This chapter covers the following topics:
Oracle Sales for Handhelds complements the online and disconnected editions of the Oracle Sales application by providing users with real time sales information on the road and synchronization capabilities.
The connected browser on the handheld device provides real time access to enterprise information. Users can use a web browser available in handheld devices to manage:
Customers and contacts
Opportunities
Tasks and appointments
The supported browsers are:
Pocket PC handheld devices running Pocket IE on Windows Mobile 2003 or Windows Mobile 5.0
Palm based handheld devices running Blazer 3.0 browser or higher
Nokia running Internet Browser for HTML 4.01/xHTML on Symbian 7.OS operating system
Blackberry devices version 4.0 or higher
Users can use Oracle Sales synchronization to synchronize information between laptop, desktop, or Pocket PC devices and the eBusiness Suite. Oracle Sales Synchronization can be used to synchronize:
Appointments
Tasks
Contacts
E-mail interactions (Desktop only)
Synchronization functionality is provided specifically for:
Pocket PC devices running Windows Mobile 2003 or Windows Mobile 5.0
Palm devices running Windows Mobile 5.0
Laptops or desktops with Windows 2000 or Windows XP operating systems running Outlook 2000, Outlook 2002 (XP), Outlook 2003
Oracle Sales for Handhelds currently utilizes a blended model for providing enterprise data on handheld devices. Oracle Sales Synchronization provides enterprise information directly into Microsoft Outlook and Pocket PC devices. The Oracle Sales for Handhelds connected pages provide enterprise information via an HTML browser and OA framework. The following matrix discusses which devices can be used with the Oracle Sales for Handhelds functionality.
Note that wherever direct synchronization is not provided, synchronization can still be done by synchronizing to Desktop Outlook and using the appropriate Outlook connector.
Alerts can be sent in e-mails or by Short Message Service (SMS). In order to receive e-mails, salespeople must have their e-mail addresses set up correctly in Oracle Workflow. SMS is a feature available with some wireless phones that allow users to send or receive short alphanumeric messages typically up to 160 characters. With alerts, sales representatives can receive automatic information about critical business events, anytime, anywhere via SMS or e-mail.
Administrators can create customized alerts (see Extensibility for Alerts Using Oracle Workflow for details on creating custom alerts.) Following are the seeded alerts:
The application queries the transaction tables from Oracle Collections to determine delinquent customers. The alert advises the customer name, transaction number, and due date of the overdue invoice. The e-mail displays the transaction and customer details.
Alerts for service contracts that are about to expire are created by a concurrent program in Oracle Service Contracts. A parameter sets the number of days before expiration within which expiring contracts are included. The alert includes the contract number, customer name, and expiration date. The e-mail includes contact and contract information.
A service request that is newly escalated via Escalation Manager creates a newly escalated task with a related service request. Escalation Manager sends an alert that provides customer name, service request number, status, escalation level, and who the service request is assigned to. The e-mail includes customer contacts.