Activities

This chapter contains information about activities. It includes the following topics:

About Activities

You use activities to organize, track, and resolve a variety of tasks, from finding and pursuing opportunities to closing service requests. If a task requires multiple steps that one or more people might complete, then activities simplify the job. Activities can help:

Define and assign the task.
Provide information to complete the task.
Track the progress of the task.
Track costs and bill for the task.

The major advantages of breaking down a task into one or more activities include:

The ownership of the problem can remain at the management level, when required.
The employee looking at assigned activities can identify only the required information.
Reporting is simplified.
Activities can be assigned to more than one person.

Activities are used to represent tasks in many situations such as scheduling and recording meetings, appointments, and interactions with customers and prospects. If one task leads to follow-up tasks, then you can associate follow-up activity records with a parent activity record.

Activities can be viewed in several different locations, including the following:

My To Do List in the Activities screen. This list shows all the user’s activities, regardless of status. Access this list by navigating to the Activities screen and choosing My To Do List from the visibility filter.
My To Do’s in the Calendar screen. This list displays a subset of the data that appears in the My To Do List in the Activities screen, activities that have not been completed. For general information about using the Calendar screen, see Siebel Fundamentals.

Assignment Methods

Activities are assigned to employees. Activity assignment can occur in the following ways:

Manual assignment.
Automatic assignment to the creator of the activity (by populating the Owner field with the user ID of the activity’s creator).
Automatic assignment using Assignment Manager. For more information, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.

Business Objects Associated with Activities

Siebel activity objects can be associated with other Siebel business objects. The following information lists some common associations. In most cases, this association is with a set of activities defined by an activity plan and individual (or stand-alone) activities. In a few cases, an object is associated either with an activity template or with stand-alone activities (not both).

Table Association of Activity Object with Other Siebel Objects

Screen Name	Business Object	Stand-Alone Activities	Activities from Templates
Accounts	Account	Yes	Yes
Agreements	Service Agreement	Yes	Yes
Assets	Asset Management	Yes	No
Campaigns	Campaign	Yes	No
Contacts	Contact	Yes	Yes
Messages	Messaging	Yes	No
Opportunities	Opportunity	Yes	Yes
Orders (Order Line Items view)	Order Entry	Yes	Yes
Preventive Maintenance	FS PM Plan Item	No	Yes
Programs	Program (DBM)	No	Yes
Projects	Project	Yes	Yes
Quality	Product Defect	Yes	No
Repairs	FS Repair	Yes	Yes
References	Reference	Yes	No
Service	Service Request	Yes	Yes

Creating Activities (End User)

Using activities, you can assess the investment in time and resources to maintain and grow account relationships. Sales managers also have a record of the activities of their sales representatives as they manage account relationships. Sales teams can use activities to avoid duplicating efforts across the team, and to share information about pending and completed activities.

Activities that are assigned specific dates and times appear on both the Activities and the Calendar screens. For more information, see Siebel Fundamentals.

Note: The My To Do filter allows you to view each activity that has been designated as a To Do item using the Display In field. Select My To Do List from the visibility filter to access this feature. You can further refine the To Do List by using the predefined queries that appear in the Queries drop-down list. For example, if you select the Uncompleted Activities query, then the To Do items that do not have a status of Done appear. You can also view uncompleted To Do items in the To Do list that appears on the calendar screen. This list, by default, shows only To Do items that are not yet complete.

To create an activity

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.

In the Activity List, create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.

Some fields are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
New	Displays a star when ownership is changed from the activity creator to another user. This field is automatically cleared when the new owner views activity details by drilling down on the Type field.
Description	Type text for additional information about the activity.
Type	Select the activity type. Default values include Call, Correspondence, and Email.
Account	Select the account associated with the activity.
Due	Select the date and time by which the activity must be completed.
Status	Select a status for the activity. Default values include Acknowledged, Cancelled, Declined, Scheduled, and Completed.
Priority	Select a value for the priority for the activity. Default values include 1-ASAP, 2-High, 3-Medium, and 4-Low.
Comments	Type text for activity notes and information to share with the team.
Start	Select the date and time for the activity creation.
Duration	Select a value for the duration of the activity. Default values are in minute segments, for example 5, 10, 15, and 20.
End	Select the proposed date and time for the activity completion.
Private	Select the check box to indicate the activity is visible only to the users listed in the Employees field and the application administrator.
Opportunity	Select an opportunity for the activity.
Owner	Select the primary employee associated with the activity. The default value is the user ID for the creator of the activity. The new Owner value that you select replaces the primary employee that appears in the Employee field. Conversely, if you add a new primary to the Employee field, then this new primary appears in the Owner field.
Employees	Select the user ID of the activity creator. You can select multiple employees for an activity, but only one employee can be designated as primary.
Display In	Select a value that determines where an activity appears. The field has the following values: Calendar and Activities, To Do and Activities, Activities Only, Communication and Activities. For example, if you want an activity to appear in your calendar, then you must set the Display In field to Calendar and Activities, and make sure that the activity has a start time. If you set the Type field to To Do, then the Display In field automatically changes to To Do and Activities. On the home page, To Do activities appear in the My Activities list and do not appear in the My Calendar list. If you select Communication and Activities and Email - Inbound type, then the activity appears in the Comm Inbound Item List Applet in the Inbound Item List view of the Communications screen.
Billable	Select the check box to indicate the activity is a revenue-generating event.
Alarm	Select the check box to set the activity reminder. A reminder dialog box appears when the activity is due. You can either set an alarm for an individual activity, or you can set a default alarm for all your activities. For more information, see Siebel Fundamentals.
Repeat Until	Select the date and time for the last interval of the final meeting in the series.
Repeat Frequency	Select a value for the interval at which the activity repeats. Default values include daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly.
Created	Displays the date and time the activity was created.
Created By	Displays the user ID of the activity creator.

Drill down on the Type field of the record, and navigate to the More Info view to complete more fields.

Some fields are described in the following table.

Field	Comments
Activity #	Displays the account number associated with the selected account.
Global Owner	Select the employee who is responsible for the activity.
Meeting Location	Type the location information to share with the sales team. Examples of meeting locations are Conference Room B and Main Campus Facility.
Cost Estimate	Type the monetary value associated with the activity.
Price List	Select the price list that is associated with a billable activity.
Rate List	Select the rate list associated with a billable activity.
Project	Select the project for the activity.
Category	Select a value to specify a category for the activity. Service related activities are often created by one individual (such as a call center agent) and completed by another individual (such as a service repair representative). Consequently, when a service related category value is selected (such as Diagnostic, Field Engineer Activity, Preventative Maintenance or Other), the owner of the activity is deleted so that the activity is unassigned. The user can then reassign the activity by adding a new value to the owner field. If you are using Siebel Assignment Manager, then the activity is automatically reassigned.
Audience	Select a value to specify the audience that can view the activity. Examples of values are employees, partners, and customers.

Working with Others’ Activities (End User)

The following procedure describes how to work with another user’s activity records, if that user has granted you permission to do so. For information about how to grant permission for another user to work with your activity records, see information about granting access to your calendar in Siebel Fundamentals.

To work with another user’s activity records

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Others’ Activities List view.
In the drop-down list in the header, select the user whose activities you want to work with, and click Go.
If you have add-and-modify access to the records, then the icon to create activities is available, and you can work with these records as your own. If you have not been granted permission to make changes, then this icon is inactive.

Delegating an Activity (End User)

If you work as part of a sales team or you are a sales manager, then you might manage the activities of other people. You can delegate an activity to another member of the sales team, an employee, or a partner.

To delegate an activity

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
Select the activity that you want to delegate.
In the Owner field, select the individual to whom to assign the activity.

Reassigning or Removing Ownership of an Activity Using Employee Field

Complete the following procedure to reassign or remove ownership of an activity using the Employee field.

To reassign or remove ownership of an activity using the Employee field

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
Select the activity that you want to reassign.
In the Employees field, add or remove employees as required, and designate one of the employees as the primary employee.

Assigning an Activity Using Assignment Manager

Complete the following procedure to assign an activity using Assignment Manager.

To assign an activity using Assignment Manager

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
Select the activity that you want to reassign.
In the form, click the cogwheel icon, and select Assign.
In the Employees dialog box, select an employee to assign the activity to.

Note: If the delegator uses Siebel Assignment Manager to reassign an activity, then the delegator is automatically removed from the employee list.

Viewing Activities Associated with Another Record Type (End User)

For example, users researching service requests can review the activities related to the selected service request in the Service Request Detail view. This view lists the completed and scheduled activities for the service request.

The procedure in this topic uses the Service Request screen as an example, but many other screens also have activity views.

To view activities for a service request

Navigate to the Service Requests screen, then the Service Request List view.
Drill down on the SR # (number) field of a service request record.
Navigate to the Activities view.
The Activities list represents every scheduled task for the selected service request and the service request history.
(Optional) Create a new activity, and complete the necessary fields.
To see more information about an activity, drill down on the Type field of the activity record.

About Configuring Owner and Employee Fields for Activities

Depending on your business process, you might want to configure the Siebel application so that the Employees and Owner fields for activities are always left blank when the activity is created. (The Owner field displays the primary from the Employee field.) Use Siebel Tools to set the predefault value of the Primary Owned By field (which maps to the Owner field that appears in the UI) in the Action business component to blank.