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Tracking Visits (Sales Calls) to Customers

NOTE: This feature is only available in the Siebel CRM On Demand Life Science Edition.

You can track visits (sales calls) to customers, recording information such as the products you discussed, the samples you left, solutions you discussed, and related contacts.

You can also save the information as a template, called a Smart Call. The Smart Call template is helpful when you are visiting multiple customers for the same purpose, such as enrolling clinical investigators. You can keep the template private or make it available for others to use (public).

When you apply the Smart Call template to a new call, most information from the smart call automatically populates the new record, including the products detailed and samples dropped information related to the call. However, other fields, such as Lot Numbers for the samples dropped, are not saved as part of the template.

After you apply the Smart Call template to a call, you can then update the remaining fields to track the details of this visit.

If your company administrator included the Last Call Date field on your Account or Contact Edit page, that field is automatically updated on the linked account and all linked contacts. The update occurs when you change the call record's status to Completed and save the record. The field reflects the start time and date of the call.

For more information on Smart Calls, see Managing Smart Calls.

To track a visit (sales call) to a customer

  1. Select the account or contact for your visit.

    For instructions on selecting records, see Finding Records.

  2. On the Account or Contact Detail page, scroll down to the Calls section, and click New Call.
  3. On the Call Edit page, do the following:
    1. To populate the new call record with information from an existing smart call template, click the Lookup icon next to the Smart Call field, and select the smart call.
    2. Enter or update the information.

      The following table provides additional information regarding some fields.

      NOTE: Company administrators can customize your application in a variety of ways, such as changing names for record types, fields, and options in drop-down lists. Therefore, the information you see onscreen might differ from the standard information described in this table.
      Custom fields that your company administrator defined are saved in the Smart Call template.

      Field

      Description

      Key Call Information

      Subject

      Limited to 100 characters. The name of the Smart Call template.

      Primary Contact

      Automatically populated and read-only.

      If this call is linked to both an account and contact, the call record appears as related information on both the Account and Contact Detail pages.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Account

      Automatically populated and read-only.

      If this call is linked to both an account and contact, the call record appears as related information on both the Account and Contact Detail pages.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Address

      Displays the full address, which is taken from the individual address fields for the account or contact record.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Smart Call

      If your user role includes the privilege, you can select a Smart Call template.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a Smart Call template.

      Status

      Status of visit (call). When the status is updated to Completed, the last Call Date for the linked account and all linked contacts is updated with the start date/time of the call.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Activity Currency

      You can select a different currency to convert the price to another currency, if your company administrator set that feature up.

      Objective

      Limit of 1,500 characters

      Start Time

      Date and time the call starts. Defaults to today's date and 12:00 p.m.

      NOTE: Defaults to This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Duration

      Calculated field (in minutes) based on start time and end time.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      End Time

      Defaults to start time plus 30 minutes.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Type

      Call, Correspondence, Demonstration, Email, Event, Fax, Meeting, Personal, Presentation, Other, or To Do.

      Call Type

      Displays Account Call or Contact Call, depending on the type of call. Read-only.

      Ref #

      Text field that can be used to store the reference number of a related item such as a signed document.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Additional Information

      Cost

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Paper Sign

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Private

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

      Description

      Limit of 2,000 characters.

      Next Call

      Limit of 1,500 characters.

      NOTE: This field is not copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

  4. Save the record.

To link product detailed information to this call record

  1. On the Call Detail page, scroll down to the Product Detailed section, and click New.
  2. On the Product Detailed Edit page, enter the required information.

    NOTE: Product Detailed fields are copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template.

  3. Save the record.

To link samples dropped information to this call record

  1. On the Call Detail page, scroll down to the Samples Dropped section, and click New.
  2. On the Samples Dropped Edit page, enter the required information.

    NOTE: Samples Dropped fields are copied over to the new record when you create a new call record from a smart call template except for Lot #.

  3. Save the record.

To save the call information as a template

  • On the Call Detail page, click the appropriate button:
    • Save as Private Smart Call. Restricts the template for your use only.
    • Save as Public Smart Call. Adds the template to the list for others to use.

      NOTE: Each time you click the button, the record is saved as a separate smart call. The application remains open on this page.


Published 05/11/2007