based Calendar uses Resource Manager to track the availability of resources.
Assignment Manager uses Resource Manager to provide a list of qualified resources.
Territory Manager uses Resource Manager to select the resources for a particular territory.
Task Manager uses Resource Manager to provide single, group, and team lists of resources for task assignments.
Resource Manager uses the concept of the Oracle Trading Community Architecture (TCA). You can import resources from the following different sources:
Resources of category “Party” and “Partner” can be imported from Oracle Receivables to Resource Manager and can become available resources. You can only import partners that are defined as an organization, however you can subsequently define the imported party as a sales person and assign it a sales number and other relevant information.
Resources of category “Supplier Contact” can be imported as resources from one or more supplier sites. When importing supplier contacts from Purchasing (PO), the supplier contact must exist in the PO_VENDOR_CONTACTS table and be effective on the given date of import.
Resources of category “Employee” can be imported as resources from Human Resource Management System (HRMS). The employee must exist in table PER_ALL_PEOPLE_F and be effective on the given date of import.
The following table describes terms and definitions associated with the Resource Manager.
| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Employee | An employee is a person who has been hired to work for a company. Employee resources can be imported as resources from the Human Resources Management System (HRMS). |
| Resource Manager | A single place for defining, accessing, and maintaining all CRM and ERP resources. |
| Category | A category is the highest level that a resource can be rated in relation to skills management. If a resource is rated at the category level, and not rated at any one of the product, platform, or product code levels, it does not imply the resource is also rated at those levels. Categories can be rated with the following: Foundation, Intermediate, Skilled, Advanced, Expert, or N/A. |
| Component | Within a product in skills management, there are numerous components. A resource can be rated individually for each of those components. Components can be rated with the following: Foundation, Intermediate, Skilled, Advanced, Expert, or N/A. |
| Partner | A partner is one of two or more persons who contribute capital to establish or maintain a commercial venture and who usually share in the risks and profits. A Partner resource can be imported as resources from Oracle Receivables. |
| Party | A party is an entity that can enter into a business relationship. A party resource can be imported as resources from Oracle Receivables. |
| Platform | Within a category, there could be numerous platforms in Skills Management. A resource can be rated individually for each of those platforms. Platforms can be rated with the following: Foundation, Intermediate, Skilled, Advanced, Expert, or N/A. |
| Problem | Within a category in Skills Management, there could be numerous problems. A resource can be rated individually for each of those problems. Problems can be rated with the following: Foundation, Intermediate, Skilled, Advanced, Expert, or N/A. |
| Product | Within a category in Skills Management, it is possible to have numerous products. A resource can be rated individually for each of those products. A product can be sub-divided into components. Products can be rated with the following: Foundation, Intermediate, Skilled, Advanced, Expert, or N/A. |
| Resource | A resource is the basic element of the Resource Manager and is defined as people, places and things. |
| Resource Category | There are five types of resources: Party, Employee, Partner, Supplier Contact, To Be Hired (TBH), and Other. |
| Skills Management | Skills Management provides the ability to add a new skill rating to a resource. The resource can update and maintain their skill rating, attach a numeric value to each skill level, and change the actual name of each skill level. |
| Supplier Contact | A supplier contact is the contact information for a person or agency that sells raw material or goods. Supplier resources can be imported as resources from the Purchasing (PO) application. |
| Workflow | Oracle Workflow automates and continuously improves business processes, routing information of any type according to business rules you can change. The rules, which we call a workflow process definition, include the activities that occur in the process and the relationship between those activities. An activity in a process definition can be an automated function defined by:
|
Resource Manager has several rules it follows for security purposes:
The logged in user can only modify his information.
A user can not update their own job title.
A manager of a group cannot change his directs personal information except for skills.
An administrator can change any resource's personal information.
Group Hierarchy is the ability to alter the group structure.
A member of a group who has a role within that group and the role type of admin can update the group hierarchy.
A member of a group who has a role within that group and the role type of admin can edit group structure of the child groups of the parent group where they have this role.
A manager of a group who has a role within that group and the role type of admin or manager can update the group hierarchy.
A manager of a group who has a role within that group and the role type of admin or manager can edit group structure of the child groups of the parent group where they have this role.
Skills Management is the ability to rate resources based on skill level.
Only positive integers are acceptable for skill ratings.
No two skill ratings can have the same numeric value.
You cannot change the numeric value of the category N/A.
Skill rating names are editable for specific business needs.
No two skill ratings can have the same name.
A resource's manager cannot add or modify new skill levels to his subordinates.
Any user can view a resource's skill rating.
Web Availability is the ability for a resource to make their status Web available or unavailable in Forms.
Only the logged in resource can make their status available or unavailable.
The UI is available as an option in the tool bar from the Customer Service responsibility in the Service Request form.