2Overview of Siebel Field Service
Overview of Siebel Field Service
This chapter provides overview information about Oracle’s Siebel Field Service. It includes the following topics:
About Field Service Process
The field service process begins with service requests and orders. A service request is a customer request for information about or assistance with products or services. For more information about service requests, see Service Requests and Solutions.
An order is a commitment from the customer to purchase products and services at a specific price. For more information about orders, see Siebel Order Management Guide.
The field service process typically includes one of the following situations:
A customer reports a problem to a service center, and the service center dispatches field service engineers to repair the product.
A customer places an order through a service center, and the service center dispatches field service engineers to install the product.
Separate functional groups such as the service center employees, dispatch employees, field service engineers, and employees who manage service products must share information. Siebel Field Service integrates service center and dispatch information, field activities, and service product information into a single application. Service center agents, warehouse staff, and field service engineers can use Siebel Field Service to respond to service requests and orders. Siebel Field Service allows users to perform the following tasks:
Receive service calls.
Verify service agreements and entitlements.
Create service requests.
Search for solutions.
Create activities for service requests.
Assign and dispatch field service engineers.
Track part inventories for inventory depots and trunk stock.
Manage detailed information about customers.
Track service product consumption and logistics.
Manage inventory replenishment.
Integrate return materials authorizations and service orders.
Provide field service engineers with complete service details, including the required skills, tools, and parts for service activities.
Manage repair of defective products.
Set up and manage preventive maintenance plans.
Track and analyze service costs.
Prepare invoices for service and track payments.
Define characteristics of assets and record readings from equipment (assets) in the field for preventive maintenance, billing, and service.
Siebel Field Service contains the following base modules for functions that most service businesses require:
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Siebel Field Service contains the following optional modules for functions that services businesses can add to accommodate additional requirements:
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Service Center Calls
You manage inbound service center calls in the following sequence:
Create a service request.
You can create activities for the service request throughout its life cycle.
Verify the service-level agreements for the caller.
Create a return material authorization (RMA) or a service order, and link it to the service request to allow prompt resolution.
Fill the order, and ship the replacement products to the customer or the field service engineer.
Assign activities to a field service engineer who has the appropriate skill set and tools, who has available time, and who located near the service location.
After a call is resolved, the engineer reports the details of the resolution from the field, updates the customer relationship database to reflect possible cross-selling opportunities, and updates and replenishes the service product inventory on a just-in-time basis. You can issue an invoice for the work to the customer. You can also track pending return material authorizations from customers through receiving the products and manage defective products through the repair cycle.
Numbers for Business Components
In Siebel Field Service, each new business component record (for example, a record for a service request, an order, or an activity) is automatically assigned a unique record ID (for example, a service request number, an order number, or an activity number).
By default, all Siebel Business Applications use the row number for this record ID. The row number is an alphanumeric value that has a segment number followed by a sequential value. For example, the 12-63Q0XT row number has the segment number of 12 and the sequential value of 63Q0XT. To see the row number for any selected record, select About Record from the Help menu. The dialog box that appears contains a value for the row number.
To display alternative values for the record ID, use one of the following methods:
Use the Query function Expr: RowIdToRowIdNum ([ID]) to convert the alphanumeric value to a numeric value.
Use a Sequence Object to automatically generate the value from an RDBMS database.
Write a script on Buscomp_PreWriteRecord. (Do not use Buscomp_PreGetFieldValue.)
Dispatch Board
The Dispatch Board is a graphical user interface that allows service center personnel and dispatchers to select, schedule, and assign field service engineers to service activities.
The Dispatch Board screen shows all unplanned activities and a list of the selected field service engineers and their schedules. Selecting unplanned activities and then moving them to the schedules of field service engineers automatically assigns and schedules these activities.
Siebel Scheduler
Siebel Scheduler provides automatic scheduling of activities and optimization of the service calendar. Appointment booking and schedule optimization are based on service region data, employee data, and constraints. Insertion of activities into optimized schedules accommodates immediate scheduling needs (for example, service calls linked to contractual commitments and emergency events). Siebel Field Service includes worldwide scheduling capability.
Siebel Scheduler includes the following features:
Customer service representatives can automatically schedule visits to customers without exceeding current labor capacity. You can schedule appointments that are based on a window of time in hours.
Siebel Scheduler optimizes deployment schedules by using business-defined constraints (for example, minimizing travel and labor costs) while making sure that you meet contractual commitments. You can schedule high-priority calls immediately, resulting in the reassignment of lower-priority calls.
Siebel Scheduler can insert service activities that need immediate attention into an already-optimized schedule. Siebel Scheduler can also respond to unplanned situations such as a vehicle breakdown or unavailable field service engineers.
Siebel Scheduler can use Assignment Manager to provide an optimized list of field service engineers for assignment to each service request or activity. Siebel Scheduler also provides data about availability of employees to Assignment Manager.
Schedules are optimized in batch mode. Business-defined criteria determine this optimization.
Mobile Computing Support
Service engineers in the field can access Siebel Field Service on their laptop computers and mobile devices. Later, they can synchronize to send local changes to the Field Service server and to retrieve new information from this server. Siebel Business Applications support synchronization over LANs, WANs, dial-up connections, connected and disconnected networks, and the Internet.
Siebel Field Service accommodates uncommitted transactions for inventory transfers in the field so that users can track part movements without immediate access to records in the corporate computer. When these transactions are synchronized with a Field Service server, they are committed and recorded in the server database.
Information for Service Products
Siebel Field Service includes information about availability of service products, including installation instructions, operational constraints, warranty information, and manufacturing data. The field service engineer can graphically navigate through the base configuration of any complex product and review the on-site configuration for the customer. Service product comparison and replacement information allows field service employees to quickly identify alternative service products.
Information for Field Service Engineers
Siebel Field Service tracks information about field service engineers such as skill sets, product expertise, location, and contact data such as cellular phone and paging information. Each field service engineer can define notification preferences so that a dispatcher or customer can efficiently contact the engineer. Integrated calendar posting and scheduling allows each field service engineer to maintain a personal calendar.
Activities for Field Service Engineers
When you record a service request, you can define the steps, tools, parts, and skills required to address the service request. You can link information such as safety data, schematics, and technical notes on the products, to the service activities and part data. You can also capture billing information related to an activity at a customer site, including parts, expenses, and labor charges.
Service Inventories
The Service Inventory module helps you to manage service inventory. You can track inventory, including trunk inventory, in real time across locations and businesses, and you can access inventory information from anywhere in the company. Service Inventory provides a Part Browser screen to find products during the return material authorization (RMA) process, the order process, and the dispatch process. The Part Locator Engine provides real-time access to inventory so that users can make accurate and informed decisions about product shipments.
The Part Browser in Siebel Field Service allows a field service engineer to investigate the availability of a product in all inventory locations for a field service business.
Agreements and Siebel Contract Management
Siebel Contract Management supports the life cycle of an agreement, from service opportunity identification, service pricing, proposal generation, and service delivery on contractual commitments to agreement additions, cancellations, and renewals.
Users can define the terms of an agreement between the customer and the service provider. These terms can include the contractual obligations for the service provider, such as performance metrics, response time, equipment maintenance responsibilities, service pricing, discounts, and service entitlements. Agreement entitlements allow users to define service offering details and to specify tiered pricing for offerings and levels of coverage for customer assets.
Additionally, Siebel Contract Management allows users to specify the terms of installment payments, renting, leasing, financing, and usage-based pricing. After you establish a service agreement, the recurring, nonrecurring and usage-based charges for the agreement can be automatically invoiced. Users can also track and forecast financial and service revenue information resulting from the sale of service offerings, individual service agreements, and across the service organization overall.
Service providers can use product warranty and off-warranty agreement expiration data to reprioritize service sales resources. Combined with Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Siebel Contract Management allows users to assess customer service needs, personalize service offers, and customize coverages.
Preventive Maintenance and Asset Measurements
Preventive maintenance is often a critical revenue and cost-containment factor for a service business. Siebel Field Service allows you to automatically generate preventive maintenance management services. You can automatically create predefined preventive maintenance service requests and related activities that are based on usage or frequency.
Certain equipment (for example, a photocopier or printer) requires regular maintenance to stay in good condition. Service businesses often provide preventive maintenance services for such equipment. These businesses sometimes include maintenance service in warranty agreements, or sell these services to the customer as part of the service agreement.
Monitoring applications can automatically request maintenance when certain conditions are met (for example, when a meter reading passes a threshold or a fixed time period elapses). These conditions initiate the creation of a service request.
To facilitate preventive maintenance, Siebel Field Service facilitates the collection and processing of asset measurements. Readings manually or automatically taken from equipment in the field are recorded in Siebel Field Service. These readings can come from gauges, counters, or meters attached to assets. You can use this data to automatically create service requests for repairs or preventive maintenance. You can use usage readings for billing on a fee-for-each-use basis.
Shipping and Receiving
Siebel Shipping and Receiving are integrated with Siebel Service Inventory, and track customer orders to shipment. You can manage internal orders to transfer stock between inventory locations and receive return material authorizations (RMAs) and orders, closing the loop with each customer.
Oracle Business Intelligence
Managers can use Oracle Business Intelligence Applications to analyze large volumes of records. The results of this analysis appear in charts and reports. For more information, see Oracle Business Intelligence Infrastructure Installation and Configuration Guide, Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Installation and Configuration Guide, and Oracle Business Intelligence Answers, Delivers, and Interactive Dashboards User Guide.
Project and Resource Management for Siebel Field Service
Siebel Field Service includes resource management, cost tracking, and service project billing features. For more information about these features, see Siebel Project and Resource Management Administration Guide.
Reports for Siebel Field Service
You can run preconfigured and custom reports from various screens in Siebel Field Service. When you are in a view, click Reports in the toolbar to see the Run Reports dialog box. From this dialog box, you can select a report for the data in that view. For more information about running reports, see Siebel Reports Guide.
Usage of Application Deployment Manager
You use the Application Deployment Manager (ADM) to customize Siebel Field Service. For more information, see Siebel Application Deployment Manager Guide.
Application Design for Siebel Field Service
Siebel Field Service operates as a single Windows NT service that runs components such as EIM, the Optimizer (or Optimization Engine), Assignment Manager, and so on. The Siebel Server operates components as processes or threads by using the system preferences specified for each component. Thus, multiple components can run at the same time and each component can run a specified number of tasks at a time.
Engines for Siebel Field Service
Siebel Field Service includes the following engines:
Renewal Engine. Automatically renews agreement line items.
Charge Engine. Automatically creates charges. The Charge Consolidation Engine can then consolidate these charges.
Charge Consolidation Engine. Automatically generates invoices by using defined charge consolidation plans.
Fulfillment Engine. Analyzes orders, locates the products for each order line item, returns the located products or substitute products to the user, allocates the products, and generates pick tickets.
Part Locator Engine. Analyzes orders, locates the products for each order line item, and returns the located products or substitute products to the user. The user can manually allocate these products and generate the pick tickets.
Replenishment Engine. Selects source and target inventories for needed restocking and generates the orders required to obtain materials from an external provider, an internal inventory site, or an internal manufacturing facility.
Cycle Counting Engine. Generates cycle counting orders (or part lists).
Preventive Maintenance Engine. Generates service requests to maintain assets by using predefined triggers.
Mobile Inventory Transaction Engine. Generates inventory and asset transactions when a field service engineer reports part movements in the field.
To facilitate configuration, maintenance, and multi language support, these engines are implemented as business services. For more information about business services, see Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel Enterprise Application Integration. For more information about setting logging levels for these engines, see Engine Logging Levels
Administrative Tasks for Siebel Field Service
This topic describes the types of administrative tasks required for Siebel Field Service. This guide and other guides in the documentation set for Siebel Business Applications include instructions for performing these tasks.
The following administrative tasks are required:
Implementation and administration. You must define and structure numerous elements in Siebel Field Service. These elements include currencies, exchange rates, organizations, divisions and positions in your organization, users and their responsibilities, service territories, and so on. For more information about these tasks, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
Product management and administration. Siebel Field Service includes 2 tables for product information: an internal product table and an external product table for competitive products. In addition to populating these tables, you must define a product categorization hierarchy, specify product features, and specify product settings that are tracked in inventory. You can also define price lists and associate the price lists with products. For more information about these tasks, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide and Siebel Pricing Administration Guide.
Marketing administration. You must define and set up the various elements of marketing information for your implementation. These elements include accounts, contacts, and so on. For more information about these tasks, see Siebel Marketing User Guide.
Assignment administration. Assignment Manager allows you to automatically assign the appropriate users to specific tasks. For more information about using Assignment Manager, see Siebel Assignment Manager Administration Guide.
Templates. Service and preventive maintenance plans use activity and service request templates to define efficient service calls. For more information about these features, see Service Requests and Solutions and Service Activities.
Agreements and Entitlements. Service and preventive maintenance plans are based on agreements and entitlements that customers purchase. For more information about service agreements and entitlements, see Agreements and Entitlements.
Inventory. You must set up a logical inventory structure and maintain a physical inventory. For more information about these tasks, see Service Inventories and Cycle Counting and Replenishment.