Booking Appointments Using Siebel Field Service Integration to Oracle Field Service

Customer service representatives can use the procedure in this topic to book appointments. For more information, see About Appointment Booking for Siebel Field Service Integration to Oracle Field Service.

The procedure in this topic assumes that a customer service representative books the appointment from the Service screen. The representative creates the service request, and then must schedule an activity. The representative books the appointment as part of resolving the customer issue.

You can work with activities in many ways. Your process for working with activities depends on your company’s deployment and business requirements and on the nature of the customer communication. For more information about working with activities, see Service Activities.

The functionality relating to the fields in the Schedule view of the procedure in this topic works as expected only if the appropriate data for these fields was previously defined in the appropriate environment and synchronized as necessary between the Siebel application and Oracle Field Service.

To book an appointment using Siebel Field Service Integration to Oracle Field Service

1. Navigate to the Service screen, then the Service Request List view.

2. Create a new service request record for the customer issue, and then drill down on the value in the SR # (number) field.

3. In the Activities view tab, create a new activity record for the service request, and then drill down on the value in the Type field.

4. Click the Schedule view tab.

5. Complete the form fields as appropriate.

   Some fields are described in the following table.

   Field	Description
   Service Region	Select the service region for the activity. The default service region is based on the zip code or equivalent postal code of the account address.
   Work Time	Type the time needed to complete the activity. Work time data is transmitted to Oracle Field Service, when you click the Insert Activity button or Update Activity button in this view, or when you click the Confirm button in the dialog box that appears when you click Book Appointment.
   Duration	Select the time needed to complete the activity. This Integration does not support activity breaks. The Allow Breaks field does not apply to any activities scheduled using Oracle Field Scheduler.
   Earliest Start	Select the earliest time and date the activity can begin. This field usually indicates contractual commitments or deadlines. If you do not populate this field, then the current date and time are used for the appointment request.
   Latest Start	Select the latest time and date the activity can begin. This field usually indicates contractual commitments or deadlines. If you do not populate this field, then the current date and time, plus seven days, are used for the appointment request.
   Slot Group	The Slot group is not used in this integration with Oracle Field Scheduler.
   Lock Assignment	Select this check box as appropriate. This field affects how appointments are returned. In general, the functionality for this field is the same as the functionality for this field in Siebel Scheduler. For more information, see Locking Assignments and Schedules for Activities (End User).
   Lock Schedule	Select this check box as appropriate. This field affects how appointments are returned. In general, the functionality for this field is the same as the functionality for this field in Siebel Scheduler. For more information, see Locking Assignments and Schedules for Activities (End User).
   Account	Select the appropriate account for the customer.
   Account Address	Select the appropriate account address for the customer who Zip code is mapped to the Service region synchronized with Oracle Field Service.
   Min Offset	Min Offset is not used in this integration with Oracle Field Scheduler
   Max Offset	Max Offset is not used in this integration with Oracle Field Scheduler
   Parent Activity Id	This field applies only to Bound Jobs and is not supported in this integration with Oracle Field Service Scheduler
   Skills	The skill required for the activity will be passed from Siebel to Oracle Field Service for locating the right resource

6. Click Book Appointment to request available appointment slots from Oracle Field Scheduler

   This button is available in the Schedule view in the Activity List view of the Activities screen or in the Activities view in the Service Request List view of the Service screen.

   The scheduling engine associated with the service region processes the request. If this integration is implemented and a service region was migrated, then the scheduling engine is set to OFS, and the request is sent to Oracle Field Scheduler. For more information, see Administering Service Regions.

   Unlike Siebel Scheduler, Oracle Field Service does not lock these slots. Consequently, multiple customer service representatives can see the same slot. The first representative to confirm a slot successfully completes the confirmation, and a list of available appointment slots appears. The slot confirmation fails for other representatives. Slots are confirmed on a first come, first serve basis because the Oracle Field Service does not block the slots that are displayed in Siebel CRM.

7. If none of the appointments are acceptable to the customer, then complete the following steps:

   1. Click Cancel.
   2. Adjust the appointment range as needed.
   3. Click Book Appointment again.

8. Select an appointment the customer agrees to and click Confirm. An Activity will be then created in Oracle Field Service based on the time slot selected through Oracle Integration Cloud integration and the activity status is updated to “Scheduled” in Siebel, and the planned start and end date fields are populated with the confirmed timeslots.

9. Once an activity has been scheduled in Siebel, there are certain activities that will trigger an update to Siebel from Oracle Field Service. Below are the activities that will trigger an update from Oracle Field Service to Siebel CRM.

   • An activity completed by Field Engineer

   • An activity updated as not done

   • An activity that is moved

   • An activity that has been updated as cancelled