CRM – functionalityYou can use CRM to do the following:
Opportunities Opportunities are used by sales persons to record and monitor sales information related to a business partner for the purpose of selling a product or service to this business partner. You can create opportunities in the Opportunity (tdsmi1610m000) session. You can use this session to do the following:
Generating a sales quotation from an opportunity Because a sales quotation can be generated from an opportunity, an opportunity can be the basis for product offerings to a business partner. If items are added to an opportunity, quotation lines can be generated for the items when generating a sales quotation from an opportunity. Note In the Opportunity (tdsmi1610m000) session, you can:
The following apply to the generation process:
Note You cannot generate a sales quotation from an opportunity if its Status is Dead, Won, Lost, or Canceled Activities An essential part of the customer relations management functionality is the ability to create activities to schedule for business objects (business partners, contacts, opportunities, or other activities), and to track the progress of these activities. An activity is an appointment, call, task, mailing, or e-mail that must be created or executed by a user and that is registered in LN. Activities include, for example, phone calls, mailings, visits, and surveys. Optionally, tasks, appointments, and calls can be synchronized with Microsoft Exchange. In the Activities (tccom6100m000) session, activities can be created and linked to business objects. Activities can be manually created or automatically generated. Manual creation of activities In the Activities (tccom6100m000) session, you can manually create these activities:
Note The Activities (tccom6100m000) session can be started stand-alone, but also appears as a tab in these sessions:
Follow-up activities An activity can also result in another activity. Therefore, from an appointment, call, task, mailing, or e-mail, follow-up activities can be created of the types Call, Task, Appointment, and Email. In one of the activities sessions, you can manually create these follow-up activities:
Note If an activity is generated from another activity:
Automatic generation of activities In the Global Addition of Activities (tdsmi2210m100) session, you can globally add activities to multiple business partners, opportunities, and so on, at one time. Based on an activity template, which you can define in the Activity Templates (tdsmi0155m000) session, you can automatically generate these activities:
Link to activities The following can be linked to an activity:
Letters Letters to business partners and mass mailings are common marketing activities. In CRM, you can create, save, and modify letters. You can use the mail merge functionality to print a generic letter that contains specific business partner information. You can export letters to other word processing programs to use functionality such as spell checkers. The procedure to create and print letters includes the following steps: Step 1. To create letters In the Letters (tdsmi1150m000) session, you can create letters to send to business partners. You can create the letters in a generic format, which you can merge later with specific business partner information. You can use a text editor to define the actual body of the letter. For more information, refer to CRM – Text Editor. Step 2. To use mail merge In the Mail Merge by Standard Letter (tdsmi2410m000) session, you can print or process letters for business partners (prospects or customers), opportunities, contacts, or activities. You can specify a range of data that must be printed in the mail merge. Selection expressions A selection expression enables a user to define search criteria to create a target group. This target group can be used to specify who to include in a particular action. Selection expressions are used to create targeted ranges for opportunities, global additions of attributes and activities, letters (mail merges), and reports. Selection expressions are similar to targeting criteria used in spreadsheet and database programs, such as Microsoft Excel. Selection expressions are created in the Selections (tdsmi0170m000) session after which they are used for letters, reports, and so on. They can be simple or complex, which depends on the criteria used. You can use a text editor to define the expressions. For more information, refer to CRM – Text Editor. Example A company has created an attribute to attach to their business partners that lists the date on which the business partners became a business partner. A selection expression can be created to find the business partners who became a business partner during the last 45 days. The selection expression can use the attribute to come up with that target group. The company also uses phases to track the progress they made with their business partners. One phase indicates that the business partner requires extra information. The selection expression can use that phase to target the business partners that the company must call or send information. The Selections (tdsmi0170m000) session lists the codes and descriptions of the selections defined by the users. Check boxes indicate if text is present for a selection or if an expression is defined for a selection. Both text and expressions are created by means of the text functionality on the Edit menu. On the appropriate menu, you can select Compile Expression to check the syntax of the selection expression. This is not mandatory, but you can use this option as a precaution. Reports You can define reports to view user-defined data. The information included in a report is determined by various criteria. In CRM, you can create reports to view data based on your requirements. The procedure to define reports includes the following steps: Step 1. To define a report To create a report, you must first define a code, a description, and some general header and footer information in the Reports (tdsmi0180s000) session. Step 2. To create report layouts The column definitions, which indicate the information that must be included in the report columns, are defined in the Report Layouts (tdsmi0181s000) session. This information can include table fields or attributes. Step 3. To print reports In the Flexible Printing (tdsmi2410m100) session, you can print and process the reports defined in CRM. Customer 360 In a company, account managers are responsible for maintaining relations with sold-to business partners, also referred to as accounts, or trade relations. They spend a lot of time on handling business partner requests and proposals. As a result, they must have a good insight in the status of the sold-to business partners they are responsible for. The Customer 360 (tdsmi1500m000) session provides an overview of sold-to business partner information and enables an account manager to easily perform multiple business partner-related tasks. With this session, account managers are supported in their daily tasks of handling business partner requests and proposals in a flexible and correct way. Note If you select the Only show the Business Partners for Account Manager check box, only the business partners that are relevant for the specific account manager are displayed.
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