Oracle Siebel CRM

Oracle Siebel CRM is the customer relationship management system allowing to construct the complex corporate information system automating as transactions of the front office: sales management, service, marketing and partner relations; and back office: analytics, order management and personnel, calculation of compensations to employees, etc. and also integration with any IT systems of the client^[1].

In marketing using Oracle Siebel CRM estimate cost efficiency. Allowing to analyze not only primary response from different actions, but also final profitability even if real signing of the contract takes several months. In addition, Oracle Siebel CRM provides instruments of formation of target audience, management of customer acquisition from telemarketing before holding a full-scale advertizing campaign and transfer of the identified potential clients to sales department.

Oracle Siebel CRM allows to organize systems management by sales – distribution of potential clients, working off and preparation of contracts, management of motivation of employees.

The service modules Oracle Siebel CRM will provide knowledge and will increase professionalism of employees, control of terms and responsibility for each client request.

The transparency and controllability of the processes implemented in Oracle Siebel CRM allows to adapt accurately and quickly the company to new conditions, competitive struggle and to development.

According to Oracle for 2011, it CRM system is used by more than 7 million users worldwide. The most advanced companies became clients of Siebel around the world already: 3M, AOL, Bank of America, BASF, Bosch Telecom, British American Tobacco, BBC, Cisco Systems, Citibank, Compaq, Daimler Chrysler Dell, DHL Ford, General Electric, Hewlett-Packard IBM Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Panasonic Microsoft, NASA, Nestle Nokia, Philip Morris, Philips, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Renault, Siemens, Sun, Warner Brothers, Xerox.

Number of the unrolled Siebel CRM jobs (the Source: Oracle)

Release schedule of new versions of Siebel CRM (Source: Oracle)

2019: Correction of 4 vulnerabilities

On October 17, 2019 it became known that the Oracle company corrected 219 dangerous vulnerabilities in different product lines. Oracle Siebel CRM received 4 corrections. Read more here.

2014: Duties of specialists in administration and support of Siebel CRM

It is possible to select such professional categories which will be involved in Oracle Siebel support CRM:

• DataBaseAdministrator - the database manager

This professional category is necessary for support of any industrial system. Because of the three-level structure and a large number of standard auxiliary tools the volume of tasks of support of the Oracle database of Siebel CRM for DBA insignificant. Therefore DataBase Administrator can support in parallel a DB of several systems. As a rule, in a zone of its responsibility will be ensuring high performance of servers, user administration, creation of backups and also system recovery enters. It is possible to refer the help in integration at the level of data to specific tasks, but for simplification of these tasks there is an excellent tool - Siebel EIM.

• Administrator of systems (IT administrator)

As well as earlier, the volume of tasks of the IT administrator especially differs in nothing from other industrial systems. This maintenance of work of the CRM system in the normal mode and user administration. For administration of Oracle Siebel CRM the qualified administrator does not need also specialized skills, and in some cases can be enough and technical documentation. For new specialists of our clients we have a developed training program Oracle Siebel CRM which allows to minimize risks.

If the CRM system covers a large number of business processes and in it a large number of users work, then we recommend introduction of separate administration of Siebel, but quite often IT administrators combine work with several systems.

For scoping of labor costs and qualification of these specialists it is necessary to understand at what level Oracle Siebel CRM in the company will be used. If the functionality of the CRM system which is completely satisfying the management was initially implemented and it is necessary to support only qualitatively a system without development, then two specialists also can successfully cope with it (DBA and the IT administrator). At the same time, as it was already mentioned earlier, they can carry out in parallel tasks of administration and other systems. But realities most often a bit differents. You get used to good quickly, but there is always a wish to improve something therefore it is rather frequent in the companies is and and Siebel developer who in addition to fields and attributes, can perform also functions of the administrator of Siebel.

2012: Typical circuit of integration in a telecom - possibilities of Oracle Siebel CRM

As a rule, IT infrastructure of any company working in the field of telecommunications represents a separate set of information systems which are aimed at automation of specific tasks and are badly approved among themselves. At the same time, the company is not always ready to refuse the similar systems as it invested in them considerable means.

It becomes rather frequent this factor an obstacle for implementation of an industrial CRM system. It is supposed that it is necessary to automate again even those processes which accomplishment quite satisfies also in the available applications.

Example of the scheme of interaction Oracle of Siebel CRM with the systems of telecommunication company:

• Integration of Oracle Siebel CRM with Trouble Ticket processing system

In this case integration of Siebel CRM is implemented at the level of applications using the SOAP protocol allowing to transfer from a system to a system not all data array, and only their attributes.

Rather often in Trouble Ticket processing systems (the task/problem requiring involvement of technical specialists) there is a standard WEB SERVICE which creates/updates the service address. At the same time tuning of integration for information transfer from Oracle Siebel CRM is performed in three steps:

• • Import of the WSDL file provided by Trouble Ticket processing system (it is executed by standard means of Siebel CRM using Wizard)
  • Creation through a data translation card interface between the existing fields of the CRM system and the imported description of WSDL
  • Creation of simple Workflow-process using Siebel Workflow

For creation of the service address to Oracle Siebel CRM it is possible to use the preconfigured WEB SERVICE, the description and the WSDL file to which it is possible to find in documentation or on the official site of Oracle. In this case the task of data translation for acceptance of information to Siebel CRM will lay down on Trouble Ticket processing system.

Other option - creation of simpler Workflow using the return card of data translation and its publication as WEB SERVICE. On an input of such Workflow receives XML.

• Import of lists of clients for marketing influence

At the same time the standard Oracle Siebel CRM mechanism - Lists Marketing Import accepting the text file with a divider is used. It is reasonable to apply this method of integration in that case when formation of target audience is made for a marketing campaign not in Oracle BI, and using third-party tools. For example, the algorithm of selection of the clients inclined to outflow can be rather difficult and it is not reasonable to transfer its calculation to the CRM system.

Before import of the TXT file there is an opportunity to put down compliance of columns of the file with fields in the CRM system. Thus, in Siebel CRM the separate list of clients which it will be possible to include in a marketing campaign will be created, to add, process, etc.

• Integration of Siebel CRM with call center

In this case integration is executed using the driver between call center and the specialized programmable interface Oracle Siebel CRM - Siebel Communication Layer which is used at integration with telephony. As a rule, this driver should be provided by suppliers of telecommunication equipment, but in practice not each vendor has the operable connector. Besides, separate licensing on each workplace of the agent of call center for this purpose is quite often necessary.

At the correct approach to integration the agent of call center should execute all operations on management of a call directly in the CRM system without additional loading of Agent Desktop applications. For example, Oracle Siebel CRM supports the agent's "login-logout" in call center, management of the status of the agent and also executes processing of campaigns of outgoing call-down in the Preview and Predictive modes.

Siebel CRM allows to execute event handling in call center depending on process. For example, at an incoming call there is an identification of the client and his profile in the CRM system opens. At the answer to a call the service address which will be tied to the current profile of the client can be automatically created. After the termination of a call the status will be automatically set "is complete" and the conversation time is defined. Also when readdressing a call between agents to Oracle Siebel CRM it is possible to execute transfer of the complete contents of the current screen to other agent.

• Integration into the SMS gateway

The method of sending the SMS through a call of stored procedure is given in the current scheme, but it is only one of special cases. Siebel CRM allows to use different methods, up to transfer of the text file. Besides, the standard functionality of Oracle Siebel CRM allows to send as single SMS sosobshcheniya, and to dispatch within the marketing campaign with the Wireless Message type through Email Server having the SMS gateway.

• Work with entering Email messages

For receiving Email from the general mailboxes (info, support, etc.) uses the module Siebel Email Response. This module has a possibility of setup of obtaining e-mail from several servers, under different protocols, different methods of authorization and support of safe connections. At the same time there are connectors for server integration into Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes.

After loading in Oracle Siebel CRM for each Email message the preconfigured process implemented using Workflow is executed. For example, sending an auto answer is made, messages are classified under the set rules, the binding to the client sender's profile, etc. is performed.

• Work with proceeding Email messages

For sending single messages and answers on entering Email Oracle Siebel CRM connection profiles to SMTP with a possibility of authorization and support of the protected connection are configured. Such messages can be sent both from Siebel CRM, and through the built-in Lotus Notes and Microsoft Outlook forms.

For bulk mailing of messages and collecting of responses by Email campaigns the module Siebel Email Marketing Server is used. We rather in detail covered possibilities of this module at the description of implementation of multistage marketing programs in Oracle Siebel CRM.

• Integration of Siebel CRM with a geographic information system

Today any more not a rarity when telecommunication companies have geographic information systems - the specialized electronic cards displaying coverages, the signal level of base stations in these zones, etc. Based on our experience, in this case it is the most reasonable to use integration at the level of user interfaces, i.e. to build in a geographic information system directly the CRM system. Such approach will allow "become attached" to a business object "the service message" and will simplify a task to the users of Oracle Siebel CRM working with service customer appeals. Thus, having coordinates or the identifier of the device of the client in Siebel CRM, upon transition to the screen with the card positioning on the client's location is executed that gives the chance to reveal problems with the base station without additional polls.

At the same time integration is executed using the standard Siebel Symbolic URL tool which allows to transfer parameters with coordinates in URL when loading the card.

• Loading and updating of a profile of the client from billing

For loading and updating of a complete profile of the client the module Enterprise Integration Manager (EIM) which is the standard Oracle Siebel CRM tool for integration at the level of data is used. This module contains a list of the preconfigured "flat" tables for all main business objects of Siebel CRM. EIM supports import and export, removal of objects in batch mode and can be started by a command or according to the schedule. Each preconfigured table can be modified regarding adding of new attributes, the whole child business objects and communications between them. At this EIM independently executes check on correctness of formats of the provided data and reference books and also estimates correctness of the organization of communications between CRM system business objects. Besides, work with Enterprise Integration Manager is in detail documented that exempts from need of writing of codes for data loading at the level of DBMS from Oracle Siebel CRM^[1].

Links

• Demonstration [1] Siebel On Line stand
• Russian-speaking Oracle Siebel CRM resource of the 8th version
• Siebel forum

Notes