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Correspondence and Notifications

Correspondence and notification capabilities enable you to send communication from within the PeopleSoft system and keep a record of those communications.

This section discusses:

PeopleSoft Customer Relationship Management (PeopleSoft CRM) applications provide tools for sending communications to two types of recipients:

  • External recipients

    These recipients are customers or someone who represents customers (for example, business contacts). In most PeopleSoft CRM applications, the data for external recipients is managed in the Person component (RD_PERSON). However, in PeopleSoft HelpDesk and PeopleSoft HelpDesk for Human Resources, customers are internal people whose data is managed in the Worker component (RD_WORKER) (worker information is also viewable in the Person component if you have the right permission). From a correspondence management perspective, these workers are considered external.

  • Internal recipients

    These recipients are PeopleSoft CRM users. They have both user IDs and worker records.

Note: In this documentation, the term customers includes both external customers and internal workers (for Helpdesk cases).

Characteristics of External Communications

When you send a correspondence or manual notification to a recipient, the system creates an interaction (for manual notifications, the system creates an interaction for each TO recipient). You can access correspondence information wherever interactions appear, including the 360-degree views, the Interaction List page, and transaction-specific interaction lists that are incorporated into the main PeopleSoft CRM transactional components.

You can send correspondence by email or print it for physical delivery (for example, by fax or by mail). Manual notifications can be delivered by email (for external recipients) or worklist (for external and internal recipients).

Characteristics of Internal Communications

You can send a manual notification to any internal recipient as a worklist entry (in addition to email). Sending a notification using Outbound Notification will create an interactions for each TO recipient.

A worklist functions like an email inbox whose contents are stored in the PeopleSoft database. Worklist entries always include a link to the component from which the communication is sent. In email correspondence, the link is optional. Every user ID (user profile) is automatically associated with a personal worklist (if the user profile is linked to a person ID, the worklist is named after the person). Users can also be members of group worklists that you define.

Manual notifications can be addressed either to individual users or one of these group types:

  • Provider groups

    Provider groups are used in the call-center applications (PeopleSoft Support, HelpDesk, and HelpDesk for Human Resources) and in PeopleSoft Integrated FieldService. Provider groups can have both email addresses and group worklists.

  • Sales teams

    Used in PeopleSoft Sales, sales teams can have group email addresses and group worklists to which notifications can be sent.

  • Contact groups

    Created on the My Contacts page, members of contact groups can receive email notifications that are composed from the My Contacts page and for call reports.

The use of predefined correspondence templates facilitates the creation of standardized communication. You can create fully formatted templates in rich text format (RTF), or you can create simple text templates by using txt files.

Correspondence templates are made up of static content and terms. Terms, which are managed in the Active Analytics Framework (AAF) data library, are pointers to disparate pieces of data residing in places like data warehouses, external databases, or operational environments. They can be resolved into actual data to be used in PeopleSoft CRM. When users send template-based letters or email, the system merges both static text and resolved data into the template to produce the final correspondence.

You make templates available to users by bundling them in template packages. Packages can contain one or more template definitions, which in turn reference template files. Template files are marked for use with print correspondence, email correspondence, or both. Typically, the print and email versions are different presentations of the same content, although you can vary the content as necessary. Template packages can be grouped into categories and types, which can refine the template search that's available when replying to email within the email workspace.

Template packages can also contain static attachments files that do not include terms.

PeopleSoft CRM provides two main interfaces for sending communications: the Outbound Notification page and the Correspondence Request page.

The Correspondence Request page is used exclusively for template-based external correspondence that is printed or sent by email. The recipient list is based on the context from which the page is invoked. For example, when you invoke the page from a support case, the case contact is the only available recipient. The term correspondence management typically refers to this interface and the processes that support it.

The Outbound Notification page is used for template-based or as-needed correspondence, and it is used for both internal and external correspondence. Notifications can be sent to email addresses or, for internal recipients, to worklists. The term manual notification refers to this interface.

These interfaces are more fully documented in other topics in this documentation. This table summarizes their principal differences:

Characteristic

Correspondence Management

Manual Notifications

Recipient types.

External only.

External, internal, and fully qualified email addresses.

Available channels.

Email and print.

Email and worklists (for internal recipients).

Recipient selection.

Predetermined based on the context from which the user accesses the page.

Users can select recipients in the CRM system, which includes internal and external people as well as groups (such as provider groups, contact groups and sales teams), which are available based on the originating transactions.

Users can also enter fully qualified email addresses.

To and CC addressing.

Only To recipients. Recipients do not see who else received the communication.

Although multiple To, CC and BCC recipients are allowed, term resolution is based only on the TO recipient. If multiple TO recipients are present, user can select one of them to be used to resolve terms when the template is applied (for review) and delivered. User can also choose to send personalized notifications for all TO recipients, in which case the notification is not available for review before delivery.

For email notifications, users see all of the To and CC addresses.

Recipient address.

The system uses the recipient's primary email or mailing address by default, unless there is a transaction-specific default.

Senders can override the default address if this ability is enabled at the system level.

For recipients who are selected in the CRM system, the default email address is the person's primary email address.

Senders cannot override this value, but they can enter a fully qualified email address instead of selecting the recipient from the address directory.

Interaction creation.

Always (because all recipients are external).

For all TO recipients.

Correspondence templates.

One or more template packages is required.

Users can either enter free form text or apply template packages to notifications. Only packages with a single text-based template are available for selection.

Template personalization (premerge).

Availability is configured at the system level.

Not available.

Correspondence personalization (postmerge).

Availability is configured at the system level.

Always available.

As-needed content.

Not permitted (except through personalization of templates).

Always available.

Static attachments (attachment files that are not template-based).

Static attachments that are in selected template packages are automatically included; users can also add attachments.

Template packages with static attachments are not available for selection, but users can manually add static attachments.