1. How do I get started with Orchestration?
  2. Overview of the Steps to Create Orchestrations

Overview of the Steps to Create Orchestrations

Here's an overview of the steps to create orchestrations that guide salespeople through best practices to qualify a lead or get an opportunity from qualification to sale.

Step

Description

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1

Because an orchestration can have many objectives, steps, and branches, create a logical diagram of the process.

 None.

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2 If you're planning to create an orchestration for opportunities, then create or identify the appropriate sales method you're going to use. The sales method becomes the scaffolding for your orchestration. The sales stages in the sales method become the orchestration stages. Setup and Maintenance > Sales > Opportunities > Manage Sales Methods and Sales Stages

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Create Sales Methods and Stages

3

Create the orchestration.

Orchestrations for sales leads take salespeople through the different stages of the qualification process. There's one orchestration stage for each lead status.

For opportunities, you specify the sales method and guide salespeople through orchestration stages that are equivalent to the sales stages of the sales method you selected.

You can add conditions to the orchestration so it runs only on a specific set of records.

For example, you can trigger different orchestrations depending on the account, partner, sales channel, asset, close date, competitor, and so on.		 Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Orchestration Setup > Create Orchestration

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4

For each orchestration stage with manual steps, create the objectives salespeople must accomplish to move to the next stage.

Salespeople can view which objectives have been met as they work and can complete the tasks in any unmet objectives.

The objectives themselves don't play any role in the logic of the orchestration. They're there merely to inform salespeople what objectives they've accomplished or skipped.

With the orchestration open, click a sales stage and select the Objectives tab.

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5

Create the steps for each orchestration stage.

You can create the steps either as a diagram or as a list.

You create each step in two phases:

  1. You add the step and select its type and an optional smart action.
  2. You edit the step properties to enter the step details. What you enter depends on the step type you selected.

Review the validations and minimum requirements. For example, you must add at least one Next Stage step to every stage to move the orchestration to the next orchestration stage. The orchestration doesn't move to the next stage on its own. And you must end all branches with a Stop step.

With the orchestration open, click an orchestration stage and select either Diagram or Steps.

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6 Get ready to test your orchestration.

Before each test, you must create up to 3 records that you'll use for testing. The records must meet the selection criteria you entered in the orchestration and any other criteria you enter during testing.

For example, if your orchestration runs on all opportunities with win probabilities greater than 30 percent, then you can add the condition to select only those with a specific name, such as Test1, for example.

To avoid spamming real customers with automated steps, don't include customer email addresses in the test records. Create yourself as a contact instead.

 Open either the Opportunity or Leads work areas and create your test records from there.

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Test an Orchestration
7

Run the Associate Orchestrations process to associate existing records to new orchestrations.

You can run this process on a schedule. After an orchestration is active, new records are associated with it automatically.

 Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes

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Associate Records to Orchestrations
8 If your orchestrations include failure paths (steps that follow up when things don't go as planned), then run the Process Orchestration Overdue Events process on a schedule. This process ensures that overdue steps don't cause orchestrations to stall. Navigator > Tools > Scheduled Processes

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Ensure That Overdue Steps Aren't Left Hanging
9

Test your orchestration.

The application performs the validations and displays any errors, one error at a time. For example, you can't test an orchestration if some of the steps aren't properly linked to other steps. All wait steps are left out of the testing.

If everything checks out, then open one of the test records to see the run-time behavior.

When you're done, select End Testing.

 Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Orchestration Setup > Action > Start Testing

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Test an Orchestration
10 Activate the orchestration to make it available for use. If two orchestrations apply to the same records, then the one with the lowest rank is evaluated first. Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Orchestration Setup > Action > Activate

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Activate an Orchestration
11

If you must make changes to an orchestration that's in the Active status, you must clone it first.

You make your changes in the clone and then activate the clone.

After the clone is active, you can archive the previous version. Any opportunities that are currently in the middle of the running the archived orchestration continue with the archived orchestration.
Caution: You can't take any action on an orchestration after you archive it.
 Navigator > Configuration > Application Composer > Orchestration Setup > Action > Clone

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