About the Inbox

The goals of the Inbox are to provide users with:

• A single screen that shows all approval and notification items assigned to them regardless of the screen where the item originated.

• Enough detailed information about the item so that users can act on the item from the Inbox and not have to navigate to other screens for more information.

The following table describes some terminology used in this chapter.

Term	Definition
Inbox item	Requests for approval and notification that are delivered to in Inboxes of users. Inbox items refer to other records, or to feature objects in the Siebel database that require review or approval. The term Inbox item is shortened to item in some text in this guide.
Deactivated Inbox item	An Inbox item that has been processed or has expired. The item no longer appears in the Inbox Items List view.
Inbox screen	A screen in which users can perform the following tasks: Take action on their current Inbox items. View their completed items. View their submitted items.
Inbox Items List	A view that displays Inbox items on which the user must act.
Submitted Items List	A view that displays deactivated Inbox items that have been submitted by the user.
Completed Items List	A view that displays deactivated Inbox items. Typically, the approval process is complete for these items.
Inbox action	The action that the user takes on the Inbox item. Typically, this action is approval, rejection, or acknowledgement.
Inbox type	A value that determines some characteristics of the Inbox item, such as the actions that can be taken on the item, and the expiration date for the item.
Destination view	A view that displays data from the feature object and that you access by drilling down on the Name field.
Feature object	The underlying entity that the Inbox record points to; for example, a service request record or, for ESS, a row in the SmartScript session table. When you drill down on the Name field of an item in the Inbox, you see the feature object.
ESS	The Siebel Employee Self-Service application. The Inbox is an important feature for this application. When this guide provides ESS-specific information, the information is noted as ESS-specific.
Universal Inbox	A term that is an alternative name for the Inbox.