Topic overview

CRM or Customer Relationship Management generally means a holistic approach to company management which orients towards the customers and keeps them in focus. An important task of a company here is to manage the relationships with its customers professionally.

In Comarch ERP Enterprise, the term Customer Relationship Management generally deals with partners. A partner can accept several partner roles at the same time in Comarch ERP Enterprise. Therefore, a partner can be a customer and a supplier at the same time, for instance. This is why we talk of Relationship Management in Comarch ERP Enterprise and the facts described for customers below is also applicable for other partner roles. Normally, the external partner is activated first. eCRM (electronic Customer Relationship Management), better known as E-Business Relationship Management, is also represented by the technology in Comarch ERP Enterprise.

The Relationship Management framework includes functions such as planning, assessing, and tracking sales projects such as opportunities and sales campaigns. Successful sales rely on knowing the client and other people involved in the sales project and their influence on the purchasing decision. Relationship Management thus enables you to record addressees, assign contacts, and highlight the interrelationships between the people involved via partner references.

In general, sales projects consist of several sales stages and numerous individual activities. The activities in Relationship Management (CRM) are used for planning processes in opportunities and sales campaigns.

This document describes the structure of how activity types can be displayed in the system and how the application of the same name is structured. You will find out about the role activity types play for opportunities and sales campaigns.

Instructions for working with activity types, such as how to enter or process activity types, can be found in the document Procedures: Activity Types.

Definitions of terms

Activity types

Activity types are used only within the Relationship management framework. They are assigned to all activities that are created and used in an opportunity or sales campaign. When saving a Relationship Management activity, a workflow activity is simultaneously also generated. The system uses this to automatically generate one or more Workflow tasks. The activity types classify and control different activities in Relationship management. They also contain the settings required for generating the Workflow activities and Workflow tasks. Activities and tasks are part of the Comarch ERP Enterprise workflow.

Activities and applications in relationship management

Following applications are available in Relationship Management with the exception of applications which are relevant for the transfer and evaluation of the Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) data. The OLAP data is saved in an OLAP database.

The OLAP data are generally transferred from the transaction data of the company which are saved in the Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) data to the OLAP database, transferred with special export applications to the OLAP database. These data are available there for statistical analyses with appropriate external software programs and tools. This is applicable for opportunities data in Relationship Management.

The Opportunities and Sales campaigns applications are used for creating and editing the sales projects. In the Sales campaigns application, an opportunity is generated from a sales campaign for all or individually selected addressees.

The other applications in Relationship Management are used to control the editing of the sales projects and to create specific master data, meaning the background information for sales projects, for Relationship Management. In general,
sales projects consist of several sales stages and numerous individual activities. Sales stages can be specified individually for companies.

On saving, each relationship management concurrently becomes a workflow activity. The system automatically generates one or more workflow tasks from the workflow activities. Every activity is assigned to an internal employee as editor, who must execute the activities. For every user assigned to this employee in the master data, the system generates a workflow task automatically.

Recorded activity types are a precondition for an ability to create relationship management activities for opportunities and sales campaigns. Every relationship management activity is assigned to an activity type. These activity types contain the settings required for generating the Workflow activities and tasks.

The activities in the opportunities and campaigns are specifically scheduled with start and end dates and use a status. Relationship management activities and tasks resulting from them can be found and considered in the corresponding views in the relationship management cockpit. Their status can also be changed here.

Application description

The Activity types application is used to create and manage all activity types to be used for opportunities and sales campaigns. The Activity types application is not divided into identification pane and work pane. It has a pane with input fields.

Input fields

The entry in the Type field identifies the activity type uniquely. In addition, a Description for the activity type is entered.

Data are created or selected in the user-defined fields of the activity type. These data must be applicable for all relationship management activities that use this type. The saved data are automatically accepted in all new relationship management activities of this type. Some are used as default and can be changed. Other data are settings and control the further processing of the activities. As a general rule, they cannot be changed. At the same time, settings and defaults for the workflow activities automatically generated from the relationship management activities are also created.

Detailed description of fields:

Type – The Type field displays the unique identification of the activity type. This identification can comprise of a maximum of five numbers, letters or a number-letter combination. It can be chosen as desired by the user. The identification of the type is used to use the correct activity type in other applications and queries.

Description – The description serves as an additional distinguishing characteristic. Its text can be chosen by the user. Enter a descriptive and as unique a description as possible to facilitate searches for it.

Kind – The kind is used to classify the activities that are created on the basis of this activity type. Select one of the following kind for activities: Date, Task, Telephone. The selected kind does not affect the later processing step in the Relationship Management. The kind selected here is displayed for the workflow tasks that have been generated for the relationship management activity.

Initiative – You can enter here for classification whether it is an internally or externally initiated activity. Select one of the following values: External, Internal (default).

Priority – The priority gives the activity an importance and serves as sorting criterion for the system. The priority can also be used as selection criterion. Select a priority from 1 to 9. 1 is the highest. The selected priority does not affect the later processing step of the activity in the Relationship Management. The priority can be used to determine, for instance the priority from which the workflow editor will receive a message via email.

Confirmation – The processing of a task can be done in two different ways. The editor opens his/her task in the first method. The task is completed upon opening. This method can be used by selecting none for confirmation. The editor must open his/her task and confirm explicitly in the second method. The task is completed only upon confirmation. This method can be used by selecting Important (default) for confirmation.

Classification 1, Classification 2, Classification 3, Classification 4, Classification 5 – Activities can be assigned up to five classifications through the activity type. These classifications are accepted as defaults in the activities that use the type. Existing classifications of the type Activity classification 1, Activity classification 2, Activity classification 3, Activity classification 4 or Activity classification 5 can be assigned in the activity type. Classifications can be created with the application of the same name in Base framework.

Customizing

Relationship Management can be switched on or off as a whole in the Customizing application under Relationship Management grouping.
The activities function for an opportunity or sales campaign can always be used, even if Workflow is not activated in the Customizing application. However, no functioning workflow tasks will be generated from the activities in Relationship Management.

See also the description of the Workflow management framework.

Other settings in the Customizing application do not affect the Activity types application.

Business entities

The following business entity is relevant for the Activity types application that you use for:

• Assigning authorizations,
• Providing activity definitions or
• Importing or exporting

com.cisag.app.crm.obj.ActivityType

The business entity is part of the following business entity group:

com.cisag.app.crm.MasterData

Authorizations

Authorizations can be assigned by means of authorization roles as well as by assigning an organization. The authorization concept is described in the technical documentation Authorizations.

Special capabilities

The Activity types application has no special capabilities.

Organizational assignments

An organization assignment is not possible for the Activity types application.

Special features

There are no special features for the Activity types application.

Authorizations for business partners

The Activity types application is not released for business partners.