This chapter covers the following topics:
This topic provides an overview of resource setups for Oracle TeleService. All setups are done in Resource Manager, an application foundation module. Please see the Resource Manager section of the Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide for more details.
Prerequisites:
Create employees in the Oracle Human Resources application's Human Resources People window. If you do not have a license to Oracle Human Resources, you can use the Enter Person window (Under the Service responsibility navigate to Resource Management, Maintain Employees, Employees).
Create any other resources you wish to import including Parties, Supplier Contacts, TBH (To Be Hired), and others, in their respective applications.
Set up users and any additional responsibilities according to the procedures in the Oracle E-Business Suite Security Guide.
To set up Oracle TeleService resources
Optionally, create role types and roles. You can use these to specify the roles agents play in resource groups (for example, call center manager, call center agent, and customer support manger).
Role types and roles (which you can set up under the Service responsibility by navigating to Setup, Resource Management) are purely optional.
To assign a service request owner as the salesperson for orders that are created from charges, set the profile option Service: Default Incident Owner as the Salesperson for Orders. To set this profile option, you must associate a resource with the Support Sales Representative role in the Resource window. See Setting Up Charges Process Overview.
Set up resource groups. These are used by the application to assign work. See Setting Up Resource Groups.
Import resources, for example, employees from the Oracle HRMS application. See Importing Resources.
Set up the imported resources and assign them to the groups. See Setting Up Imported Resources.
Assign your application responsibilities to the users.
After your initial resource setup, you must periodically run the Synchronize Employees concurrent program (to keep your employee resources and Oracle HRMS data synchronized) and the Synchronize Parties and Partners concurrent program (to keep your nonemployee resources synchronized).
These concurrent programs can be run under the CRM Administrator responsibility. You can use the default parameters for running the program. After each synchronization, you must use the Resources maintenance window to assign any new resources to the resource groups and ensure their user names are displayed in the window. You must also make sure that their user records are assigned the proper responsibilities.
The program automatically assigns an end date for the records of any terminated resources.
Groups are used by the application to assign work. (For details, see Implementing Work Assignment and Distribution) Making resources (employees or contingent workers) members of a group gives them access to the service requests and tasks assigned to that group.
To set up groups under the Service responsibility, navigate to Resource Management, Resources, Groups and create groups using the Create Groups window following the procedures in the Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Note:
For work assignment, Oracle TeleService ignores any group hierarchy you create.
Entering roles is optional.
To assign a service request owner as the salesperson for orders that are created from charges, set the profile option Service: Default Incident Owner as the Salesperson for Orders. To set this profile option, you must associate a resource with the Support Sales Representative role in the Resource window. See Setting Up Charges Process Overview for information about the profile option.
You can assign employees to the groups you create either in the same window on the Members tab or on the Groups tab of the Resource management window. (If you haven't imported employees yet, make the assignment later using the Resource window.)
You must enter Support in the Application Areas field on the Used In tab. This entry is required for the application to use this group for assigning service requests and service request tasks.
You can optionally assign a time zone for the resource group from the Time Zone list. This list displays the available time zones as defined in the FND_TIMEZONES table. If the Time Zone attribute is not defined for a group, the server time zone is considered as the time zone for the group.
The Assignment Manager uses the Time Zone attribute to analyze the working shifts and holidays associated with the group during service request or task assignment.
For example, if three resolving groups are defined in the Resource Manager with the following associated time zones:
| Resolving Group | Time Zone |
| US Resolving Group | Pacific Standard Time - (PST) (GMT-8) |
| UK Resolving Group | Greenwich Mean Time - (GMT) |
| Australia Resolving Group | Australian Western Standard Time - (AWST) (GMT+8) |
A shift pattern is defined for each of the above resolving groups in Oracle Common Applications Calendar as follows:
Shift Pattern for a Resolving Group
| Begin | Duration | End | |||
| Weekday | Time | Hours | Minutes | Weekday | Time |
| Monday | 09.00 | 8 | 00 | Monday | 17.00 |
| Tuesday | 09.00 | 8 | 00 | Tuesday | 17.00 |
| Wednesday | 09.00 | 8 | 00 | Wednesday | 17.00 |
| Thursday | 09.00 | 8 | 00 | Thursday | 17.00 |
| Friday | 09.00 | 8 | 00 | Friday | 17.00 |
During assignment of service requests or task owner, the Assignment Manager checks if a shift pattern is defined for each of these resolving groups. The shift pattern enables the Assignment Manager to assign a service request or task to a group or individual with an active shift, thereby preventing assignment to a group or resource, which is not on an active shift.
You can enable or disable checking for a resource's availability through calendars by setting up the following profiles:
Service: Check Resource Calendar Availability for SR Auto Assignment
Service: Check Resource Calendar Availability for Task Auto Assignment
See Overview of Service Request and Task Assignment.
From the above defined shift patterns,
If a service request is created between 9 am – 5 pm PST, it is routed to the US resolving group.
If a service request is created between 5 pm – 2 pm PST, it is routed to the UK resolving group (because 5 pm-2 pm PST is 9 am – 5 pm GMT.)
If a service request is created between 2 pm – 9 am PST, it is routed to the Australian resolving group (because 2 pm – 9 am PST is 9 am – 5 pm AWST.)
For more information, refer to Oracle Common Applications Calendar User Guide.
Use these guidelines to import resources from Oracle HRMS and other applications such as Oracle Trading Community Architecture (Parties) and Oracle Purchasing (Supplier Contacts). For detailed procedures, please refer to the Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
To import resources
Under the Service responsibility, navigate to Resource Management, then Maintain Resources, and then select Import Resources.
Use the Select Resources to Import window to search for resources by title or other criteria.
Choose the category of resource you wish to import.
Select the employees to import and click Start Import. Optionally, you can assign a role to the resources you are importing in the Set Resource Attributes window.
Use these guidelines to set up the individual resources you have imported. This includes assigning them to resource groups. For detailed procedures, please refer to the Oracle Trading Community Architecture Administration Guide.
Prerequisites:
Create resource groups and import employees first.
To set up imported resources
Under the Service responsibility, navigate to Resource Management, then Maintain Resources, and then select Resources.
You can search for the imported resources by their start date (the date recorded in Oracle HRMS) or other criteria. The transaction number is not used.
If you have already set up the resource as a user and the User Name field is not populated automatically, then enter the User Name using the User Name list of values. Normally, this list includes only one value.
Note: You must make sure that each resource has a user name entered in this field.
Enter one or more resource groups on the Groups tab. This grants the resource access to service requests and tasks assigned to those groups. (Security restrictions apply. See Setting Up Service Request Security.)
Entries on the other tabs are optional.
Make entries on the Service tab according to the following guidelines:
Time Zone: Agent time zone. The entry you make here is used to determine in the automatic work assignment resource balancing formula to calculate the difference between the agent and customer time zone. (See Implementing Work Assignment and Distribution).
Support Site: The support site where the resource works. This is one of the Territory Manager matching attributes (qualifiers) that can be used exclusively for the assignment of tasks.
The support site is nothing but a site for the Oracle Trading Architecture (TCA) organization party providing the service. You must set up each support center as a separate TCA party site for the party. You can set up the support sites by creating parties in the Contact Center and with addresses (sites).
Cost Per Hour: Not used.
Primary Language: Not used.
Oracle Territory Manager can assign resources on the basis of a customer's preferred language, but the match is made based on the competencies recorded in the employee record.
Secondary Language: Not used.