Siebel CRM - Setting up Organizations

When a division or an entire partner company wants to use the Siebel CRM infrastructure, this is typically accompanied by the requirement to associate data with the division or partner company in order to provide data security.

As we discussed in the previous chapter, records in the Siebel database can be associated with one or more organizations to fi lter these records for users of the respective organizations.

Siebel administrators can declare a division as an organization. This is done by simply checking the Organization Flag of a division. However, this change cannot be undone. Once the division is flagged as an organization and the record is saved, the fl ag becomes read only, as shown in the following screenshot:

We can decide which divisions within the organization chart should be flagged as organizations depending on the data security requirements defined by the project team. The result is typically a second hierarchy of organizations within the division hierarchy. Once an organization is created, Siebel data such as customer accounts, service requests, and so on can be associated with the organization. The following diagram shows how the divisions named Headquarter and Sales have been flagged as organizations. They are now part of the organization hierarchy.

By default, each new organization becomes subordinate to the "Default Organization", which the position of the Siebel Administrator (SADMIN) is assigned to. If data security policies mandate, we must set the Parent Organization field to an empty value in the Organizations view of the Administration - Group screen.

Even if a division cannot be associated to Siebel data, employees who have a position within that division are automatically associated with the nearest organization that can be located upwards in the division hierarchy.

In the above example, an employee who has a position in the AHA Sales North division will be associated with the Sales organization. The following screenshot shows the AHA Sales North division (note that the Organization Flag is unchecked) in the Internal Divisions view:

The Organization Name fi eld displays the name of the nearest organization (AHA Sales) above the AHA Sales North division. Employees who are associated with a position in the AHA Sales North division will automatically be associated with the AHA Sales organization. They will therefore be able to see data associated with the AHA Sales organization and each record they create will be automatically associated with the AHA Sales organization.

Similar to divisions, organizations cannot be deleted. When organizational changes require it, a Siebel administrator must detach the non-existing organization or division from all parent records by emptying the parent division field and change the name to indicate the state of the organization or division. For example, the name can be prefixed with "NOT USED" to indicate that the division or organization no longer exists. Furthermore, records that are associated with an organization that no longer exists must be re-assigned to other organizations. This is typically achieved by using the Siebel Assignment Manager.

Mark at least one of the sample divisions you created earlier as an organization by setting the Organization Flag and saving the record.