Siebel Order Management Guide Addendum for Communications > Creating Communications Promotion Groups > Process of Setting Up Promotion Groups (Administrators) >

Adding Commitments to a Promotion Group Definition

Some promotion group definitions require customers to accept certain terms and conditions. In some industries, these are called commitments. If your promotion group definition includes terms and conditions, then you must specify them. For example, a customer commits to a promotion group subscription for 12 months. If the customer cancels the promotion group subscription before the end of the 12-month period, then there might be a penalty.

In addition to setting up commitments at the promotion group definition level, you can define commitments for individual membership definitions that are associated with the promotion group definition. You can define commitments for the promotion group only, for one or more memberships only, or for the promotion group and one or more memberships.

When a customer disconnects a promotion group member asset, your Siebel application checks to see if the customer is breaking the terms and conditions of the promotion group and the memberships. If a violation of the terms and conditions has occurred, then your Siebel application displays a warning message telling how much the penalty is. If a penalty is generated, then your Siebel application calculates the amount.

A commitment can allow a penalty to be prorated. A commitment can include recurring credit and cancellation charges. Cancellation charges and credits can be prorated for partial periods. A penalty can be a nonrecurring charge to be paid once, or it can be a recurring charge to be paid periodically during a specified time period.

You can use promotion group commitments to give customers ongoing benefits, as well to assign penalties. For example, if you want to set up a promotion group definition to give customers a credit every month for a year, which reduces the monthly bills of those customers, then you can record this credit as a commitment.

You can enter customer commitments for promotion groups as charge plans, penalties, or terms. You can specify customer commitments for memberships as commitment periods, termination charges, and proration plans. To set up commitments for promotion group definitions and membership definitions, follow the procedures in this topic.

This task is a step in Process of Setting Up Promotion Groups (Administrators).

Entering Customer Charge Plans

You can enter the charges for customers' ongoing commitments associated with a promotion group definition. For credits, you enter negative amounts. Before entering customer charges, you must first create schedules and plans for the recurring, nonrecurring, and usage charges that the customer must pay. For more information, see the topic about contracts and agreements in Siebel Field Service Guide.

After you have created the necessary recurring and nonrecurring charge plans, you can enter the amounts that customers are committed to pay.

To enter a customer charge plan

1. Navigate to the Administration - Product screen, then the Promotion Groups view.
2. In the Promotion Group Definitions list, select the promotion group definition for which you are specifying commitments.
3. Click the Commitment view tab.
4. If necessary, in the link bar of the Commitment view, click the Charge Plan link.

   The Charge Plan form is displayed with several groups of fields for setting up various types of charges.

5. In the Non-Recurring Charge Details section, complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   NRC Schedule	Select a schedule for the nonrecurring charge. For example, a schedule might specify that the customer pays the recurring charge by the fifteenth of each month.
   Non-Recurring	Enter the total amount of the nonrecurring charge.
   NRC Plan	Select a nonrecurring charge plan. For example, the plan might allow the customer to pay off the nonrecurring charge in three monthly payments.
   NRC Qty	If you do not select a value in the NRC Plan field, then you can enter a specific number of payments. The charge calculation engine then divides the charge into equal payments of the quantity specified. If you do select a value in the NRC Plan field, then this field displays the number of payments in the plan and is read-only.

6. In the Recurring Charge Details section, complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   RC Schedule	Select a schedule for the recurring charge. For example, a schedule might specify that the customer pays the recurring charge by the fifteenth of each month.
   Recurring	Enter the amount of the recurring charges.
   RC Adjust	If the usage period is less than the entire billing period, then specify an adjustment for a recurring charge. For example, if the customer starts cable TV service on June 16, then the customer is charged for only 15 days in the month of June. In this case, enter the charge for the day in this field, and select Per Day in the RC Adjust U/M field. The Siebel application calculates the adjustment for the 15 days in June.
   RC Adjust U/M	Enter the period to which the recurring charge adjustment (the value in the RC Adjust field) applies. The options are: Per Day and Per Week.

7. In the Charges, Adjustments, and Usage Plan Details section, complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Adjust Charge	Enter a special adjustment to the amount the customer is charged. For example, if a customer reports that the cell phone service has not been working for the last several days, then your company might agree to a one-time adjustment. You enter the adjustment in this field.
   Adjust Reason	Enter the reason for the special adjustment.
   Commit	Select this check box when you are done making changes to the record.
   Charge Basis	Specify when the charge for a period is generated. The options are as follows: Schedule. Charges are generated after the usage period. For example, June charges are generated on July 1. Advance. Charges are generated before the usage period. For example, June charges are generated on June 1.
   Use Plan	Select the usage payment plan for this promotion group. For example, different usage payment plans might exist for regular, gold, and platinum customers.
   Usage Schedule	Select a schedule for the usage charge. For example, a schedule might specify that the customer pays the usage charge by the fifteenth of each month.

Entering Customer Penalty Charges

You can enter the penalties that the customer must pay for canceling this commitment. You can also use this view to enter credits that the customer receives.

A penalty might depend on the amount of time that the customer used the service before canceling it. In this case, before you enter a penalty, you must create a plan for prorating the penalty charge. Create the prorate plan as a nonrecurring charge plan, as described in the topic about contracts and agreements in Siebel Field Service Guide.

At run time, your Siebel application totals all penalty charges that result from a cascading delete action, such as a disconnect. These penalty charges roll up to the account from which the action was initiated (that is, the account specified in the order header).

To enter a customer penalty charge

1. Navigate to the Administration - Product screen, then the Promotion Groups view.
2. In the Promotion Group Definitions list, select the promotion group definition for which you are specifying commitments.
3. Click the Commitment view tab.
4. In the link bar of the Commitment view, click the Charges/Credits link.
5. In the Charges/Credits list, add a record for each penalty that the customer must pay, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Type	Select the type of charge. For a penalty charge, select Penalty.
   Amount	Enter the amount of the penalty. If you enter a negative amount, then the customer will receive a credit instead of being charged a penalty.
   Plan	Select the nonrecurring charge plan used to prorate the penalty.

Entering Terms Displayed to the Customer

You can enter the list of terms that will be displayed and included in the promotion group contract that the customer receives. You can select a term template instead of entering terms manually if you first define term templates. For more information about defining term templates, see Siebel Field Service Guide.

To enter terms displayed to the customer

1. Navigate to the Administration - Product screen, then the Promotion Groups view.
2. In the Promotion Group Definitions list, select the promotion group definition for which you are specifying commitments.
3. Click the Commitment view tab.
4. In the link bar of the Commitment view, click the Terms link.
5. For each term to be displayed to customers, do one of the following:

   To...	Go to...
   Enter terms from a template	Step 6
   Enter terms manually	Step 7

6. To generate terms from a template, perform the following steps:
   1. Click Pick from Template.
   2. In the Pick Template dialog box, select the template for this term, and click OK.

      A new term record with field values derived from the template appears in the Terms list.

   3. Go to Step 8.
7. To enter terms manually, add a record to the Terms list, and complete the necessary fields.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Number	Enter a number to control the order in which this text will be displayed within the list of terms.
   Type	Select a type value for the term. The options are: Standard, Non-Standard, and Special. When you design screens and reports, you might decide to display only terms of certain types.
   Section	Enter the text that will be displayed to the customer.

8. Save the term record.

Defining Commitments for Membership Definitions

In addition to setting up commitments at the promotion group definition level, you can define commitments for individual membership definitions that are associated with the promotion group definition. You can specify a commitment period, termination charge, and proration plan for each membership definition.

To define a commitment for a membership definition

1. Navigate to the Administration - Product screen, then the Promotion Groups view.
2. Select the promotion group definition for which you want to add membership commitments.
3. Navigate to Products, then Memberships.
4. In the Memberships list, select the membership definition for which you want to define commitments.
5. Complete the fields that define the commitment.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Comments
   Commitment Period	Enter a number for the duration of the commitment period.
   Commitment Period UOM	Enter a unit of measure for the commitment period.
   Grace Period	Enter a number for the duration of the grace period.
   Grace Period UOM	Enter a unit of measure for the grace period.
   Termination Charge	Enter the penalty charge for terminating the membership outside of the commitment and grace periods.
   Prorate Plan	If there is a penalty for terminating the membership, then select the prorate plan used to prorate this penalty.