6Managing Business Rules for Dealers
Managing Business Rules for Dealers
This chapter covers creating and using business rules for dealers. It includes the following topics:
About Business Rules for Dealers
Business rules can be used in several ways:
OEMs can provide rule templates for dealers to use as a starting point for automating their operations.
Dealers can subscribe to rules that the OEMs provided and can change these rules using Siebel Dealer.
OEMs can create rules that dealers have to follow.
For example, for a special promotion, dealers might want to send letters to customers whose hobby is sailing. The OEM can create a template that generates these letters and sends them to a fulfillment house for mailing.
In this example, while creating the rule, the OEM could set two parameters: the form-letter template used for the letter and the fulfillment house that mails the letters. After the OEM creates and publishes these business rules, dealers can use them. Dealers can change these parameters to select a different form letter or a different fulfillment house.
Using the actions that are shipped with Siebel Dealer, you can create business rules that send letters, send emails, and create activities for sales or service representatives. By creating additional actions, you can also create business rules that automate many other tasks.
There are two other features that you can use to supplement these business rules:
You can use the Dealer Preference screen to define rules that send emails or create activities when a lease expires, when there is no activity in the sales process, when there is an anniversary of a vehicle sale, or when you might consider following up on a vehicle sale. The dealer can also use this screen to create other rules. For more information, see Generating Follow-Up Communications (Dealer).
You can use Delegated Assignment Manager to define rules for assigning opportunities or service requests. For more information, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.
Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers
To create a business rule template, you must create three records:
Business Rule Template. The business rule template includes general information about the business rule. You also use this record to select the business object that the rule applies to. For example, to send an email to customers on their birthdays, you would select Contact in the Object field, because the customer’s birthday is a field in the Contact record.
Criteria. The criteria determines whether the rule applies to a record. You select a field in the business object, a condition and a value. For example, you could create the criteria Hobby Equals Sailing, so the rule only applies if Sailing is entered in the Hobby field in the Contact record. A rule can also have multiple criteria.
Criteria can also use functions such as Today(), so you can create criteria such as Birthday=Today for a rule that runs on the customer’s birthday. Criteria can use all the functions that can be used in calculated fields. For more information about these functions, see Using Siebel Tools.
Action. The action determines what the rule does. You choose the action from a list of actions that apply to the business object, and you select the appropriate parameters for this action. For example, you could choose the action Send Letter to the Contact. For this action, the parameters you choose are the form letter template and the fulfillment house. A rule can also have multiple actions.
To create a business rule template, perform the following tasks:
Creating New Actions for Dealer Business Rules
In addition to the actions that are available when you install Siebel Dealer, you can create actions to be used by Siebel Dealer business rules.
The actions that are available when you install the product fall into the following categories:
Sending a Letter. There are actions that allow dealers to send form letters to contacts based on information in the Contacts record. The parameters are Letter Template and Fulfillment Center.
Sending Email. There are actions that allow dealers to send form email to contacts based on information in the Contacts, Opportunities, Sales History, Service History or Vehicles record. The rule sends email to the primary contact for the record. The parameter is Email Template.
Creating an Activity. There are actions that allow dealers to create an activity for a sales representative or service representative based on information in a contact, opportunity or vehicle record. The parameters are Description, Due in Days, Priority, Status, and Type, and the values you enter for these parameters appear in the corresponding fields of the Activity record. The activity is automatically assigned to the primary member of the sales team for the contact or opportunity.
For information about how to create additional actions for business rules beyond those listed here, see Configuration for Dealer Business Rules.
After creating the appropriate workflow or business service, you add the action to the Action Types list, so it can be used by business rules.
This task is a step in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
To add an action
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Action Types.
Add a new record to the Action Types list and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Name
Enter a descriptive name for the action. It is recommended that this name include the object that the action applies to, such as Send Email to Contact.
Object
Select the business object that the action is based on.
Type
Select either Workflow or Business Service.
Mode
Select an option to determine whether the workflow or business service for this rule is invoked for each record or invoked only once. This feature allows the OEM to create workflows or business services that take care of all the records in the query, rather then the usual workflows or business services that take care of only one record.
Workflow
If you selected Workflow in the Type field, select the workflow. If you selected Business Service in the Type field, this field is disabled.
Business Service
If you selected Business Service in the Type field, select the business service. If you selected Workflow in the Type field, this field is automatically filled in with Workflow Process Manager (the business service that runs workflows).
Method
If you selected Business Service in the Type field, select the method. If you selected Workflow in the Type field, this field is automatically filled in with Run Process (the method that runs workflows).
Id Field
Contains the method argument that corresponds to the Row Id of the record being processed, which is passed to the method when it is called. If you selected Workflow in the Type field, then this field will contain the Row Id by default. If it is a different type, select one of the business service method arguments.
To enter parameters for the action, scroll down and add one or more records to the parameter list which appears after the Action Types list, and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Name
Enter a name for the parameter.
Type
Select the way that the argument will be displayed in the user interface. For example, if you select PickList as the type, the user will use a picklist to select the argument, and if you select Checkbox, the user will use a check box to specify the argument.
Read Only
Read only is selected, because this argument is read-only on the dealer side. Only the host can specify a value for the argument in the template, and the dealers cannot change the value of this argument.
Workflow Property/Method Argument
If the action type is workflow, this field displays as Workflow Property, and you must enter the argument value that will be assigned to the workflow property. If the action type is business service, this field displays as Method Argument, and you must enter the method argument to which the value of this parameter will be assigned.
PickList/PickApplet/PickField
If you selected Picklist in the Type field, use the PickList field to select the picklist that will be displayed in the user interface.
If you selected PickApplet in the Type field, use these three fields. The picklist will be used to setup the pickmap, the pick applet will be displayed in the user interface, and the pick field value will be picked into the argument.
If you selected any other type, leave these fields blank.
Adding Dealer Business Rule Templates
If the actions you need have already been created, you can begin to create a business rule by adding the business rule template, which contains general information about the rule.
This task is a step in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
To add a business rule template
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Business Rule Templates.
Add a new record to the Business Rule Templates list and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Object
Select the business object the business rule is based on. Both the criteria and the action for the business rule will have to use fields from this business object.
Published
After you have completed the entire process of creating the business rule, you will select this check box to make the business rule available to dealers.
Frequency
Select how frequently the business rule will run. The options are daily, weekly, or monthly.
Start Date/Time
Enter the date and time when the business rule will become active.
End Date
Enter the date when the business rule will become inactive.
Adding Criteria for Dealer Business Rules
You enter the criteria for a business rule to specify whether or not the rule will apply to a given record.
This task is a step in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
You enter the criteria by selecting a field, selecting a condition, and entering a value. For example, if the criterion is Hobby equals Sailing, then you select Hobby as the field, select equals as the condition, and enter Sailing as the value.
You can also enter multiple criteria. If you do this, you must choose one of the following options:
Match ALL Criteria (AND). The rule applies only if all the criteria are true.
Match ANY Criteria (OR). The rule applies if any one of the criteria is true.
For example, to send letters to all customers whose hobby is either sailing or bicycling:
Enter the two criteria Hobby equals Sailing and Hobby equals Bicycling.
Choose Match ANY Criteria (OR).
To add criteria for a business rule
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Business Rule Templates.
Click the template name of the business rule template you want to add criteria for, and click the Criteria view tab.
Add one or more new records to the Criteria list and complete the necessary fields. Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Field
Select the field whose value the criteria is based on. You can only select fields in the business object that you selected in the Business Rule Template record.
Condition
Select the condition used by the criteria. The options are Contains, Does Not Contain, Does Not Equal, Equals, Is Empty, Is Not Empty, Starts With.
Value
Enter the value used by the criteria. Leave this field blank if you are using the condition Is Empty or Is Not Empty.
Read Only
Read-only is selected, because this argument is read-only on the dealer side. Only the host can specify a criteria, and the dealers cannot change the value of this criteria.
Adding Actions for Dealer Business Rules
After adding the criteria for the business rule, you select the action that will be performed if the criteria are satisfied.
You can also add multiple actions. For example, if you want to send a letter to all of your customers whose hobby is sailing, and you also want a sales representative to contact these customers, you add two actions: sending a letter and adding an activity for the sales representative.
This task is a step in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
To add actions for a business rule
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Business Rule Templates.
Click the template name of the business rule template you want to add an action for, and click the Actions view tab.
Add one or more new records to the Action list and complete the necessary fields, as described in the following table.
Field Comments Action
Select the action.
Description
Displays the description that was entered for the Action Type.
Publishing Dealer Business Rules
After you have finished creating and activating a business rule, you publish it to make it available to your dealers.
This task is a step in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
To publish a business rule template
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Business Rule Templates.
In the record for the business rule template you want to publish, select the Published check box.
Creating Business Rules That Apply to All Dealers
You can also create business rules that automatically apply to all dealers, whether or not they subscribe to them. The topic Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers discussed how to create business rules that dealers have the option of subscribing to and using.
To create business rules that apply to all dealers
Create the business rule in the usual way, as described in Process of Creating Business Rule Templates for Dealers.
Navigate to the Business Rules Subscription screen.
In the Show drop-down list, select All Business Rules Across Organizations.
In the Business Rules list, select the business rule that will apply to all dealers.
In the Business Rule form, select the All Organizations check box.
Setting the Time When Dealer Business Rules Execute
The OEM can specify the time of day when business rules execute, depending on the load on its computer.
Dealers cannot specify the time of day when rules execute. They can only specify the dates when the rules execute, as described in Activating Dealer Business Rules (Dealer).
Navigate to the Business Rules Subscription screen.
In the Show drop-down list, select All Business Rules Across Organizations.
In the Business Rules list, select a business rule.
In the Business Rule form, enter a date and time in the Start Date-Time field.
Viewing, Deactivating, and Reactivating Subscriptions to Dealer Business Rules
If dealers want to use the business rule templates you have created, they subscribe to the business rule templates, creating individual business rules for each dealer. You can view the dealers who have subscribed to a business rule template, and you can inactivate any one of these subscriptions or all subscriptions. For example, you can inactivate all subscriptions to a rule if you are modifying that rule, so dealers do not use it while it is under construction.
After you have finished working on them, you can reactivate the rules. You must reactivate each rule individually.
To view and inactivate subscriptions to business rules
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
In the link bar, click Business Rule Templates.
Click the template name of a business rule template.
Click the Subscriptions view tab.
In the Subscriptions list, from the menu, select Inactivate All Business Rules.
All subscriptions to that business rule template are inactivated.
You might want to reactivate a business rule subscription.
To reactivate a business rule subscription
Navigate to the Business Rules Subscription screen.
In the link bar, click Business Rules.
In the Business Rules list, select a business rule.
Click Activate.
Viewing Executions of Dealer Business Rules
You can view a list of all the times that dealers have executed a business rule, including the date and time that each execution started and ended and the current status of each execution.
To view executions of business rules
Navigate to the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Click Business Rule Templates.
Click the template name of the business rule template you want to add criteria for, and click the Executions view tab.
A list of all executions of that business rule template appears.
Subscribing to Dealer Business Rules (Dealer)
Dealers can use Siebel Dealer to subscribe to business rule templates that the OEM has defined and published, thereby creating their own business rules based on the templates. Dealers must subscribe to rules before they can use the rules.
To subscribe to a business rule
Navigate to the Business Rule Subscriptions screen.
Click Show Available Templates.
In the Business Rule Templates list, select the business rule you want to subscribe to.
Click Subscribe.
Note: If a dealer has already subscribed to a template, then clicking Subscribe will navigate the dealer to the existing subscription to that template. It will not create a new version of the subscription, and it will not update the existing subscription with changes that might have occurred in the template.
Changing the Parameters of Dealer Business Rules (Dealer)
When the OEM creates business rule templates, the OEM creates default parameters for each template. For example, if a business rule sends form letters, the default parameters could be the form letter template and the fulfillment house.
Dealers can change these parameters to customize the rule for their own use. The OEM specifies the criteria in the template and the action arguments in the action, and dealers cannot add or remove criteria or actions. Dealers can change the values of the parameters, except for read-only parameters. If the dealer specifies an invalid value for a field, then execution will fail.
Dealers can also deactivate one or more actions for a given rule and leave the others active, to customize the rule so it only executes that actions that they want to use.
To change the parameters of a business rule
Navigate to the Business Rule Subscriptions screen.
This view lists all business rules that the dealer has subscribed to.
In the Business Rules list, click the name of the business rule whose parameters you want to change.
Click the Actions view tab.
Select an Action.
Dealers cannot modify these actions. They can only deactivate actions or change their parameters.
To deactivate the action, deselect the Active check box in the Action record.
To modify the parameters for the action, in the Arguments list for the action, choose different parameters.
Activating Dealer Business Rules (Dealer)
After a dealer activates a rule, it will execute automatically in the background at the times the OEM specified, and it will perform the actions for each record that satisfies the criteria.
Dealers activate rules by setting their start and end date.
To activate a business rule
Navigate to the Business Rule Subscriptions screen.
This view lists all business rules that the dealer has subscribed to.
In the Business Rules list, select the record for the business rule you want to activate.
In the Business Rule form, enter values in the Start Date and End Date field to specify when this rule will be active.
If you do not enter a value in the End Date field, the rule remains active indefinitely after the start date.
Viewing Executions of Dealer Business Rules (Dealer)
Dealers can view the history of all the times they have executed a business rule.
To view the execution history of a business rule
Navigate to the Business Rules view of Business Rule Subscriptions screen.
This view lists all business rules that the dealer has subscribed to.
In the Business Rules list, select the business rule whose execution history you want to view.
Click the Executions view tab.
A list of all executions of the business rule appears.
Configuration for Dealer Business Rules
This topic gives a high-level overview of the steps needed to allow the Business Rules Engine to process different types of entities. It is important to understand the use of Siebel Tools before you try to do this. For more information about Siebel Tools, see Using Siebel Tools.
Before configuration, the Business Rules Engine includes workflows to support rules based on certain entities (such as Contacts and Sales History) and actions (such as Create Activity and Send Letter). For a summary of the entities and actions supported before configuration, see Creating New Actions for Dealer Business Rules.
To allow business rules to support other entities, go through the following steps:
Gathering Information
Before you begin, you must have all of the following information:
Identify the Business Object (Subject Entity/Object).
Identify the Primary BC of the Business Object.
Identify the Workflow/Business service that performs the actions (Action Types).
Identify the BC Fields on which the Subject Entity can be queried (Criteria).
Identify if Organization Visibility is required and if it is configured on the Primary BC.
Enabling the Object for Business Rules
To enable the object for business rules, perform the following procedures.
This topic explains how to create seed data to enable an object for business rules.
To create seed data to enable the object for business rules
Navigate to the List of Values view of the Application Administration screen.
Query in the Type field for the value EAUTO_BUS_RULE_OBJECT.
Copy one of the records with this value in the Type field.
In the new record:
Change the value in the LIC (Language Independent Code) field to the business object name.
Change the value in the Display Name field to an appropriate value.
This topic explains how to create seed data to enable an object for the query assistant.
To create seed data to enable the object for query assistant
Navigate to the List of Values view of the Application Administration screen.
Query in the Type field for the value EAUTO_QUERY_BUSCOMP.
Copy one of the records with this value in the Type field.
In the new record:
Change the value in the LIC field to the business object of the subject entity.
Change the value in the Display Name field to an appropriate value.
Define a new LOV Type with the name QRY_FLD_xxxx where xxxx identifies the Entity.
For example, if the entity is Order, the new LOV Type would be QRY_FLD_ORDER.
For each field that needs to be queried on, create a new LOV record of this new type. In the new record:
In the LIC field, enter the BC field name.
In the Display Name field, enter an appropriate value that will be displayed to the user.
This topic explains how to perform configuration to enable objects for query assistant.
To perform configuration to enable the object for query assistant
In Oracle’s Siebel Tools, display Business Components.
Query for eAuto Query and eAuto Query Condition.
For each of these Business Components:
Query for BC User Properties named Query BC Field LOV*.
Create a new user property with the following values:
Name: Query BC Field LOV xx
Value: primary_bc_name_above, qry_fld_lov_type_created_above
Include the Primary BC (without any link) in the following Business Objects:
eAuto Business Rule Template
eAuto Business Rule
Defining Business Rules
To define the business rules, perform the following procedures.
To define action types
Navigate to the Action Types view of the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Create a New Action Type Record.
In the Mode field, select the appropriate value.
In the Type field, select Workflow or Business Service.
If you selected Workflow, specify the Workflow. If you selected Business Service, specify the Business Service, Method and Id Field.
In the Arguments Applet:
Create a new record for each Argument that needs to be passed, and specify the required values.
Depending on the type of the Argument, specify the Pick List, Pick Applet and Pick Field fields if required.
This topic explains how to define the business rule template.
To define the business rule template
Navigate to the Business Rule Templates view of the Administration - Business Rules screen.
Create a New Business Rule Template for the object you specified earlier.
In the Actions applet, add an Action record and specify arguments.
In the Criteria applet, specify criteria fields and values for them.
Select the Publish check box to publish the template.
Navigate to the All Business Rules view of the Business Rules Subscription screen.
Click Show Available Templates.
Select the template you defined and click Subscribe.
Activate the Rule.