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Defining Assignment Rules

Before you begin. To set up the assignment rules, your role must include the Data Rules and Assignment privilege.

Assignment rules allow you to automatically assign a lead, an opportunity, a service request, or an account to the appropriate person, team, and territory, based on the rules (called rule groups) that you set up.

If your company has selected the group assignment option, all group members share the records you assign to a member of that group. For more information, see About Groups.

Depending on your company's structure and business processes, assignment rules can be simple. For example:

  • Sales leads for each geographic region are assigned to the regional sales manager.
  • New service requests are assigned to the technical service manager.

Or, the rules can be more complex. For example:

  • Most leads are assigned by product expertise and geographic location, but some are assigned to a telemarketing manager.
  • Most service requests are assigned by problem area, but all requests involving a particular product are routed to one person.

The following table describes how you can assign record types:

This record type

Has these assignment options

Accounts

You can assign the records to an employee or territory. Additionally, you can specify teams that share ownership of the newly assigned accounts.

Leads

You can assign the records to an employee.

Opportunities

You can assign the records to an employee or a territory. Additionally, you can specify teams that share ownership of the newly assigned opportunities.

Service Requests

You can assign the records to an employee.

The assignment rules in the active rule group are evaluated when this occurs:

  • For leads: The Reassign Lead Owner check box is selected.
  • For service requests:
    • The service request is created without an owner or the owner is deleted from the record (that is, the Owner field is blank).
    • The Reassign Owner check box is selected.
  • For accounts: The Reassign Owner check box is selected.
  • For opportunities: The Reassign Owner check box is selected.

NOTE: When a lead or service request is assigned an owner, an email is sent to the new owner. You can turn off email notification for Service Requests on a per-rule basis by deselecting the Send Email Notification check box (flag) on the Service Request Assignment Rule Edit page. To do this, click the Admin global link, click Data Rules and Assignment, and then click Service Request Assignment Rules. Click the link for the rule group and then click the Edit link for the rule.

Tracking the Reassignment Process

You can use three fields to help you to track the owner reassignment process, or to run analyses to determine how long the reassignment process takes. You can add these fields to Account, Opportunity, Lead, and Service Request page layouts. The fields are:

  • Assignment Status

    The status can be Queued (the record is in the queue to be processed by assignment manager), or Processing (the record is currently being processed by assignment manager), or blank (the record is neither in the queue or being processed).

  • Last Assignment Submission Date

    If the record is queued for processing or is currently being processed by assignment manager, this field shows the date and time the record was saved with the Reassign Owner check box selected. However, in the case of a service request record, this field shows the date and time the record was saved with the Owner field blank.

  • Last Assignment Completion Date

    If a record has never been reassigned, this field is blank; otherwise, the field shows the date and time the record was last reassigned.

For more information on adding fields to page layouts, see Customizing Static Page Layouts.

Making A Rule Group Active

You can create multiple rule groups, but only one rule group can be active at a time for each record type.

CAUTION: When you mark a rule group active, the previous rule group becomes inactive immediately, but the new rule group does not become active until midnight Siebel Server time, even though the new group is marked active on the Rule Groups list. (Midnight is the default setting for rule group activation.) For this reason, you should activate rule groups at the end of the day - when new records are unlikely to be created. Any record that is created between the time a new rule group (for that record type) is marked active and midnight will not be assigned.

TIP:  Do not delete the rule groups that you define; they can serve as historical reference for the leads. Instead of deleting rule groups, make them inactive.

About Group Assignment

If your company assigns records to entire groups instead of one employee, your company administrator must:

  1. Select the Default Group Assignment field in the Company Profile page (see Setting Up Your Company Profile and Global Defaults).
  2. Set up the groups before activating the assignment rules (see Setting Up Groups).
  3. Select one member in the group to be the owner for accounts or opportunities during the assignment procedure.

When the record is assigned to an owner in the group:

  • The Owner field shows the owner's information.
  • The Primary Group field shows the group name that the owner belongs to on the record Edit and Detail pages, if the company administrator added the field to the layout.
  • The record appears in the areas of the applications that normally display that employee's records, such as Homepages and record lists.
  • Generally, all members in the group have full access to the record, although access levels can be adjusted to restrict a user's access.

Scenario for Assigning Leads

The following is an example of a typical company's business rules for assigning leads. To set up the rules that automatically assign this company's leads, the administrator does the following:

  1. States the company's business rules for assigning leads to people.

    For example, for accounts in the U.S., many sales territories are assigned by state, but in certain states, the product expertise determines the territory assignments. In addition, Corporation XYZ account is always assigned to one particular sales manager regardless of the lead's state or product interest.

  2. Lists all of the assignment scenarios that are necessary to cover the business rules:
    • Account (company) is Corporation XYZ. Assign to Sales Manager A.
    • Primary Address - State is CA, NV, OR, WA. Assign to Sales Manager B.
    • Primary Address - State is OH, IN, MI, NY, KY. Assign to Sales Manager C.
    • Lead is interested in the ABC Product (in all states except those listed already, and not for Corporation XYZ). Assign to Sales Manager D.
    • Primary Address - State is not listed. Assign to Sales Manager E.
  3. Puts the scenarios in the order in which they are to be considered.

    First, examine the Account field. If the value is Corporation XYZ, assign the lead to Sales Manager A, regardless of any other conditions. If this criterion is not matched, examine the Primary Address State field. If the value is CA, NV, OR, or WA, assign the lead to Sales Manager B, and so on.

As a best practice, use the Record Assignment Template to help you plan your company's assignment scenarios, and to set up rules that give you the results you want.

Rule Group Example

Rule groups are made up of rules, which, in turn, are made up of criteria. The components of a rule group are illustrated in Figure 1.

OnDemand Linked Graphics Template

 Figure 1.  Diagram Showing How a Lead Assignment Rule Group Is Evaluated

NOTE: For correct behavior of the Reject button on the Lead Detail page, the first rule in the rule group must assign rejected leads.

To define assignment rules

  1. In the upper right corner of any page, click the Admin global link.
  2. In the Data Rules & Assignment section, click the Data Rules & Assignment link.
  3. In the Assignment Rules section, click the link for the appropriate record type.

    A list of all of the rule groups that have been defined for your company to date appears.

  4. Create a new rule group:
    1. Click the New Rule Group button.
    2. On the New/Edit page, fill in the fields.

      Field

      Description

      Rule Group Name

      A unique name, up to 30 characters.

      Active Rule Group

      Only one rule group can be active at a time. If you specify a new rule group as active, the previously-activated rule group becomes inactive.

      Unassigned Owner

      An employee who inherits the records that aren't assigned by one of the rules.

      Example: Employee C in Figure 1.

      Return E-mail Address for Lead or Service Requests Assignment Notification

      The email address that appears in the From field on the assignment email notifications sent to lead and service request owners.

      NOTE: No email notifications are sent for account and opportunity records.

      Unassigned Account or Opportunity Territory

      A territory that inherits the records that aren't assigned by one of the rules.

    3. Save the record.

      This saves the name of the new rule group in preparation for adding rules to the rule group.

  5. Add a rule to the rule group:
    1. In the Rules title bar on the Rule Group Detail page, click New.
    2. On the New/Edit page, fill in the fields.

      The Example column in this table shows how to fill in the fields for Rule 2 in Figure 1.

      Field

      Description

      Example

      Rule Name

      A unique name.

      Assign high potential leads in Retail or Service

      Order

      The order in which the rules are evaluated. When the criteria on one rule are met, the record is assigned and subsequent rules are ignored.

      1

      Assign To Owner

      If the rule criteria are met, the record is assigned to this user.

      For group assignment of accounts and opportunities, the user must be a member of the group sharing the records.

      Employee B

      Assign To Territory

      If the rule criteria are met, the record is assigned to this territory.

      North Eastern Region

      Include Related Contacts

      If the rule criteria are met, the contacts linked to the account are assigned to the specified account owner and territory.

       

      Include Related Opportunities

      If the rule criteria are met, the opportunities linked to the account are assigned to the specified account owner and territory.

       

      Include Team Assignment

      If the rule criteria are met, the team members are assigned to the account.

       

    3. Save the record.

      This saves the rule so you are now ready to add criteria to the rule.

  6. (Optional) For accounts and opportunities, update the access for linked records and users:
    1. On the Rule Detail page, click Add Users or Edit Users in the Team Assignment title bar.
    2. Click the Lookup icon and select the users.
    3. Assign the access level for accounts, contacts, and opportunities.
  7. Add a rule criterion to the rule:
    1. In the Rule Criteria title bar on the Rule Detail page, click New.
    2. On the New/Edit page, fill in the fields.

      The Example column in this table shows how to fill in the fields for Rule 2 in Figure 1.

      Field

      Description

      Example

      Field

      Name of the field to be evaluated.

      NOTE: If a field has been relabeled, the new field name appears.

      Potential Revenue

      Condition

      These conditions apply to all field types: Contains all values, Contains exact field value, and Contains none of the values.

      These conditions apply to numbers or dates: Greater than or equal to, Less than or equal to, and Between.

      Greater than or equal to

      Value(s)

      Use commas to separate values. If the value you want to match includes a comma, such as an address, enclose the value in quotation marks.

      If the condition is Between, enter the minimum and maximum values separated by commas.

      10000

    3. Do one of the following:
      • If you want to add more criteria to the rule, click Save and New Rule Criteria and go back to Step b. If you have multiple criteria defined for a rule, the record must match all of the criteria in order for the rule to be matched.
      • If you have entered all criteria for the rule, click Save.
  8. In the Rule title bar on the Rule Detail page, click Return to Rule Group Detail.
  9. On the Rule Group Detail page, do one of the following:
    • If you want to add more rules to the rule group, go back to Step 5.
    • If you have entered all the rules for the rule group, click Return to Rule Group List to finish.

      TIP:  Rules are executed in the order they appear in the Rule Group, so make sure they appear in the correct sequence. After one rule is met, subsequent rules are ignored.

To edit, activate, or inactivate a rule group

  1. In the upper right corner of any page, click the Admin global link.
  2. In the Data Rules & Assignment section, click the Data Rules & Assignment link.
  3. In the Assignment Rules section, click the Assignment Rules link.

    A list of all of the rule groups that have been defined for your company to date appears.

  4. Click the Rule Group link that you want to update.
  5. On the Rule Group Detail page, click Edit.
  6. Update the fields.
  7. Save the record.

    The changes that you make take effect at midnight Siebel Server time (default) or whenever your assignment rule groups have been set to update.


Published 05/11/2007