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Asynchronous Generation of Multiple Quotes

Siebel Hospitality allows asynchronous generation of multiple quotes. Sales representatives must be aware of the following facts regarding asynchronous generation of quotes:

• In the Opportunity Capture view or the Opportunity Properties view, the sales representative can select multiple records in the Properties list and click the Create Quote button. This creates one or more quotes for each of the selected properties, depending on how many sets of arrival and departure dates are associated with each selected property.
• When generating Affiliate Quotes for a number of Affiliate Opportunities associated with a Host Opportunity, the sales representative can select multiple records in the Affiliate Opportunities list and click Create Quote. This creates one quote for every property associated with every selected affiliate opportunity.
• When generating subopportunity quotes for a number of subopportunities associated with a recurring opportunity, the sales representative can select multiple records in the Sub Opportunities list and click Create Quote. This creates a quote for every property associated with every selected subopportunity.
• If the sales representative does not have permission to generate quotes for some of the selected properties (that is, the user is unable to view those properties in the Properties Screen), then those properties are not included in the Create Quote operation.
• If there are already existing quotes for the same opportunity for some of the selected properties, and the existing quotes have the Do Not Override flag checked, then those properties are included in the Create Quote operation.
• If the projected property (primary property) for the opportunity was one of the properties selected for quote creation, then the projected property quote is always the first one generated.
• When the Create Quote button is clicked, one quote is created immediately and the user is taken to the corresponding Opportunity Quotes view, where the newly generated quote is visible. It has a status of Prospect if the Create Quote operation succeeded, or a status of Error if an application error occurred. Ask the system administrator to review the Siebel application log to find the cause of such errors.
• The user can requery the Opportunity Quotes list to see the progress of quotes being generated in the background. If a quote's status is Generating, it is still in the process of being created.

The following points illustrate the effect that asynchronous generation of quotes has on system administration:

• The asynchronous generation of quotes (that is, the second and subsequent quotes in a multiple selection) is handled by a separate component of Oracle's Siebel Server. This component is called Hospitality Quote Generation (HospitalityQuoteGen). This component and the object manager server component Hospitality Object Manager (eHospitalityObjMgr) are both part of the Hospitality component group.
• Usually, the server component HospitalityQuoteGen is enabled and running on the same application server as the eHospitalityObjMgr. However, it is possible for this component to be placed on a separate Siebel application server.
• The setting for the expected number of HospitalityQuoteGen threads running simultaneously on a given server can be determined by dividing the estimated total number of quotes generated per hour by 180, then dividing again by the number of Siebel application servers over which this load is distributed, and rounding up. (This formula assumes that quotes take approximately 20 seconds to generate.) This figure can be used to set the MaxMTTasks parameter of the server component.
• If a quote is created in the background and has a status of Error, the cause can be found in the log file HospitalityQuoteGen_<PID>.log in the Siebel log file directory. Sometimes it is necessary to increase server component event logging levels in order to determine the cause of such an error.
• The system administrator can turn off background generation of quotes by going to the Administration - Application screen, System Preferences view, and adding a new System Preference named Background Quote Generation with a value of N. This generates all the quotes in a multiple selection synchronously. The user interface is not changed to display the Opportunity Quotes view until all the quotes have finished being generated. If many quotes are being generated at once, the application might take some time to respond.