Introducing Siebel Assignment Manager

Business Challenge:
Companies need to assign business data in a timely fashion and in a way that consistently follows their business rules and policies
Sales leads
Contacts
Accounts
Service requests
Typical characteristics
Large volumes of data
Short response times
Multiple rules and policies
Complex
Conflicting

Business Solution: Siebel Assignment Manager
Allows companies to automatically assign business data to the most appropriate positions, people, and organizations
Consists of:
Administrative functionality to define assignment rules
Server components to automatically assign business data according to the rules

Assignment Rules
Assignment Manager uses assignment rules to assign data
Rules assign one or more candidates to assignment objects based on one or more criteria



Assignment objects identify the type of data being assigned
Several assignment objects are pre-configured in the as-delivered application
Examples:
Account
Contact
Service Request

Assignment Candidates

Candidates are instances of entities to which data can be assigned
Position
Employee
Organization
Examples of candidates for pre-configured objects:
Accounts can be assigned to both positions and organizations
Activities can be assigned to employees
Service Requests can be assigned to both employees and organizations
Types of candidates must be consistent with the allowed access control mechanisms for the object

Assignment Criteria
Criteria express conditions that must be satisfied for data to be assigned
Are expressed in terms of attributes of objects and/or candidates
Examples:
Account State = CA
Account Product = a product that candidate has expertise for
Rules often include multiple criteria

Administering Assignment Rules
Rules are created and administered using the Siebel Web Client
Are not part of the Siebel repository
Are not compiled into the .srf file
Can be deployed during run time

Examples of Assignment Rules
Assign Accounts by Sales Region
Assign Service Requests to Skilled Agents

Assign Accounts by Sales Region
ABC Company assigns accounts to its sales organization
ABC Company also assigns accounts to its sales reps by sales region
Opportunities in the Western Region (CA, OR, WA) are assigned to Sales Rep – West
Opportunities in the Eastern Region (CT, MA, ME, NH, RI, VT) are assigned to Sales Rep – East

Rule to Assign Accounts by Sales Region
Rule includes
Candidates (desired organization and positions)
Criteria for determining region to assign the account



A separate rule is required for each sales region




Two assignment rule records are created
Candidates are listed in the Position Candidates view
Applicable states are listed in the Criteria view

Assign Service Request to Skilled Agents
XYZ company assigns service requests to employees with the correct skills to resolve them
Skills are properties that reflect the candidate’s abilities in various areas such as:
Product expertise
Installation and upgrade skills
Languages

Rule includes
Criteria for assigning request
Employee skill matches the area of the service request
Candidates to be considered
Can list select employees or consider all available employees

Running Assignment Manager

Assignment Manager can be invoked in three modes
Batch Assignment: Can be used to submit batches of data for one-time assignment or reassignment
Dynamic Assignment: Automatically invokes Assignment Manager to assign data in near real time as records are created or modified
Interactive Assignment: Can be used to manually assign candidates in real time
Enabled for Service Request and Activity assignment objects