6Administering and Managing Accounts in Life Sciences
Administering and Managing Accounts in Life Sciences
This chapter covers administering and managing accounts in Life Sciences. It includes the following topics:
About Administering and Managing Accounts in Life Sciences
An account is any healthcare business that generates sales for your company or potentially could generate business. Typical examples of accounts include hospitals, clinics, MCOs (managed care organizations), wholesalers, group purchasing organizations (GPOs), and pharmacies. An account can also be any organization with which multiple contacts are associated, such as a group practice or an assisted-living facility.
This chapter describes how to administer and manage Siebel Life Sciences account information. Using the procedures given in this chapter, you will be able to perform the administrator tasks of generating account hierarchies, deleting an account, specifying which accounts are competitors, and associating bricks with account addresses. End users use the Accounts views to track a variety of account information, including account affiliations, account and contact relationships, activities and opportunities associated with accounts, and formulary information.
For more information on specific administrator and end-user tasks, see Scenario for Accounts.
About Account Hierarchies
An account hierarchy is a group of accounts that are organized by parent-child relationships. All of the applications support displaying these account relationships and the contacts, activities, and opportunities associated with each account on a hierarchical tree.
The hierarchical tree is a visual representation of account hierarchy data that allows end users to view the relationships between accounts. By viewing an account rollup, users can see aggregated account information, including contacts, coverage teams, activities and opportunities.
When end users have access to an account, they can review the hierarchical structure for that account, as well as the child accounts, and the contacts that work there. Account hierarchies are stored in five subviews of the Account screen—Relationship Hierarchy view, Activity Roll-up, Contact Roll-up, Opportunity Roll-up, and Coverage Team Roll-up.
Depending on your configuration, an account that does not have a parent-child relationship with another account might not appear in the rollup views.
About Bricks
A brick is a collection of accounts and contacts, normally in a common geographic area. The primary purpose of a brick is to allow a company to publish RSA (retail sales analysis) data while making sure that specific sales cannot be tracked to a particular contact or account. For more information on creating bricks, see Administering Bricks.
IMS Health publishes retail sales data and determines the definition of bricks. Brick definitions are reviewed every six months and adjusted to make sure that the brick is as small as possible while providing the required level of anonymity.
In countries where physician-level prescription data is not available, brick data is a key measure of return on a pharmaceutical company's investment in sales promotion. In these markets, most pharmaceutical sales territories are built based on brick data available for that country. This provides a meaningful way to measure performance over time.
How Bricks Work in Siebel Pharma
In Siebel Life Sciences, you can associate a contact or an account address with a brick. A contact can be associated with multiple bricks and an account with multiple addresses can have one brick for each address.
This implementation of Siebel Pharma also supports “mini-bricks." Mini-brick data is a subset of brick data that narrows the number of contacts and accounts in a geographic area. Mini-bricks provide a more detailed view of an area, without identifying the individuals in the unit.
It is the Siebel administrator’s responsibility to set up and maintain brick definitions as well as associate bricks with account addresses and contacts. For more information on associating a brick with an account address, see Associating a Brick with an Account Address.
Scenario for Accounts
This topic outlines an example process performed by a Siebel administrator and end users. Your company might follow a different process according to its business requirements.
A pharmaceutical company is updating account information in their database. During this update process, the administrator is responsible for setting up and updating Siebel Accounts so that sales representatives can plan, track, and access account information. The administrator first deletes any obsolete accounts, then enters new information about competitors, and generates an account hierarchy. Finally, the administrator associates new accounts with existing bricks (geographic areas), if applicable.
Sales representatives use Siebel Accounts to manually enter and modify account information. For accounts with multiple departments and divisions, representatives can enter additional information for subaccounts. They can also add more depth to account data by creating user-defined fields called categories. Using categories, representatives can track private or shared information about accounts (for example, which accounts have memberships to specific professional associations).
For greater efficiency in call reporting, representatives can associate a contact with a specific account. Once these relationships are tracked within the system, they can record attendee calls. Attendee calls (very similar to contact calls) allow users to record the account call and samples disbursements for contacts seen at the account. Prior to visiting an account, representatives can view a snapshot of important information related to an account using the Pre-Call view.
Finally, both representatives and managers can evaluate the business potential of accounts by using the Account Rankings and Ratings view and the various charts provided in the Charts views.
Process of Managing Accounts
This topic details sample tasks often performed by administrators and sales representatives to record account calls. Your company might follow a different process according to its business requirements.
Administrator Procedures
The following list shows tasks administrators typically perform to manage accounts:
Generating Account Hierarchies. The account hierarchy lists accounts, child accounts and the activities, contacts and opportunities associated with all the accounts.
End-User Procedures
The following list shows tasks end users typically perform when managing account information in the field:
Tracking Documentation Associated with Accounts. Representatives can review documentation associated with an account, the contacts responsible for each document and when reviews are due.
Specifying a Competitor
You enter competitors as accounts in Siebel Life Sciences, and with the Competitor field selected.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To specify an account as a competitor
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts Administration view.
In the Accounts applet, create a new record and click the show more button.
Complete the necessary fields.
Select the Competitor field.
For more information on creating accounts from the Accounts screen, see Creating an Account. For more information on adding competitive product information, see Managing Competitor Information.
Deleting an Account
Deleting an account completely removes the account from the system. Be aware that deleting an account could have undesired consequences.
As an alternative to deleting an account, consider making the Siebel administrator the primary team member so that he or she can remove all other employees from the account’s team.
If you are certain that the account is no longer active, use the following procedure to delete it.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To delete an account
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts Administration view.
In the Accounts list, select and delete the account.
Generating Account Hierarchies
Data aggregation is available using the Roll-up views provided the administrator defines one or more hierarchies. The application administrator typically defines a “default" hierarchy by associating accounts with one another using the parent field on a company form, or the subaccount view for child accounts. Administrators can define account hierarchies display aggregated data—the activities, opportunities, contacts, and coverage teams—across account organizational structures. For example, the highest node of the hierarchy contains activities for the organization, the subsidiaries for the organization, the departments at the subsidiaries, and contacts working at any level of the tree. As the end users move up and down the tree, they see more or less data rolled up to the selected level.
The application administrator can define two types of hierarchies for data aggregation—a default hierarchy for all end users and specific hierarchies that are used only by certain end users.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
Default Account Hierarchies
The application administrator sets up a default account hierarchy once, during the initial application setup. The default hierarchy is available to all end users who are not tied to a specific hierarchy and who have been granted view access to the accounts represented in the hierarchy. It is the administrator’s responsibility to give end user access to Account views. For more information, see about Global Accounts in the Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
When new accounts are created, they are automatically added to the default hierarchy tree and the contacts, coverage teams, activities, and opportunities that are associated with the accounts are automatically displayed in the rollup views. For information about configuring the Generate Hierarchy button, see About Configuring the Generate Hierarchy Button.
To generate a default account hierarchy
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Global Accounts Administration view.
In the Account Hierarchy list, click Generate Hierarchy.
The parent-child account relationships that have been defined in your application are registered for participation in the roll-up views. This process can take some time, depending on the quantity of account records that are in your existing environment.
When the account hierarchy has been generated, a new record appears in the Account Hierarchies list. If it is the only account hierarchy record, the Default field is automatically checked. The accounts that have been added for participation in the roll-up views appear in the Account Relationships list.
Note: If no accounts are visible in the Account Relationships list, Query for an account name (for example, A*) in the Account field.(Optional) Rename the account hierarchy and, if necessary, check the Default field.
Note: If end users are using the application when you generate the account hierarchy, they must log off and log on again to see the default account hierarchy in the rollup views.
Custom Account Hierarchies
In some cases, users work with particular accounts or subaccounts of a large corporation, but not with others. In these instances, some end users do not need to or should not see aggregated data across the entire corporation. An administrator can define a custom hierarchical structure across which data can be aggregated. This customer hierarchy can be as simple or complex as needed and offers users the ability to aggregate data across the accounts they are interested in seeing.
To create a custom account hierarchy of selected accounts
Navigate to the Account screen, then the Global Accounts Administration view.
In the Account Hierarchy List, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Do not select the Default checkbox.
In the Account Relationships applet:
Create new records for each of the high-level parent accounts. Leave the Parent Account field blank for each of these.
Create new records for the child accounts, entering the Parent Account for each.
Associate the hierarchy with an organization. For information about assigning a custom hierarchy to an organization, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
End users can only see the account hierarchy with which their current position’s primary organization is tied.
Associating a Brick with an Account Address
In Siebel Life Sciences, you can associate a brick with an account address. Because bricks are associated with an account’s address (and not the account itself), you can associate accounts that have multiple addresses with multiple bricks.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To associate a brick with an existing account address
Verify that brick records have been set up.
For information, see Administering Bricks.
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Account Administration view.
In the Accounts list, select an account.
In the Account form, click the multiple select button in the Addresses field to open the Account Addresses dialog box.
For a selected address, edit the Brick field.
Creating an Account
Accounts are businesses and organizations that either currently generate sales for your company or have the potential to do so. Because formulary opportunities are created and managed based on accounts and contacts can be affiliated with one or more accounts, entering and maintaining accurate account information is a critical task.
Accounts are also used to track competitor information. An account record with the Competitor field selected represents a competing company. Only the administrator can edit the Competitor field to create a competitor record. For more information, see Specifying a Competitor.
Multiple employees can be assigned, as a team, to an account. Any employee assigned to the team can update the account’s information. The user who creates the account is automatically designated as the primary account team member. However, he or she can also be added to an account team created by another user (such as a manager).
Accounts in Siebel Life Sciences can have multiple addresses. Users can edit existing addresses directly in the Address field. However, users should be careful when editing an existing address. Editing an existing address, changes it for all accounts currently associated with the address.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To create an account
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts List, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Account Team
Multiple people can be assigned to the account team. The team member who created the record is indicated as primary.
Address
The account can have more than one address. One address must be specified as primary.
Brick
The brick (geographic area) code associated with the account's primary address.
Parent
If this account is a subaccount of another account, select the parent account.
Site
A unique location identifier that distinguishes this account from any other accounts with the same name. For example, enter a city or county name in this field to uniquely identify a hospital.
Drill down on the account record and click the More Info tab.
In the More Info form, complete the necessary fields.
The More Info form is a dynamic applet. There are five dynamic form applets in addition to the default account profile form:
Hospital
Clinic
Pharmacy
Long Term Care
Managed Care
The fields that appear are dependent on the account’s Type field value.
Specifying an Account Profile
Using the Account Profile view, end users can track profile information about an account, including the call frequency, details about the account size, the best times to call on the account, and historical list of all activities at the account. The Account Type field in the Account form determines what fields appear in the Account Profile form.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To create an account profile information for an account
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts List, drill down on an account.
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Click the Account Profile tab.Note: The fields that appear in the Account Profile form depend on the Account Type field selected on the Account form. All fields in the Account Profile form are editable.
In the Account Profile form, complete the fields.
You can track the best times to call on the account in the Best Times list.
In the Best Times list, review, create, or modify best time to call records.
In the Activities list, review or modify records or create general activities for the account.
Viewing Account Hierarchies in Roll-up Views
End users can review the account and its parent organization, subsidiaries, contacts, opportunities, and relationships to other entities in the graphical relationship hierarchy tree control available in the roll-up views. By drilling down on hypertext links on the hierarchy tree, end users navigate to related views.
The Activities-Roll-up view shows all of the activities associated with the selected account and its children. End users can apply filters to the list to find specific activity records and save the filtered list.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
Viewing Aggregated Activities For an Account
The following procedure shows you how to view aggregated activities for an account.
To view aggregated activities for an account
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
Drill down on an account.
Click the Activities - Roll-up tab.
The associated account hierarchy appears on screen. All activities associated with the account and all of its child accounts appear in the Activities-Roll-up list.
In the Activities-Roll-up List, you can:
Drill down on an activity type to navigate to the Activities screen, then the Attachments view.
Drill down on an account name to navigate to the Account screen, then the Contacts view.
Note: If you create an activity in the Activities screen and do not set the Account field, the activity will not appear in the Activities-Roll-up list.
Viewing the Aggregated Coverage Team For an Account Hierarchy
The following procedure shows you how to view the aggregated coverage team for an account hierarchy.
To view the aggregated coverage team for an account hierarchy
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
Drill down on an account.
Click the Coverage Team-Roll-up tab.
The associated account hierarchy appears on screen. All coverage team members associated with the account and all of its subsidiaries appear in the Coverage Team-Roll-up list.
In the Coverage Team-Roll-up list, you can:
Drill down on a last name to navigate to the Employees screen.
Drill down on an email address to open a blank email message addressed to the team member who has that address.
Viewing Aggregated Opportunities For an Account Hierarchy
The following procedure shows you how to view aggregated opportunities for an account hierarchy.
To view the aggregated opportunities for an account hierarchy
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
Drill down on an account.
Click the Opportunities-Roll-up tab.
The associated account hierarchy appears on screen. All opportunities associated with the account and all of its child accounts appear in the Opportunities-Roll-up list.
In the Opportunities-Roll-up list, you can:
Drill down on an opportunity name to navigate to the Opportunities screen.
Drill down on an account name to navigate to the Account screen, then the Contacts view.
Viewing an Aggregated List of Contacts For an Account
The following procedure shows you how to view an aggregated list of contacts for an account.
To view an aggregated list of contacts for an account
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
Drill down on an account.
Click the Contact-Roll-up tab.
The associated account hierarchy appears on screen. All contacts associated with the account and all of its child accounts appear in the Contacts-Roll-up list.
In the Contacts-Roll-up list, you can:
Drill down on a last name to navigate to the Contacts screen.
Drill down on an account name to navigate to the Account screen, then the Contacts view.
Drill down on an email address to open a blank email message addressed to the contact who has that address.
Creating Category Information for an Account
End users can create categories to track additional account information. In creating a category, a user can:
Define possible category values.
Specify the relative importance of the category and each of its values.
By default, categories are visible system-wide. However, users can mark categories as private. Private categories are only visible to the user who created them.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To create category information for an account
Follow the procedure for adding a category in the Siebel Applications Administration Guide.
Indicating an Affiliation Between an Account and a Contact
For accounts having multiple contacts, you associate contacts with an account using the Contact Affiliations view. One reason to indicate these affiliations is for greater efficiency in call reporting, as described in Completing Contact and Account Call Activities.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To indicate an affiliation between an account and a contact
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
Drill down on an account.
Click the Contact Affiliations tab.
In the Contact Affiliations list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Direct
If a check mark appears in this field, profile data for the contact is routed to members of the team assigned to the affiliated account.
If no check mark appears in this field, the profile data is routed only to the members of the team assigned to the contact. (Users who are connected to the server see the profile data regardless of whether a check mark appears in the field or not.)
Last Name
The contact affiliated with this account.
Creating a New Role For an Affiliated Contact
End users can track a contact’s importance and influence level within an account by defining their role in the Roles list. Users can then refer to this information prior to calls and adjust their discussions accordingly.
To create a new role for an affiliated contact
Affiliate an account with a contact as described in the previous procedure, Indicating an Affiliation Between an Account and a Contact.
Go to the Roles list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Indicating Affiliations Between Accounts
In addition to specifying affiliations with contacts, accounts can also have affiliations with one another. For example, a hospital can have affiliations with certain pharmacies and referring clinics. Users can use the Account Affiliations view to indicate affiliations between accounts and to indicate whether the relationship is an upward or downward affiliation.
The Account Affiliations view includes two lists users can use to distinguish between upward (or peer affiliations) and downward affiliations:
Upward or Peer Affiliations list. Indicates an affiliation in which the selected account is the agent of the affiliation, such as an organization responsible for referring patients to another hospital.
Downward Affiliations list. Indicates an affiliation in which the selected account is the object of the affiliation, such as an organization receiving referrals from another hospital.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To indicate an affiliation between accounts
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts list, drill down on an account.
Click the Account Affiliations tab.
In Account Affiliations view, go to one of the following lists:
Upward or Peer Affiliations. Indicates an affiliation in which the selected account is the agent of the affiliation, such as an organization responsible for referring patients to another hospital.
Downward Affiliations. Indicates an affiliation in which the selected account is the object of the affiliation, such as an organization receiving referrals from another hospital.
In the Upward or Peer Affiliations list or the Downward Affiliations list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Note: If the relationship between the accounts is generic or unknown, add the record to the Upward or Peer Affiliations list.You can add more than one account at a time by selecting multiple accounts in the Add Accounts dialog box.
Viewing an Account’s Upward and Downward Account Affiliations
The following procedure shows you how to view an account’s upward and downward account affiliations.
To view an account’s upward and downward account affiliations
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Explorer view.
Expand the account for which you want to view upward and downward affiliations.
Creating Subaccounts
Some accounts can have child accounts or subaccounts; for example, a hospital can have several departments or clinics. End users can create subaccounts for existing accounts using the Sub Accounts view. End users can also use this view to indicate affiliations between contacts and subaccounts.
Once a user has created a subaccount, it can be viewed and modified in any of the views in the Accounts screen. All accounts, parent accounts and child subaccounts, exist as separate accounts in Siebel CRM. In the Account Explorer view, however, a subaccount appears under its parent, reflecting the hierarchical relationship between the two.
The following table describes how parent and subaccount team membership affect account data access. Users assigned to a parent account team but not to a subaccount team, only have partial access to subaccount data. In contrast, users assigned to a subaccount team but not to the parent account team, have no access to the parent account except to the account name.
Table Access to Account and Subaccount Data
| Access To | Assigned Only to Parent Account’s Team | Assigned Only to Subaccount’s Team |
|---|---|---|
Access to Parent Account Data |
Full access |
Partial access, account name only |
Access to Subaccount Data |
Partial access |
Full access |
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To create a subaccount
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts List, drill down on an account.
Click the Sub Accounts tab.
In the Sub Accounts list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Account Team
Multiple people can be assigned to the account’s team. The team member who created the record is indicated as primary.
Name
Name of the subaccount.
Site
A unique location identifier that distinguishes this account from any other accounts with the same name. For example, enter a city or county name in this field to uniquely identify a hospital.
Adding a subaccount automatically adds a child record to the account hierarchy. For information about account hierarchies, see Generating Account Hierarchies.
Indicating an Affiliation Between a Contact and a Subaccount
The following procedure shows you how to indicate an affiliation between a contact and a subaccount.
To indicate an affiliation between a contact and a subaccount
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts list, drill down on an account.
Click the Sub Accounts tab.
In the Sub Accounts list, select a subaccount.
Go to the Contact Affiliations list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Direct
If a check mark appears in this field, profile data for the contact is routed to members of the teams assigned to the affiliated account.
If no check mark appears in this field, the profile data is routed only to the members of the team assigned to the contact. (Users who are connected to the server see the profile data regardless of whether a check mark appears in the field or not.)
Last Name
The contact affiliated with this subaccount.
Go to the Roles list, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Viewing Pre-Call Information
The Pre-Call view is a single view that provides end users with a thumbnail view of important information related to an account. Users can access this view prior to making a call to get a summary of key information about the account they are about to visit.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To view pre-call information
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts list, drill down on an account.
Click the Pre-Call tab.
The Pre-Call view appears, displaying the lists described in the following table.
List Comments Product Sales
Product sales information associated with the account.
Contact Affiliations
Lists all contacts affiliated with the account.
This list can also be populated in the Contact Affiliations view. For more information, see Indicating an Affiliation Between an Account and a Contact.
Activities
Features a historical list of all activities associated with the account. For more information on working with activities, see About Creating Activities.
(Optional) Select the Contact Affiliations or Activities lists, create a new record and complete the necessary fields.
Viewing Departments and Contacts
Large hospitals can have a large number of doctors working in different medical departments within a hospital. Medical departments are generally organized around medical specialities. The Departments and Contacts view is a single view that allows end users to track the work department within the hospital where the contact performs his or her duties. Users can access this view prior to making a call to get familiar with the department of the contact they are about to visit.
An account can have multiple departments, but a department can belong to only one account. Departments are organized hierarchically within a hospital. A department can have one and only one parent department.
A contact can belong to multiple departments within a hospital. Membership to a child department does not define membership to any of the parent departments. However, membership to a child department does establish membership of the parent hospital Account.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
Setting Up Departments and Contacts Information
The following procedure shows you how to set up departments and contacts information.
To set up departments and contacts information
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts List, create a new record for the Hospital Department, and select Department as the value for the Type field.
Click the Parent Account field and from the Pick Applet, select the Parent Account for the Department.
Click the Contact Affiliation detail tab.
In the List applet, click the New button, and open the Pick Applet on the Last Name field to associate a Contact to the Department.
Repeat Step 5 for other Contacts associated with the Department.
Viewing Departments and Contacts Information
The following procedure shows you how to view departments and contacts information.
To view departments and contacts information
Navigate to the Accounts screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts list, query for the Parent Account and drill down on the Account record.
Click the Departments and Contacts detail tab.
The Departments and their affiliated Contacts are displayed in the list.
Tracking Documentation Associated with Accounts
Clinical research associates can use the Document Tracking view to review and track documents associated with accounts.
This task is a step in Process of Managing Accounts.
To track documentation associated with an account
Navigate to the Account screen, then the Accounts List view.
In the Accounts list, drill down on an account.
Click the Document Tracking tab.
In the list, view, edit, create, and delete document records as required.
Some fields are described in the following table.
Field Comments Activity
By default, the activity is Document.
Assigned To
The person to whom responsibility for the document has been assigned.
Expected Date
The date that the signed document is expected to come back from the account.
Expiration Date
The date the document expires.
Lock Assignment
Determine whether the Lock Assignment field should be selected. If the activity is locked, Assignment Manager will not access it. If it is unlocked, Assignment Manager can reassign it.
Name
The name of the document. This field is a hypertext link to the Attachments tab.
Received Date
The date that the signed document returns from the account.
Sent Date
The date that the document is sent to the account.
Clinical research associates can also create a documentation tracking activity and attach a document. For more information, see Tracking Documentation Associated with a Contact.
About Configuring the Generate Hierarchy Button
In the preconfigured application, using the Generate Hierarchy button adds only parent account and child accounts to the hierarchy. Any account that does not have a child or parent is not displayed in the rollup views. In the Siebel runtime repository, you can change the DynHierarchy LoadAllAccounts user property to alter this behavior.
The DynHierarchy LoadAllAccounts user property on the Dynamic Hierarchy Direct Relationship business component can be set to N or Y. When it is set to N (default), only parent and children appear in the generated hierarchy. When DynHierarchy LoadAllAccounts user property is set to Y, all accounts are added to the account hierarchy. For information on setting user properties, see Siebel Developer's Reference.