Siebel Order Management Guide Addendum for Communications > Employee Asset-Based Ordering >

About Managing Bulk Requests

Frequently, companies in the communications and media industries must manage bulk (large quantity) quotes and orders for the products and services that they provide to customers. These companies work with bulk quotes and orders because they serve a large number of customers who can, over an extended period of time, add new products and services, change existing products and services, and remove obsolete products and services. To automatically generate a bulk quote or a bulk order, a user can submit a bulk request.

When you create a bulk request, you first create a bulk request header, which acts as the envelope for the bulk request. Next, you create one or more action sets. Each action set specifies one account for which to run the bulk request. Then you associate one or more instances with each action set. Each instance specifies a contact, asset, or service for which to apply the bulk request. Finally, you associate one or more actions with each action set. Actions specify the actions to perform on the instances. You can associate each action with a base product or promotion and, if applicable, a component product of a customizable product or promotion. You can also upgrade base products and promotions.

Each action set in a bulk request generates one quote or order. The bulk request generates one or more line items for each quote or order from the instances and actions defined for the action set, provided that no exceptions are triggered.

You can add action sets, instances, and actions by several methods, depending on your needs:

• Manual entry. If you have a small set of bulk request data, then you can add action sets, instances, and actions manually.
• XML file import. If your bulk request data comes from an external source such as a partner or a large business customer, then you can prepare an XML file and import it. The action sets, instances, and actions of the bulk request are populated from the information in the file.
• List association. If your bulk request data resides in your Siebel application and can be filtered and added to a list with a Siebel query, then you can associate the resulting list with the bulk request. An Explode operation in the bulk request template creates the action sets and instances of the bulk request from the records in the list.