Process of Working with a Market Development Fund

To work with an MDF, perform the following tasks:

"Making Market Development Funds Visible to Partners". You must configure the Siebel Business Application to make the fund visible in the partner portal.
"Creating Market Development Funds". When you create a fund, you specify how much funding it has and which partners participate in it.
"Setting Up Fund Approval Authorization". You must authorize your employees to approve fund requests. Employees have a fund request approval limit. If a request is greater than an employee's limit, that employee routes it to other employees for further review.
"Changing the Partner Manager Field". Optionally, you can change the Partner Manager field to change the routing of fund requests for approval.
"Initiating a Fund Request". After a fund has been created, employees of the partner company or from the brand owner company can request funding on behalf of partners who participate in the fund.
"Adding Attachments, Activities, and Activity Plans to MDF Requests". It can be useful to add attachments, activities, and activity plans to an MDF request.
"Reviewing a Fund Request". Your company must approve or reject funding requests. Optionally, you can use Siebel Business Process Designer to inform people by email when they must review a request or provide more information.
"Viewing a Fund's Checkbook". The MDF checkbook lets you track the amount of credits, debits, and total funds available in a fund.

Making Market Development Funds Visible to Partners

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

Perform the following configuration in Siebel Tools to make the market development fund that the brand owner creates visible to partners using the Partner Portal:

Define the following user property in Employee Limit Pick Applet
- Name : Override Visibility: Siebel Partner Manager
- Value : Sub-Organization

For more information about Siebel Tools, see Using Siebel Tools.

Creating Market Development Funds

Market development funds (MDFs) are created for a variety of reasons. For example, an alliance partner might agree to a fixed MDF as part of its alliance agreement, or you can do joint marketing with a partner and create an accrual MDF to which you contribute one percent of the partner's sales.

When you create a new MDF, you must specify which partners are participants in the fund and you must specify the fund type.

There are three types of MDFs:

Fixed Fund. A fund that has a specific amount of money allocated to it.
Accrual Fund. A fund that has money allocated to it based on the partner's performance. For example, partners can accrue funds based on the number of units sold of a specific product or product line, based on a percentage of their revenues, or based on other metrics you define.
Mixed Fund. A fund that has both a fixed and an accrual element. It begins with a specific amount of money, and it also accrues additional money depending on partner performance.

When you create the Fund record, you must specify the type of fund. This determines where funds are added.

To create a new MDF, you perform the following tasks:

"Creating a New Fund Record"
"Adding Partner Companies as Fund Participants"
"Adding Funding to the Market Development Fund"

About Fund Design Lists

From the Fund Design screen a number of different fund design lists are available. The following table describes each list.

Table 17-1 Fund Design Lists

List	Description
My Fund Designs	This list displays all fund designs owned by the user.
All Fund Designs	This list displays all fund designs of the partners in the same organization of the user.
All Fund Designs Across My Organizations	This list displays all fund designs of the partners in the same organization and sub-organizations of the user.
All Fund Designs Across Organizations	This list displays all the fund designs of the partners in all organizations.

Creating a New Fund Record

The first step in creating a new MDF is to add a new Fund record.

To create a new Fund record

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
In the My Fund Designs list, click New to add a new record to this list.
Enter information about the new fund in the new record and the More Info form, as shown in Table 17-2.

Table 17-2 Fund Administration Fields

Field	Description
Name	Enter a name for the fund (up to 50 characters) for your own use.
Type	Choose Fixed, Accrual, or Mixed to indicate how funding is allocated.
Fund ID	A unique identifier that is generated automatically.
Active	Indicates whether the fund is currently active, that is, whether partners can make fund requests against this fund. Generated automatically based on the start date and end date.
Locked	Lets you lock the fund record so no one can update it.
Period	Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period from a picklist defined by the Siebel administrator, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. If you select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start	The date when a partner can begin applying for money from this fund.
End	The last date when a partner can apply for money from this fund.
Target Amount	The amount of money targeted to be accrued to a fund. For a fixed fund, the amount of money agreed to in a fund.
Description	A text description of the fund for your own use. Enter up to 150 characters.
Total Credits	The total of all deposits into the fund. Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Total Debits	The total of all the approved withdrawals from the fund (actual amounts granted to partners). Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Fund Balance	The balance in the fund, calculated as Total Credits minus Total Debits. Read-only field calculated by the Siebel CRM system.
Fixed Credits	Credits from fixed deposits into the fund.
Accrual Credits	Credits from accruals to the fund.

Adding Partner Companies as Fund Participants

The second step in creating a new MDF is to add the partner companies that are fund participants to the fund. Partners must be added to the Fund Participation list because only fund participants (and employees at the brand owner company acting on their behalf) are authorized to spend against a fund.

Sometimes, partners contribute to MDFs for joint marketing activities with the brand owner. In these situations, the partner is usually the only participant in the fund.

Similarly, because accruals are used as incentive programs for partners, you generally have only one partner in each accrual fund. If you added multiple partners, one partner would accrue funds and the other partners could spend the funds accrued by the first partner.

If you add a partner company as a fund participant, there must be a partner manager defined for that partner company, so the partner's fund requests can be routed to the partner manager for approval. For more information, see "About Specifying the Partner Manager for a Partner Company"

To add a partner company to an MDF

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of the fund to which you want to add the partner company.
Click the Fund Participation view tab.

The Fund Participation view appears.
In the Fund Participation list, add a new record.

Enter information in the following table in the new record's fields about the partner company's participation.

Field	Description
Partner	In the Pick Channel Partner dialog box, choose the participating partner company.
Target Amount	Enter the target amount for this partner to receive from all its fund requests to this fund.
Period	Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start	Enter the date when this partner can begin applying for money from this fund. The default value is the start date of the fund.
End	Enter the last date when this partner can apply for money from this fund. The default value is the end date of the fund.
Description	Optionally, enter a description (up to 150 characters) of this partner company's participation in this fund for your own use.

Adding Funding to the Market Development Fund

The third step in creating an MDF is to add funding to it. The type of funding you add depends on the choice you made in the Type field when you created the Fund record:

Fixed. If the fund type is Fixed, add the funding amount in the Fixed Fund Administration view.
Accrual. If the fund type is Accrual, add the funding amount in the Accrual Fund Administration view.
Mixed. If the fund type is mixed, use both the Fixed Fund Administration view and the Accrual Fund Administration view to specify the amount of funding it has. The mixed fund contains the sum of the fixed and accrual funding that you specify.

Use the following procedure to add fixed funding to an MDF.

To add fixed funding to an MDF

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of a Fund that is Fixed or Mixed.
Click the Fixed Fund Administration view tab.
In the Fixed Fund Administration list, add a new record.

Enter information in the following table about the fixed funding in the new record.

Field	Description
Name	A name for this funding for your own use, such as Initial Funding or Q2 Added Funding.
Amount	The amount of funding allocated to this fund for this transaction.
Period	Optionally, use the Pick Period dialog box to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start	The date when partners can begin spending this funding. If this record is the initial allocation of money to this fund, then this date is the same as the start date for the fund. If this record is a supplementary allocation, it could be a different date. For example, if you have a yearly fund and you allocate extra funding for the third quarter, the start date for the extra funding could be the first day of the third quarter.
End	The last date when partners can spend this funding.

To add accrual funding to an MDF

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of a fund that is either an Accrual or a Mixed type.
Click the Accrual Fund Administration view tab.
In the Partners list, select the partner company that accrues funding, or click New to add a new partner company to the list.
In the Accrual Definition list, add a new record.
Enter information about the accrual definition in the new record, as shown in Table 17-3.

Table 17-3 Accrual Definition Fields

Field	Description
Type	Select the type of component on which the accrual is based. The default options are as follows: Orders (accrued funding based on all the orders of the partner) Product Line (accrued funding based on the orders of the partner for a specific product line) Product (accrued funding based on the orders of the partner for a specific product) Other options might have been added.
Product Line	If you choose Product Line in the Type field, in this field's dialog box, choose the product line on which accrued funding is based. If you do not choose Product Line as the type, this field is disabled.
Product	If you choose Product in the Type field, in this field's dialog box, choose the product on which accrued funding is based. If you do not choose Product as the type, this field is disabled.
Period	Optionally, use the list to choose a predefined period, such as 2005 or Jan. 2005. When you do select a period, the Start Date and End Date fields are filled automatically.
Start	The date when funding begins to accrue to this fund.
End	The last date when funding accrues to this fund.
Base	This field lets you tier funding by specifying the base amount at which the accrual begins. For example, if you want to give the partner accrual funding only after it sells $1,000,000, you can set the base at $1,000,000. Or, if you want to give the partner 1% of the first $1,000,000 it sells, and 2% of everything above that, you can create one fund record with a base of $0 and a rate of 1% and a second fund record with a base of $1,000,000 and a rate of 1%. The second fund record would give an additional 1% beyond the 1% in the first fund record.
U/M	Select the unit of measurement on which the funding is based. For example, if you choose Pallet, Bag, or Dollar, the partner accrues the amount in the accrual rate field for each pallet, bag, or dollar of your product ordered. The units available here can be determined in the LOV administration view under UNIT_OF_MEASURE.
Accrual Rate	Enter an amount of funding that accrues for each unit sold.
Estimated Volume	Enter your goal, the volume of sales targeted for this accrual.
Actual Volume	Enter the actual volume of sales for this accrual.

Note:

When you add an Accrual Definition record, the options available in the Type field can be defined in the List of Values view of the Applications Administration screen by adding values of type ACCRUAL_SRC_TYPE, and the options available in the U/M field can be defined by adding values of type UNIT_OF_MEASURE. For more information about list of value administration, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Setting Up Fund Approval Authorization

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

Before your company can work with any MDFs, you must authorize the appropriate employees to approve fund requests.

Optionally, you can also change the Partner Manager field. The partner manager is the initial reviewer of the fund request, so specifying the Partner Manager field for a partner company determines how new fund requests from that company are routed.

Authorizing Employees to Approve Fund Requests

To authorize employees to approve fund requests, you specify the maximum amount of a fund request that each employee can approve.

Employees might get fund requests to review that are greater than the amount that they can approve. After reviewing those fund requests, they can route them to other employees in your company for approval.

For example, your channel manager for this company might be authorized to approve requests up to $10,000. If a partner submits a request for $5,000 and the channel manager approves it, then the approval process is finished. The request does not need any further approval.

However, if a partner submits a request for $50,000, it is still reviewed by the channel manager initially. The channel manager can either deny or route it to his or her manager for approval. Managers continue to have the option to deny the request or route it to their managers, until it reaches a manager who is authorized to approve the amount.

To route the request to the next employee in the approval process, select that employee's name in the Processed By field of the Fund Request record. The employee in this field is the only employee who can change the value of the record.

When you select an employee's name in the Processed By field, Siebel PRM automatically routes the Fund Request record to that employee, and it appears in that employee's My Funds Request view.

To authorize your employees to approve fund requests

Navigate to the Administration - User screen, then the Employees view.
Drill down on the name of the employee you want to authorize to approve fund requests.
In the More Info view, enter the amount for that employee in the Fund Approval Limit field.

Changing the Partner Manager Field

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

Optionally, you can change the Partner Manager field to change the routing of fund requests for approval.

The initial reviewer for a fund request logged by a partner is the employee selected in the Partner Manager field for that partner organization. This employee's name is automatically entered in the Processed By field of the fund request. This is the only use of the Partner Manager field, and you can change the initial reviewer of fund requests by selecting a different employee in this field.

To change the partner manager

Navigate to the Administration - Partner screen, then the Registered Partners view.
In the Partner list, drill down on the name of the partner company for which you want to set the Partner Manager field.
In the More Info form, click the Single Select button for the Partner Manager field.

The Pick Position dialog box appears.
Select the person you want as the partner manager, and click OK.

About Fund Request Lists

From the Fund Requests screen a number of different fund request lists are available. The following table describes each list.

Table 17-4 Fund Request Lists

List	Description
My Fund Requests	This list displays all fund requests owned by the user.
All Fund Requests	This list displays all fund requests of the partners in the same organization of the user.
All Fund Requests Across My Organizations	This list displays all fund requests of the partners in the same organization and sub-organizations of the user.
All Fund Requests Across Organizations	This list displays all the fund requests of the partners in all organizations.

Initiating a Fund Request

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

A fund request can be submitted either by a partner who enters it using the Siebel PRM Portal, or by an employee at your company who enters it using the Siebel PRM Manager. For example, it might be submitted by an employee in your company's marketing department who plans a marketing campaign involving MDFs.

Siebel Business Process Designer can be set up so that, when the request is initiated, the first employee who must approve it receives an email notifying that employee that the fund request has been submitted for approval. For more information about Siebel Business Process Designer, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.

To initiate a fund request

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
In the My Fund Requests list, add a new record.
Enter information in the new record's fields shown in Table 17-5.

Table 17-5 New Record Fields

Field	Description
Name	Enter a name for the request (up to 50 characters) for your own use.
Partner	In the Pick Channel Partner dialog box, choose the partner to which the request applies.
Fund	In the Pick Fund dialog box, choose the fund from which the money comes.
Tracking #	This field contains a unique number generated automatically, which you can use to track the request.
Campaign	Optionally, use the Pick Campaign dialog box to choose your company's marketing campaign for which this fund is being used.
Region	Optionally, choose a region (for example, Africa or North America) where the funding is spent.
Vertical	Optionally, choose an industry (for example, Automotive or Insurance) on which this funding is spent.
Category	Optionally, choose a category (for example, Advertising or Customer Event) on which this funding is spent.
Processed By	This field displays the name of the manager who is currently reviewing this request. When you enter a new request, the value in the field defaults to the Partner Manager for this partner organization, who is normally the first manager to review the request. To transmit the request to the next manager in the approval process, use the Pick Position dialog box to choose that manager's name. Only the employee whose name appears in this field can change the record (for example, to change the status to Approved or to Need More Information, or to route the record to the next person for approval).
Due	Enter the date when the funds are needed.
Status	In a new request, the status is New. During the approval process, the status of the fund request changes.
Owned By	This field holds the name of the person who initiated the fund request.
Amount Requested	Enter the amount of the request.
Amount Approved	During the approval process, approvers enter the approved amount in this field. They can approve the requested funding or a smaller amount. This field cannot be edited in a new request.
Actual Amount	This field displays the actual amount that has been debited to this fund request. This field cannot be edited in a new request.
Approval Log	Keeps track of the modifications to the fund request. Every time a user changes the status of the request or changes the amount approved, another record is added to the approval log.

Adding Attachments, Activities, and Activity Plans to MDF Requests

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

While you are working with a fund request, you might find it useful to add attachments, activities, or activity plans to the request.

Adding Attachments to Fund Requests

You can attach supporting documents to fund requests. For example, if you write a report that describes in detail how the partner plans to use the funding, you can attach it to the Fund Request record. Or, if the request is to fund a booth at a trade show, you can attach a brochure from the trade show using any convenient file format, such as Adobe Acrobat. Employees who review and approve the request can view these attached documents. Attach files to MDF Request records in the Fund Request Attachments view.

The partner to which an MDF request applies can view attachments to the request and can also add attachments to the request for the brand owner company to view.

To enter fund request attachments

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
Select the appropriate fund requests list and drill down on the name of the request to which you want to add the Attachment.
Click the Fund Request Attachments view tab.
In the Fund Request Attachments list, add a new record.
In the Attachment Name field, click the Multiple Select button.
In the Add Attachment dialog box, click Browse, navigate to the file you want to attach to the record, and click Open.
Click Add.

Adding Activities to Fund Requests

You can record a variety of activities that you perform as part of a Fund request, such as a meeting you must schedule with a partner to discuss the fund request. You can do this by attaching activities to the fund request.

To add an activity for a fund request

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
Select the appropriate fund requests list and drill down on the name of the request to which you want to add the activity.
Click the Fund Request Activities view tab.
In the Fund Request Activities list, add a new record.
Fill in the fields with the details of the new activity.

Adding Activity Plans to Fund Requests

If you have a regular series of activities that you perform when you submit a type of fund request, such as a request for funding for a trade show, you can save time by using an activity plan. Activity plan templates define lists of activities that are often performed in sequence. If your company's Siebel Business Applications administrator has created appropriate templates, you can use a template to attach an activity plan to a fund request.

For information about creating activity plans, see the chapter on creating activity templates in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

To enter an MDF request activity plan

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
Select the appropriate fund requests list and drill down on the name of the request to which you want to add the activity plan.
Click the Fund Request Activity Plans view tab.
In the Fund Request Activity Plans list, add a new record.
Use the Template field picklist to choose an existing template.

The activities from that template are listed in the Activities list.

Viewing Fund Requests for a Partner Company

You can review a partner's performance periodically or view how many other fund requests from a partner are open before approving the current request. The Partner Fund view lets you look at a single list of the partner's fund requests, regardless of which MDF is involved.

To view a partner's fund requests

Navigate to the Partners screen, then the Partner List view.
Select the appropriate partner list and drill down on the name of the partner whose requests you want to display.
Click the MDF Requests view tab.

The MDF Requests list appears with that partner's fund requests from any MDF.

Viewing the Status of a Fund Request

You can use the Siebel PRM Manager check the status of a fund request after it has been submitted, and your partners can use the Siebel PRM Portal to view this information. For example, a partner who submitted a fund request can make sure that the approval process has started at the brand owner company. Employees who need to start work when the funding is available want to see if it is approved.

A fund request can have the status values shown in Table 17-6, "Fund Request Status Values".

To view the status of a fund request

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
Select the appropriate fund requests list and drill down on the name of the request whose status you want to check.

The status appears in the Status field of the record.

Reviewing a Fund Request

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

After a fund request has been submitted, it must be routed in sequence to the employees who must review it. If the initial reviewer is authorized to approve the full amount in the request, only this approval is needed. However, if the request is larger than the initial reviewer can approve, the reviewer can either reject it or route it to another employee in the brand owner company for further review. If that employee is not authorized to review the entire amount, that employee can either reject it or route it to another reviewer.

To route the request for further review and approval, an approver selects Pending Approval in the Status field of the fund request and then selects that person's name in the Processed By field of the fund request. The fund request appears in the My Fund Requests view for that person. Only the reviewer whose name is in the Processed By field can modify the Fund Request record.

Rather than routing the request for further approval, approvers can also use the picklist in the Status field of the request to choose from among the following options:

Need More Information. The approver needs more information to make the decision.
Rejected. The approver rejects the fund request, and the request fails.
Approved. The approver gives final approval to the fund request. This option is available only to an employee who is authorized to approve the full amount of the request.

When the status of a fund request is new, rejected, or need more information, all fields are editable.

When you change the status to another status, all fields become read-only, except for the Status, Comment, and Processed By fields.

After you change the status to approved, processed, fulfilled, or submitted for fulfillment, all fields become read-only, except for the Due Date, Amount Approved, and Actual Amount fields.

The possible values for the status of a fund request are shown in Table 17-6.

Table 17-6 Fund Request Status Values

Value	Description
New	The request has been submitted but has not yet been viewed by the initial approver.
Pending Approval	The request has been viewed by the initial approver.
Pending Approval 2	The request has been routed to a subsequent approver.
Pending Review	The request has been routed to the final approver. The final approver is called the reviewer.
Need More Information	One of the approvers has requested more information.
Rejected	The request has failed because an approver has rejected it.
Approved	The request has the required approvals.
Submitted for Fulfillment	The request has been submitted to the payments administrator for fulfillment.
Processed	The request has been processed by the payments administrator.
Fulfilled	The request has been fulfilled by the payments administrator. Funding has been sent to the partner.

Before you approve a fund request, you must look at the fund's checkbook to see the balance in that fund. Make sure the request is not larger than the remaining balance in the fund.

Note:

The balance in the checkbook is debited only after the Actual Amount field for a fund request is filled out. If you have approved a request and entered the approved amount, it is not necessarily reflected in the checkbook. It is visible only after you enter the actual amount.

To view the balance in an MDF

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of the fund whose balance you want to see.
For an accrual or mixed fund, click the Accrual Fund Checkbook view tab.

The Accrual Fund Checkbook view appears.
Click the Calculate Total button to update the total.

The accrual balance in the fund appears in the Fund Balance field.
For a fixed or mixed fund, click the Fixed Fund Checkbook view tab.

The Fixed Fund Checkbook view appears.
Click Calculate Total to update the total.

The fixed balance in the fund appears in the Balance field.

Use the following procedure to review a fund request.

To review a fund request

Navigate to the Fund Requests screen.
To reject the request, give final approval to the request, or ask for more information, choose a value in the Status field of the request you are reviewing.

The Status field picklist gives you the option of approving the request only if its amount is less than the amount in the Fund Approval Limit field of your Employee record.
To route the request to another employee for further review and approval, do the following:
1. Change the status to Pending Approval.
2. Click the Single Select button to the right of the Processed By field to display the Pick Position dialog box.
3. Select that employee's record, and click OK.

Viewing a Fund's Checkbook

This task is a step in "Process of Working with a Market Development Fund".

You can use an MDF's Accrual Fund Checkbook view and Fixed Fund Checkbook view to display the balance remaining in the fund, as well as to display the details of how much of this balance comes from fixed funding, how much comes from accrued funding, and which funding requests have been debited against the fund.

The debits against the fund are shown in both the accrual fund checkbook and in the fixed fund checkbook.

Note:

The balance in the checkbook is debited only after the Actual Amount field for a fund request is filled out. If you have approved a request and entered the approved amount, it is not reflected in the checkbook. It is visible only after you enter the actual amount.

To view an MDF's checkbook

Navigate to the Fund Design screen.
Select the appropriate fund design list and drill down on the name of the fund whose balance you want to see.
If it is an accrual or mixed fund, click the Accrual Fund Checkbook view tab.
Click Calculate Total to view the balance.
In the MDF Accrual Credits list, review the credits that have accrued to this fund. In the MDF Debits list, review the debits for this fund.
If it is a fixed or mixed fund, click the Fixed Fund Checkbook view tab.
Click Calculate Total to view the balance.
In the Fixed Credits list, review the credits for this fund. In the MDF Debits list, review the debits for this fund.