1. Implementing Customer Data Management for Sales and Fusion Service
  2. How You Define Party Usage

How You Define Party Usage

Party usages describe how a party is used by the implementing organization. For example, a person in the business community may be a consumer or contact. You can create rules to determine how a party usage can be associated with party.

You can define the following types of rules for a party usage:

  • Assignment rules

  • Exclusivity rules

  • Incompatibility rules

  • Transition rules

Assignment rules

Assignment rules define how the party usage can and can't be assigned to parties. You can allow unconditional party usage assignment, enable the assignment to be created manually, or be updated by an administrator.

Alternatively, you can also restrict the manual assignment and update of a party usage, which means that the party usage can only be created or updated by a business event. For example, the Customer party usage is assigned to a party when you create an account for the party.

You can also specify whether the party usage assignment can be created or updated when a relationship is assigned to a party. For example, when a contact has a relationship with an organization the party usage Organization Contact is assigned to the contact.

Exclusivity rules

Exclusivity rules restrict party usage assignment, so that the party usage can be assigned to a party only during a specified time period. For example, you can set up an exclusivity rule that the party usage Manufacturer can be assigned to parties only between January 1 2011 and February 1 2011.

Incompatibility rules

Incompatibility rules specify which party usages can't be assigned concurrently to a party during a specific time period. For example, an incompatibility rule can specify that the party usage Sales Account usage can't be assigned to a party with a Sales Prospect usage, during January 1 2011 and December 31 2030.

Transition rules

Transition rules specify which party usages can transition to the party usage you're creating or editing. Once a party transitions to the current party usage, the previous party usage is set with an end date. For example, when a party with the Prospective Partner party usage is assigned the Partner party usage, the Prospective Partner usage is set with an end date.