Creating an Order

Creating an order that is based on a quote allows you to

verify the quote to check for any errors. If you are creating
a complicated order that might have errors, you should do it
by creating quote, verifying the quote, and then converting
the quote to an order.
To create an order that is not based on a quote, perform the
following tasks:
• Starting an Order
• Adding Line Items to an Order
• Submitting an Order

1. Starting an Order
• If you start the order from the Account, Service
Request, Project, Contact, Campaign, or Contract
screen, your Siebel application automatically copies
information from that screen into the order.
• If you start the order using the Orders screen, you
must enter all this information manually.
To start an order
1. Perform one of the following tasks, depending on
which screen you want to start the order from:
• To start an order from the Orders screen, navigate to
the Sales Orders screen > List view.
 • To start an order from a quote, account, service
request, project, contact, campaign, or contract,
navigate to the screen for the object and to the list
view, drill down on the name of the record with which
the order will be associated, and click the Orders view
tab.
NOTE: If you start the order from a record that has
account, contact, or other information, your Siebel
application copies the relevant information into the order.
2. In the Orders list, add a new record. The information
in the following table is added automatically.

3. In the Type field, select the type of order you are

creating.
4. If you are in the Orders list at the bottom of the
Accounts screen, Quotes screen, Service Request screen, or
another screen, drill down on the order number to display
the Order screen.
5. In the Sales Order form, click the Show More
button.
6. In the Sales Order form, review the information that
has been copied into the order, and make any changes to it,
as appropriate. Some fields are described in the following
table.
7.

Aggregate Volume Discount

We have seen in the Volume Discount article that this type of discount works line item by
line item. with some customers this could be a debate and some would prefer to change
this behaviour:

Volume Discount should be calculated based on all instances of the same product
(Quantity aggregation).

Fortunately the PSP architecture shipped with Siebel 7.8 and above introduces a new
pricing engine. Since price calculations are done in Workflows and Business Services, we
can change them.

Note: You will need to familiar to the Siebel PSP architecture (Signal, Variable maps;
PSP workflows…) in order to understand the modifications.

We will modify workflow: “Dynamic Pricing Procedure” (or workflow: “Pricing

Procedure – Default”, if you prefer or if you don’t have the Dynamic Pricing license.)

The steps for volume discount calculations include a check on the quantity of a product to
see if it qualifies for the discount. That quantity is always per Line Item. We will trick the
workflow so the quantity checked against the volume discount rule will include all Line
Items of the same product.

1. Create a Process Property called, say, Aggregated Row Set.

2. Create a new step (before step: “Split Service Products”). Use the “Row Set
Transformation Toolkit” Business Service with Method: “Aggregate Transform” and add
all typical Arguments plus these:

Input Type Value/Property Name

Argument
Output Row Process Aggregated Row Set
Set Property
Output Row Output Aggregated Row Set
Set Argument
Aggregate Literal Sum
Type
Group By Literal Product Id
Aggregate Literal Extended Quantity Requested
Field

This step will do 2 things:

• Create a new Row Set (Aggregated Row Set) that contains unique product Ids
• Aggregate the quantity of all products with the same Product Id

Example:

The “Row Set” Row Set contains the following lines:

Product Id Extended …
Quantity
Requested
1234-F 1
345-F 2
754-T 1
1234-F 3
345-F 1
1234-F 1

The “Aggregated Row Set” will contains the following lines:

Product Id Extended …
Quantity
 Requested
1234-F 5
345-F 3
754-T 1

3. Create a new step (somewhere before the Volume Discount steps). Use the “Row Set
Transformation Toolkit” Business Service with Method: “Row Set Look-Up Transform”
and add all typical Arguments plus these:

Input Type Value/Property Name

Argument
Match Row Process Aggregated Qty
Set Property
Search Literal {Row.Product Id} = {Match.Product Id}
Specification
On Match 1 Literal {Row. Row Set Aggregated Qty} =
{Match.Extended Quantity Requested}

You can call “Row Set Aggregated Qty” whatever you want

This step will add a new variable (Row Set Aggregated Qty) to the “Row Set” Row Set. It
will contain the value of the “Extended Quantity Requested” from the “Aggregated Row
Set” Row Set.

The Search Specification is used to match product Ids between the 2 Row Sets.

Example:

This is the “Row Set” Row Set before the above process step is executed:

Product Id Extended …
Quantity
Requested
1234-F 1
345-F 2
754-T 1
1234-F 3
345-F 1
1234-F 1

This is the “Row Set” Row Set after the above process step is executed:

Product Id Extended Row Set …

 Quantity Aggregated
Requested Qty
1234-F 1 5
345-F 2 3
754-T 1 1
1234-F 3 5
345-F 1 3
1234-F 1 5

Note: you will notice that the Row Set contains 2 quantity information. We could have
updated/overwritten “Extended Quantity Requested” and we would not need “Row Set
Aggregated Qty”. We left the original “Extended Quantity Requested” unchanged, so it
can still be used as intended by other worflows or steps. As for the “Row Set Aggregated
Qty”, we will see in the next steps that it will only be used for Volume Discount
calculations. This is a Best Practice approach; and will ensure that our changes in the
workflow do not affect other functionalities.

4. We will now update this pricing workflow: “Pricing Procedure – Calculate Net Price”.

5. Update step: “Simple Volume Discount”, update the following arguments (update are
marked in bold and italic)

Input Type Value/Property Name

Argument
In Memory Literal [Minimum Quantity] <= {Row.Row Set
Search Aggregated Qty} AND ([Maximum
Specification Quantity] >= {Row.Row Set Aggregated
Qty} OR [Maximum Quantity] IS NULL)
AND [Volume Discount Start Date] <=
{Context.Effective Pricing Date} AND
([Volume Discount End Date] >=
{Context.Effective Pricing Date} OR
[Volume Discount End Date] IS NULL)

This step will make the workflow compare the aggregate quantity of a product with its
associated volume discount rule.

6. You would of course need to add the finishing touch such as updating the following
other steps (same logic as before):

• Simple Volume Discount Upsell

• Tiered Volume Discount
• Tiered Volume Discount Upsell
And deploy the workflows

Now at this point there is only one to way to see these changes in effect. By using the
“Reprice All” command (in the menu items in most of the Quote/Order Line Item
Applets)

The “Reprice All” command raises the “CalculatePriceAll” Signal. One of the parameter
of this signal is “RowScope” and has the value ’All’. ‘All’ means that all Line Items must
be taken and put into the “Row Set” Row Set.

If you look at Signal “CalculatePrice”, the RowScope parameter has the value ‘Selected’.
This means the currently selected Line Item will populate the “Row Set”.

For obvious reasons, the Aggregate Volume Discount can only work if all Line Items
populate the “Row Set”.

There are cases where you want the Aggregate Volume Discount to be calculated
automatically, whithout using the “Reprice All” command.

Unfortunately this can only be achieved partially:

You can update all signals (vanilla or new ones) that trigger pricing by setting the
RowScope to ‘All’. If you add a product to the Quote, update its quantity, aggregate
Volume Discount will work.

But it seems impossible to automatically reprice the quote/order after you deleted a
product in the Line Item. I tried pretty hard (script, runtime events) with the help of
excellent scripters. Since we need to raise a signal (only way to create the RowScope
required by the pricing workflows) the signal seems to loose the context of the Line Items
in the Object Manager or some sort of Dark Force…

Futher Considerations:
If you use WebServices between your webshop and Siebel Order Management, you can
overcome this problem by sending two messages, one to delete and a new one to reprice
all line items.

This example shows an aggregation of quantities based on Product Ids. But you an go
further or differently: You can group your products by Product Type, Product Class,
Product Line, Product Organization or even a combination of these fields. The “Group
By” Input Argument, see step 2, has value: ‘Product Id’, but you could have a value like
‘Product Type’ or ’Product Line, Product Type’. Just add a comma between each field.

If you use Asset-Based Ordering, you will have scenarios such as Modify, Disconnect,
Transfer… These type of Orders can lead to the additions of new line Items. I have seen
Billing systems that do not have a “Modify” functionality. This situation may require
Siebel to disconnect the line items and recreate new ones (typically the same Asset’s
products). To prevent Aggregate Volume Discount to over-discount the products, you
must consider adding a new step that will remove the unwanted Line Items from the
“Row Set” (very same logic as in step ”Split Service Products” in workflow: “Dynamic
Pricing Procedure”)

In any case, I would highly recommend you to automatically Reprice all line items at
some point in your Quote/Order process, for instance, before the Quote/Order status is
changed to a specific value (“Approved”, “Payment Requested” or any value of your
choice).

Volume Discount is probably the easier discount to understand and to implement.The

idea is to give a discount if you buy more of the same product. Example:

• If you buy 4 products ABC, you get 3%

• If you buy 5 products ABC, you get 3.5%
• If you buy more than 6 products ABC, you get 4%

You add product ABC to the Quote/Order, you update the Qty field to a value of 4 or
greater and you will see your volume discount applied.

Now, there is something the bookshelf very vaguely mentions (see “Volume Discounts
Across Line Items): the Volume Discount only works per Line Item in the Quote/Order.
Not per product!!!

Example:

You add product ABC to your quote and specify a qty of 2.

Then you add product ABC again to your quote (maybe with a different size/color) and
specify a qty of 3.

Your quote now contains 5 products ABC.

Common sense will tell you that you should get 3% discount since you’re buying 5 of the
same product (Pricing Engine works with Product Row Id). But the Pricing Engine will
evaluate the Volume Discount rule line item after line item. Therefore, you won’t get the
discount at all.

If you want the pricing engine to consider all shirts in the quote before calculating the
volume discount, you have to implement it in the Pricing workflows. This will be
discussed in section: Aggregate Volume Discount.

Note: I will not discuss the differences between Simple and Tier volume discount as this
is a no-brainer and the bookshelf is crystal-clear on this.
Finally, the Volume Discount must be linked to each individual product that qualifies for
this discount. This is done in the Price List Line Item.

Alternatively, you can also link the Volume Discount to a Discount Matrix, although be
careful with this option, make sure the Start/End Dates of the Discount Matrix and the
Volume Discount are consistent. Also the Price Waterfall will not be able to show
calculations of the Volume Discount, only its result (see my upcoming chapter on this
wonderful Waterfall)

How will I know that a volume discount is available for a product?

It is important that your customers know that you are offering such a discount. Knowing
that such a discount exist could lead to higher sales volumes.

Unfornately, the only way to know that such a discount exists is to first add a product to
the quote and then look in the Discount Negociation Form Applet (Quote Screen >
Pricing > Discount Negociation). Similar view exists in Orders and you can always
expose these fields to other applets)

In this applet, you will see 3 fields:

• Current Volume Discount

• Next Volume Discount
• Upsell

The first 2 fields are self-explanatory. The Upsell field shows a message that you can
customize with Siebel UMS. The message could be: Buy 2 more and get 3% Discount.

The “2” and the “3%” are dynamically generated, depending on the current qty of the
product in the Quote/Order.

If you increase your quantity by 2 to get these 3% you may get a new message:

Buy 1 more and get 3.5% Discount.

Etc… until you’ve reached the highest possible Volume Discount segment as per your
volume discount rule. At that point the Upsell field would be empty.

I’d like to add one recommendation here: I believe it is important that the existence of a
Volume Discount must also be shown in the Product Catalog. Again, the idea is to
convince the customer to buy your products. If you sell realms of paper, you get a better
chance to sell them if you inform the customer of volume discount while he/she browses
the Catalog.

To achieve this you have 2 options:

Option 1:

Expose the volume discount name in the Catalog Applet (there are 2 Catalog Applet to
update). But this is not enough. You should also take into account that volume discount
have Start and End dates:

• Create fields in the underlying Catalog BC (again there is 2 to update) to get those
dates,
• Use a calc field that will show the Volume Discount name depending of whether
it is active or not
• Expose this field in the 2 Catalog Applets.

Option 2:

If you want to go a little step further, you can also expose the Next Volume Discount and
Upsell (so you can benefit from the Siebel UMS). This is possible since those fields are
populated in the Buscomp by the Pricing PSP procedure)

But you need to be comfortable with the Siebel PSP architecture before you can play with
this. My opinion is that from a Sales/Marketing point of view, showing the Volume
Discount name is already a nice added value; showing more info doesn’t justify the extra
man-days implied (unless your Product Catalog is segmented by language or
geographical regions).

Siebel Order Management allows employees such as salespeople and call center agents to
create and manage quotes and orders through their entire life cycle. Siebel Order
Management can be tightly integrated with back-office systems, allowing users to
perform tasks such as checking credit and confirming availability, as well as monitoring
the fulfillment process.

Asset-based ordering allows quotes and orders to be created based on a customer’s

existing assets. Asset-based ordering is particularly useful in supporting companies
whose product offerings include complex service products, such as phone services and
equipment.

Siebel Order Management allows employees to:

• Create quotes and orders for new products and services

• Create quotes and orders to modify existing products and services
• Modify in-process orders that have been submitted for fulfillment
• Generate order information for submission to back office billing and fulfillment
systems

The Order Management Life Cycle

The order management life cycle includes tasks that fall into several groups:
 • Preorder Tasks. Can include creating accounts, contacts, and opportunities or
helping anonymous customers through the needs-analysis process.
• Order Entry Tasks. Can include selecting products and services, capturing
quotes and orders, verifying products and pricing, checking availability to
promise, entering shipping, tax, and payment information, and performing a credit
check.
• Post-Order Tasks. Can include fulfilling the order, providing the customer with
order status, notifying the customer that the order has shipped, creating
supplemental orders, and monitoring or modifying activities that support the
order, such as installation.

Scenario for Order Management

• A sales representative creates an opportunity and records the best solution to meet
the customer’s needs.
• After the best solution is identified, Sales rep provide a quote that details the
products and their prices.
• Sales representative converts an opportunity to a quote.
• Products and services are customized so that customers can specify exactly what
options they are interested in and see the associated prices for each option.
• Customer accepts a quote, and it is converted to an order.
• The sales representative enters shipment information and checks on the
availability of the items.
• Sales representative also performs tasks such as calculating tax and shipping
costs, verifying payment information, checking the customer’s credit, and
authorizing their use of a credit card.
• The sales representative performs final tasks, such as attaching electronic
documents such as a purchase order or a letter of credit to the order, and
generating service activities related to the order such as installation.
• The sales representative submits the order. If appropriate, the order is routed for
approval by a supervisor.
• An acknowledgement of the order is automatically sent to the customer by email.
• If customer wants to revise an order before it has been fulfilled, you handle the
change by modifying unsubmitted orders
• As the needs evolve over time, the customer may request additions and changes to
the products and services.
• To make these changes, the new quotes and orders are based on the current items
in the customer’s profile.
• Requests for changes to existing services are called delta quotes or delta orders.

Roadmap for Working with Order Management

To set up and work with Siebel Order Management, perform the following processes and
tasks:
• Setting Up Order Management. The process of setting up order management
includes setting up customer accounts and contacts, creating records for sales
people, defining products, setting up pricing structures, and developing a catalog
of products and services.
• Integrating Order Management with Third-Party Applications. As part of
setting up Siebel Order Management, you integrate it with third-party applications
that integrate quotes and orders with the back office, check product availability to
promise, and check customer credit.
• Working with Quotes and Orders. After setup and integration are complete, end
users can create quotes and orders in several ways, depending on business need. A
sales representative can create an opportunity and use it to generate a quote, can
create a quote directly, or can create an order directly, without an opportunity or a
quote. A sales representative can also add line items to the quote or order in
different ways, depending on whether the user knows the product number, wants
to browse through a catalog, or wants assistance selecting the product from
Advisor.
• Working with Asset-Based Ordering. If you use asset-based ordering, your
Siebel application can be configured to create an Asset record when an order is
placed. You can then create quotes and orders based on these assets. Because
asset-based ordering features are workflow-based, they can be customized to meet
the specific needs of your company.