Managing Activities

This chapter describes the management of activities. It includes the following topics:

About Managing Activities

Activities are the duties, tasks, and actions performed to maintain relationships with customers. These customers are companies or individuals with which your company conducts business.

End users use these procedures to make appointments with customers, manage their My To Do List, assign an activity to a coworker, create a call list, and provide literature fulfillment by email.

This chapter describes the activity procedures and functionality that are specific to Siebel Finance. For more information about the Activities screen and about administrative tasks associated with the Activities screen, see Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Note: Only team members of the secured opportunity can view the activities that belong to secured opportunities.

In addition to sharing activity information with members of a hierarchical organization such as My Team, users can also share such information with members of associated product groups in a matrix organization. For more information on establishing and using product group visibility, see Managing Product Group Visibility.

Scenarios for Managing Activities

These scenarios feature sample tasks performed by end users. Your organization might follow different workflows according to its business requirements.

In these scenarios, end users are the account representatives and agents who manage day-to-day interactions with customers. They enter information to:

Make an appointment with a customer
Manage their My To Do Lists
Assign activities to coworkers
Create call lists
Provide literature fulfillment by email

Institutional Finance Account Rep Creates a Call List

While reviewing her accounts, an account representative realizes that she must catch up with one of her contacts at a client investor company. The representative decides to send her contact some literature regarding new investment opportunities. To do so, the account representative goes to the My Call List view, creates a new call list, drafts an email to one of the contacts listed in the call list, and attaches the respective literature item.

Retail Finance Agent Creates an Activity for Customer Follow Up

An agent at a retail financial service institution receives a call from a customer inquiring about investment products with respect to his 401(k) plan. The call center agent creates a new activity to follow up with the customer and assigns it to an investment specialist.

Process of Managing Activities

This topic details sample tasks often performed by end-users when managing contacts. Your company might follow a different process according to its business requirements.

Making Appointments with Customers

Typically, end users use the Appointment feature to schedule meetings with their customers. From the Activities view, end users can create appointment activities, which can be automatically added to their calendars.

To make an appointment with a customer

Navigate to the Contacts screen, then the Contacts List view.
In the Contacts list, drill down on the contact.
Click the Activities view tab.
In the Activities list, add a record, and complete the necessary fields.
In the Type field, select Appointment.

Note: You can view all activities associated with your contacts by navigating to the Activities screen and selecting All Activities for My Contacts from the Show drop-down list.

Managing the My To Do List

In Siebel Finance, an end user’s My To Do List view shows all To Do items assigned to the end user. End users can create these To Do items using any one of the views from the Activities screen. Typically, end users can use their To Do Lists to help manage their daily activities.

To manage the My To Do List

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
From the Show drop-down list, select My To Do List.
In the Activities list, drill down on the Type link.
In the To Do form, complete the necessary fields:
- Status field. Select an appropriate value from the drop-down list, or check the Done box to indicate the activity is complete.
- Comments field. Explain the change to the activity information.
To add an attachment, click the Attachments view tab, add a record, and complete the necessary fields.

Assigning Activities to Coworkers

End users with the appropriate responsibilities can assign activities to coworkers. This provides a communication mechanism among coworkers to coordinate tasks. End users can create new activities and then assign them to others, or they can assign existing activities to one another.

To assign an activity to a coworker

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
In the Activities list, select an activity to assign.
In the form, for the Employees field, select one or more employees.

Viewing Company Coverage Team Activities

A coverage team is the group of employees that are assigned to manage the relationship with a given company. The coverage team for a company is defined as all users who have access to the company in the My Companies view. For more information on adding coverage team members see Managing Company Coverage Teams (End User).

To view coverage team activities involving a company

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
In the Show drop-down list, select All Activities for My Companies.
The All My Companies’ Activities list appears, displaying all activities for the companies for which you are on the coverage team. This list displays all activities for these companies, including your activities and other users’ activities.

Note: You can view the user associated with each activity in the Users field. However, this field does not display by default. Use the Columns Displayed dialog box to reveal the Users field.

Creating Call Lists

A call list is a tool to help end users manage customer calls related to a specific security. End users can create call lists in the Activities and Holdings and Interests screens.

To create a call list

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activities List view.
In the Show drop-down list, select My Call List.
Create a new record, and complete the necessary fields.
In the Last Name field, select contacts to add to the call list.
In the Security Symbol field, select the securities to associate with the call list.

Providing Literature Fulfillment by Email

End users can distribute literature directly to activity participants or contacts. For example, emailing meeting minutes to everyone who attended a specific meeting.

By following this procedure, the application creates a new Activity record with Type of Literature Distribution, and associates the same list of participants or contacts with this new activity.

To provide a literature fulfillment by email

Navigate to the Activities screen, then the Activity List view.
In the Activities list, select the Activity record for which you want to send follow-up literature.
From the application-level menu, choose File, then the Send Email.

Tip: Press F9 instead of choosing the option from the File menu.
In the Pick Recipient dialog box, select one of the following values:
- Activity Contacts. Sends an email to the external contacts associated with the activity.
- Activity Employees. Sends an email to the employees who participated in the activity.
- None. Chooses a specific recipient.
A new email message appears.
In the From field, select a profile.

Note: If a default profile has been set up for the user, the From field is automatically populated with the user’s information.
Click the Add Literature button, preceding the Check Spelling button.