Designing Initiative Eligibility Criteria

The following describes guidelines for designing initiative eligibility criteria. These guidelines apply when using the base-supplied business objects and any additional business objects that the implementation defines.

There are two general types of initiative eligibility criteria business objects provided in base: specific and freeform. Your implementation decides whether to use only one of these types or a mixture of both.

Note: Initiative criteria has three categories: eligibility criteria, related object criteria, and participation criteria. (The participation criteria type is currently not used.) During criteria maintenance and lead generation, the system identifies the category to use through a business object option called Initiative Criteria Type. Eligibility criteria business objects are defined with an Initiative Criteria Type of either C1EC (Eligibility Criteria) or C1BT (Both Eligibility Criteria and Participation Criteria).

Specific Criteria Business Objects

Most of the base-supplied business objects are designed to perform comparisons to a specific field. The algorithm type for retrieving/determining the value to compare with is already preset in the business object, such that the Algorithm values that the user sees on the user interface are restricted to the instances of that algorithm type.

Refer to the following base business objects for more details:

  • Communication Channel Criteria

  • Conservation Program Criteria

  • Contract Option Criteria

  • Rate Schedule Criteria

  • SP Type Criteria

  • Service Type Criteria

  • Is Account Current Criteria

  • Account is on Autopay Criteria

  • Account is on Budget Criteria

  • Number of Days Since Last Lead Criteria

  • Account Customer Class Criteria

  • Average Service Quantity Criteria

  • Premise Cities Criteria

To add similar business objects:

  • Identify the specific value for comparison. This could be a reference to an object or entity in the system, or a character string; such as, true/false.

  • Develop the algorithm program to retrieve or determine the comparison value.

  • Configure your algorithm type using the Initiative Criteria - Derive Field Value algorithm entity and reference the program you created.

  • Configure your business object schema so that the Algorithm field retrieves all algorithm instances of the algorithm type you created.

  • Define algorithm instances of your algorithm type.

Freeform Criteria Business Object

The Freeform Criteria business object, on the other hand, is designed to perform comparisons for different types of values. The comparison value is determined by a Derive Value Algorithm Type that is defined as an option on this business object. A number of these Derive Value Algorithm Types are supplied with this business object and your implementation can add to these, as necessary.
Note: The supplied Derive Value Algorithm Types perform similar comparisons as those in the base-supplied specific criteria business objects (listed above). The Freeform Criteria business object should only be used if the available specific criteria business objects are not sufficient to perform the needed field value comparisons.
To add Derive Value Algorithm Types:

  • Identify the specific value for comparison. It could be a reference to an object or entity in the system, a character string (such as, true/false), or a scalar value (such as, number of days or number of kwh).

  • Develop the algorithm program to retrieve or determine the comparison value.

  • Configure your algorithm type using the Initiative Criteria - Derive Field Value algorithm entity and reference the program you created.

  • Define an algorithm instance for your algorithm type.

  • Update the Freeform Criteria business object to add a Derive Value Algorithm Type business object option referencing your algorithm.

Repeat the above steps for each specific field to compare.