The basic data defined within this process includes basic data for support organizations, queues, work groups, assignees, case access groups and business objects.
A support organization is a geographical or organizational site of the call center. You should specify a default organization to assign all the new cases, unless you want to specifically define another support organization. You are given the option of entering a manager for the support organization. This manager could be sent notifications of event escalations through the escalation handler. You should enter a work calendar to define the working days and hours for the support organization. When you enter a time zone for the support organization, all the time-information relating to that organization is displayed in the local time. This information is used to convert all the time-information on a case to the local time for the current support organization. All the time-information for a case is saved in server time. An organizational user can be selected from the list of Foundation Users and the user receives the contact details specified there. The user e-mail address is displayed in the From field when sending e-mails from an assignee. A disclaimer text can also be added to the e-mails that will be sent. The support level can be selected from the values entered for basic data for the support agreement.
Each support organization can consist of several support queues. Queues can be used to differentiate between different types of cases. They represent the area of knowledge or responsibility for the case, case task, or solution for which assistance is being sought; before a named individual associated to the queue takes personal ownership. A default queue should be defined, and all new cases will be automatically assigned to it, unless the queue is determined by the business object connected to the case. If a default queue has been selected for an organization, all the cases entered for this organization will automatically be queued, even though there is no applicable data in the business object queue or in the case issue dispatch fields. If you enter a manager for the queue, the manager can be used when sending event escalation messages through the escalation handler.
Work groups can be defined to group call center assignees. They are defined for ease of administration. A manager can be defined for each work group.
An assignee is a user who belongs to one ore more support organizations and is responsible for cases assigned to him. Each assignee can belong to one or more support queues, be connected to one or more work folders and act as back up for one or more assignees. You should select the Assignee check box to specify that the assignee can accept and work with cases. If you select an assignee as the default, this value will be given to all the cases registered by non-assignee users.
Case access groups can be used to restrict access to call center cases. You can add work groups or individual assignees to case user groups. The main types of access restrictions are None, Local, and Customer. These are typically used for a support consultant, a partner, and a customer respectively. These access restrictions work together with the case types Global, Customer, and Local.
Business objects can be used in the call center by defining them within this process. These are based on the following business object types - Sales Part, Inventory Part, Purchase Part, Customer Order, Customer Agreement, Equipment Object, Work Order, Return Material Authorization, Project Activity, Shop Order, Change Request or Invoice. You can also create a business object without a reference to an existing business object type. You can connect business objects to a case or create a handover reference to a business object through a case task. When entering a business object, an ID and description should be entered. You can also specify the order in which you want the business object to appear when connecting it to a case or when it is used to create a handover reference from a support case task.