About Standard Partner Commerce

Your partners can use standard partner commerce to shop in two ways:

"Partners Shopping for Themselves". The partner is your customer.
"Partners Shopping for Customers". The partner is your sales agent, selling your products to customers.

In both of these methods, partners use the Siebel Sales catalog to choose products. For more information about setting up and using Siebel Sales, see Siebel eSales Administration Guide.

Partner commerce can also use Siebel Interactive Selling, which includes Advisor, Configurator, Pricer, and Auction. For more information about Siebel Interactive Selling, see Siebel Product Administration Guide, Siebel Advisor Administration Guide, Siebel Pricing Administration Guide, and Siebel eSales Administration Guide.

Partners Shopping for Themselves

Partners can place orders for themselves to replenish their store inventory or to order new products that the brand owner has made available to them as product offers.

After shopping, partners use the My Quotes and My Orders views in the Quotes and Orders screens in the Siebel PRM Portal to track the quotes and orders that they created.

Partners shop for themselves in the same way whether they use standard partner commerce or power partner commerce.

If partners are using personal partner commerce, the Siebel CRM system skips the step that asks the partners whether they are shopping for themselves or for customers, because they can only shop for themselves.

To shop for themselves

In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner navigates to the Product Catalog screen.
The partner browses the catalog and adds an item to the Shopping Cart.

The New Cart form appears, with the question Who are you shopping for?
The Partner clicks My Company.

The shopping cart appears.
The partner continues to browse the catalog and add items.
While browsing, the partner can click View Details at any time to display the shopping cart.
In the shopping cart, the partner can click Check Out to complete the purchase, or the partner can click Save Cart to save the cart as a quote.
If the partner has saved the cart as a quote, it can be viewed by navigating to the My Quotes view.

Partners Shopping for Customers

Partners with Standard Partner Commerce have only the easiest to use method of shopping for customers. Partners with Power Partner Commerce have additional methods of shopping for customers.

Shopping for Customers Using Standard Partner Commerce

Your partners' sales agents can use the Siebel PRM Portal to shop, provide quotes, and place orders for their customers, for example, if the partners are resellers of your products. This is more complicated than shopping for themselves, because resellers could have different price lists for different customers, based on geography, account, or other factors.

After shopping, partners use the My Customer Quotes and My Customer Orders views in the Quotes and Orders screens in the Siebel PRM Portal to track quotes and orders that they created.

To shop for customers using Standard Partner Commerce, the partner uses the shopping cart and product catalog.

This method gives the partner a simple shopping process. It does not allow the partner to specify line item Ship To addresses.

To shop for customers using Standard Partner Commerce

In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner using Standard Partner Commerce navigates to the Product Catalog screen.
The partner browses the catalog and adds an item to the Shopping Cart.

The New Cart form appears, with the question Who are you shopping for?
The Partner clicks A Customer.

The Customer Information form appears.
In the Customer Information form, the partner clicks the Single Select buttons to select the customer's account, last name, price list, and to link the sale to an opportunity. After selecting the customer's account, the partner can select a price list for that account.
In the Customer Information form, the Partner clicks Next.

The Shopping Cart form appears, with the Customer Information form above it.
The partner continues to browse the catalog and add items for the customer.
When the shopping cart is displayed, the partner can edit the information in the Customer Information form.
In the shopping cart, the partner can click Check Out to complete the purchase, or the partner can click Save Cart to save the cart as a quote.
If the partner has saved the cart as a quote, it can be viewed by navigating to the My Customer Quotes view in the Quotes Screen.

Shopping for Customers Using Power Partner Commerce

After shopping, partners use the My Customer Quotes and My Customer Orders views in the Quotes and Orders screens in the Siebel PRM Portal to track quotes and orders that they created.

To shop for customers using Power Partner Commerce, the partner can follow any of the following three processes:

Use the Shopping Cart and Product Catalog
Use the Quotes Screen and the Product Catalog
Use the Quotes Screen without the Product Catalog

Using the Shopping Cart and Product Catalog

This is the best option if the partner does not have to specify line item Ship To addresses and if you want a simple shopping process.

When they use this method, partners with Power Partner Commerce shop for customers in the same way as partners with Standard Partner Commerce. For instructions on how this is done, see the topic "Shopping for Customers Using Standard Partner Commerce".

Using the Quotes Screen and the Product Catalog

This is a good option if you have partners who are experienced users. The Quotes screen provides additional functionality, such as the ability to specify due date, effective date, through date, or different bill to and ship to addresses than the defaults for the account.

This option is only available to Power Partner Commerce users.

To shop using the Quotes screen and the Product Catalog

In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner using Power Partner Commerce navigates to the Quotes screen.
In the Quotes form, the partner clicks the My Customer Quotes link.
The partner creates a new quote and enters Quote Header information, such as the account, contact, price list, and so on.
In the Quote Header form, the partner clicks Browse Catalog.
The partner browses the catalog and adds items to the cart.
In the catalog, the partner clicks View Details.

The Quote Detail view appears.
The partner reviews and, if necessary, edits line items in the quote.
The partner clicks the Orders view tab.
The partner clicks Sales Order or Service Order to turn the quote into an order.

Using the Quotes Screen Without the Product Catalog

This is also a good option if you have partners who are experienced users. It provides the same functionality as the previous option. The difference is a matter of preference: some brand owners think the product catalog is easier for partners to understand and work with, so they use the previous method. Other brand owners think that it is faster for partners to make choices from a flat list of products, so they use this method.

This option is only available to Power Partner Commerce users.

To shop using the Quotes screen without the Product Catalog using Standard Partner Commerce

In the Siebel PRM Portal, the partner using Power Partner Commerce navigates to the Quotes screen.
In the Quotes form, the partner clicks the My Customer Quotes link.
In the Quotes list, the partner clicks New to create a new quote and enters Quote Header information, such as the account, contact, price list, and so on.
The partner clicks the Line Items view tab.
In the Line Items list, the partner clicks Add Item to add a new line item to the quote.
The partner selects a product for the new line item, enters the quantity, discount, and other information.
The partner continues to create a new line item for each product being purchased.
The partner clicks the Orders view tab.
The partner clicks Sales Order or Service Order to turn the quote into an order.

Note:

Partners can manage large quantities of quotes and orders for their customers using the bulk request functionality. For more information about bulk requests, see Siebel Order Management Guide Addendum for Industry Applications.