Administering Siebel eSales

This chapter describes administrative tasks used to maintain Siebel eSales. These tasks include setting up quote expiration dates, setting up customer accounts, and modifying credit card charges.

This chapter contains the following sections:

Setting Quote Expiration Dates

Quote expiration dates are set in the List of Values view under the Application Administration screen.

Note: You must clear the LOV cache for the new expiration date to take effect.

To set quote expiration dates

In your Siebel employee application, navigate to Administration - Data > List of Values.
Query for QUOTE_EXPIRATION_PERIOD in the Type field.
Set the Display Value field to the number of days you want quotes to be effective.
Click Menu and choose Clear Cache.

Managing Anonymous Shopping Carts

Customers are treated as anonymous users until they register with your Siebel eSales Web site. Registered users returning to your Web site, and who have not yet logged in, are recognized as anonymous users rather than registered users if:

They have deleted previously stored cookies.
They elected for the Web site not to remember their user IDs, in which case they lack the cookie that enables implicit login.

When an anonymous user places an item in the Shopping Cart, an anonymous quote is created and a cookie is placed on the customer’s computer. The cookie identifies the quote. If the Internet connection is lost, or if the customer leaves your Web site before checking out, the cookie is used to load the customer’s quote when the customer returns.

If the customer does not return to the Web site for a specified number of days, the anonymous quote is deleted.

If the customer logs in later, and before the quote is deleted, the persistent anonymous quote is converted to a persistent quote, and the cookie is cleared. The cookie is replaced by another one that will enable implicit login when the customer returns to your site.

You can set both the frequency with which anonymous quotes are deleted and the age of the quotes to be deleted. The deletions are then performed automatically by a repeating server request. By default, anonymous shopping carts 30 days or older are deleted weekly. For information about setting up repeating server requests, see Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.

Setting the Age for Anonymous Quotes Deletion

To set the age for anonymous quotes deletion, do the following in Siebel Tools:

Select the eSales - Delete Old Anonymous Quotes workflow.
Locate the workflow’s Days Old process property and edit its Default String field.
Make any other changes to the workflow that are necessary for your implementation.
For detailed information on modifying workflows, see the chapter on building workflow processes in Siebel Business Process Framework: Workflow Guide.

About Setting Up Customer Accounts

The tasks involved in setting up customer accounts are as follows:

Creating accounts.
For more information, see the chapter on using accounts in Siebel Sales in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Associating users with accounts.
You assign an account’s users by filling in the account’s Contacts field. For more information, see the chapter on using accounts in Siebel Sales in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Note: When you create a Siebel eSales user, the Contact Team for the user belongs to your organization. The Contact Team should be set to the correct position for the Organization to which the user belongs, so the user gets the correct price list.

Associating price lists with accounts.
You assign a price list to an account by filling in the account’s Price List field. For more information, see the chapter on using accounts in Siebel Sales in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Allowing accounts to use purchase orders.
You allow an account to use purchase orders by selecting the account’s PO Approved check box. For more information, see About Allowing Accounts and Contacts to Use Purchase Orders and the chapter on using accounts in Siebel Sales in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Allowing contacts to use purchase orders.
For more information, see About Allowing Accounts and Contacts to Use Purchase Orders and Allowing Contacts to Use Purchase Orders.

Setting purchase order auto-approval limits for accounts.
The PO auto-approval limit is the maximum amount that a corporate customer can order using a purchase order without approval from the purchasing manager in the purchaser’s company. For more information, see the chapter on using accounts in Siebel Sales in Siebel Applications Administration Guide.

Setting credit auto-approval limits for accounts.
The credit auto-approval limit is the maximum amount that a corporate customer can order using a purchase order without requiring an automatic credit check using the External Credit Check ASI. For example, if you set the limit to $1000, any order greater than $1000 automatically receives a credit check. For more information, see the chapter on preparing for integration in Siebel Order Management Guide.

Allowing accounts to skip credit checks.
You can skip automatic credit checking for a particular account. Automatic credit checking uses the External Credit Check ASI for customers paying with a purchase order. For more information, see the chapter on preparing for integration in Siebel Order Management Guide.

About Allowing Accounts and Contacts to Use Purchase Orders

Corporate customers can use purchase orders to buy from your Siebel eSales Web site. Web Corporate Users who want to make purchases may not have the authority to assign a purchase order number and approve the purchase for their company. Siebel eSales allows Web Corporate Users to complete the checkout process without providing a purchase order number. When this happens, the PO Status is set to Pending and the Order Status is set to Awaiting Approval. This happens even if the order amount is less than the Auto-Approval Limit set on the account. The order is then routed through the order approval process.

The Web Delegated Customer Administrator in the buying organization can set purchase order approval for particular users within the buying organization. The Web Purchasing Manager in the buying organization can review orders that are awaiting approval through the My Company’s Orders screen. The Web Purchasing Manager can then provide a purchase order number and change the Order Status to Approved.

To allow Web Corporate Users to buy with purchase orders, the PO Approved flag must be set for both of the following:

The account
All contacts associated with the account who should be able to buy with a purchase order

There is no inheritance from an account to its contacts.

Note: The Web Purchasing Manager must also be assigned a user type of Web Purchasing Manager and the Web Corporate User responsibility. For more information, see Setting Up Default Responsibilities and User Types for eSales.

Allowing Contacts to Use Purchase Orders

Use this procedure to allow a contact to use a purchase order.

To allow a contact to use purchase orders

In your Siebel employee application, navigate to Administration - User > Users.
In the Users list, select a user whom you want to allow to use purchase orders.
In the form, select the PO Approved check box.

Modifying Credit Card Charges

Call center or sales professionals can modify credit card charges in your Siebel Business Application. The tasks associated with modifying credit card charges are as follows:

Authorize. This task allocates to the merchant a specific amount of the credit available to the cardholder, typically for one week. No funds are transferred.
The merchant authorizes a credit card to make sure of the following:
- The customer has the funds to pay for the purchase.
- These funds are reserved until the merchant is able to ship the product. Credit card companies typically state that a merchant should not settle until the product has been shipped.
Siebel eSales does automatic authorization as part of the eSales - Authorize Order Process, when the customer clicks Confirm Order on the Order Summary page. Authorization can also be done manually. Your employees, such as call center agents, use the Payment form to authorize charges.
For more information, see the chapter on creating a quote or order in Siebel Order Management Guide.

Settle. This task includes the authorization code and requests that funds be transferred from the cardholder's account to the merchant's bank account.
You settle charges after an order has been authorized. You will need to settle each order or develop a batch routine.
For more information, see the chapter on creating a quote or order in Siebel Order Management Guide.

Authorize and Settle. This task makes sure that the funds are available, reserves them, and requests that they be transferred in one call. It does this in the case of immediate order fulfillment (for example, digital downloads).
For more information, see the chapter on creating a quote or order in Siebel Order Management Guide.

Refund. This task takes place after a settlement when the merchant needs to transfer money back to the cardholder, as in the case of a return.
For more information, see the chapter on creating a quote or order in Siebel Order Management Guide.

Reversal. This task takes place as a result of allowing a transaction that was not settled to expire. See Reversing Charges.
Identifying Errors. See Querying For Transactions With Error Messages.

Reversing Charges

Reversing charges releases the amount of money reserved by an authorization. This transaction is important because authorizations reserve part of a cardholder's credit and therefore reduce the total amount of credit available.

Note: You cannot reverse charges using the CyberSource Internet Commerce Suite. Authorizations are allowed to expire after not being settled for a specified period of time, usually one week.

Querying For Transactions With Error Messages

You can query for credit card authorizations that returned Siebel Response Messages without stopping the ordering process.

Siebel Response Messages that do not stop the ordering process are set in the Create Order on Web business service user property for the Credit Card Transaction Service business service. These messages are listed in the following table.

Error Number	Message
1	Transaction was successful.
18	You are not authorized to perform this transaction type.
19	Error happened in adapter business service. Please contact your application administrator.
20	Error happened in CyberSource. Please contact your application administrator.
21	The connection to CyberSource has timeout. Please try the operation later.

For more information, see Integrating Siebel eSales with Third-Party Payment Applications.

To query for Siebel Response Messages

In your Siebel employee application, navigate to Sales Orders > List.
Select an order and click its Order # hyperlink.
Click the Payments view tab.
Returned Siebel Response messages are displayed in the Transaction Message column of the Payment Lines list.