Mobilize your workforce. Now!

Mobilize your workforce. Now!

Whether it is Field Sales or Field Service or Retail PoS or Self Service, everyone today wants to go mobile and stay mobile.

The trend is there and pressure is increasing in organisations to find the right solution.  A simple search of the Apple App store or Google Play for Android , will bring up dozens of "CRM" apps, "Sales" apps, "Service" apps but how are organisations going to tailor these to there specific needs, as well as have them running and integrated within the existing IT landscape?  99% of these apps have not addressed that issue.

We believe that this makes the mobile solutions from CRMantra unique.  We have designed our applications on the premise that these will have to be tailored to the needs of the business as well as integrated in to one (and probably more) back end systems.

By providing the Front end app, the back-end integration and the development framework organisations are able to quickly and easily configure and deploy these mobile solutions.

Based on extensive feedback from our customers, (it has basically been designed by Reps for Reps),  it is focused on three design area's that we see as critical to success.

> 360° View – Always see the information that is important to you.

> Seamless Sales Process – CRM is just one of the apps sales reps use.  Seamless sales process that   mashes up data across multiple enterprise applications and services at your fingertips.

> Full-time information access – Connected, disconnected or a combination of both

I've included a few screenshots below which give some idea of the scope and appearance of the applications.

InterAct2Go comes with over 150 pre-built integrations

• Enterprise apps:  Siebel, Salesforce.com,  CRM On Demand, Fusion CRM, OBIEE, atg, Oracle eBusiness Suite, etc.
• Social media: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter; 
• Application services: Google Maps, Apple Maps, and Mapquest, Credit Check, Tax Calculation, Address Check, Credit card authorization
• Device Functions: camera, GPS, audio and video recording

If you'd like to see a full demo or get more information on how we are achieving success for our customers then please get in touch.  

More details of our full Mobility Platform are on our website.

 david.moorman@crmantra.com

Siebel CRM - Open UI Post OOW Update

Well I promised I would report back after Oracle Openworld and here I am.

It has to be said that Siebel OpenUI was received with great applause (litterally!) at OOW.  It has to be the only session I've ever attended that had people applauding !!

So what was all the excitement about?  Well, for most it was the removal of the dependency on Internet Explorer for High Interactivity (HI) Mode.   This will make it accessible across browsers and devices and now finally on my Mac - (That will be my test number 1)!

After speaking to a number of Siebel customers, what comes next is the ability to switch on OpenUI and quickly provide a 'fresh' UI to the end user - though I would suggest it's not something you would do at 9am on a Monday morning to give your end-users a nice surprise to start their week!  It may be easier on the eye, but its not going to be life-changing...yet.

I see the OpenUI Framework more as a tool to make some dramatic changes to the way you can develop the UI that will have a major effect on how users interact with Siebel.

- Improving process flows
- removing clutter
- consolidating views
- CSS based views can be easily branded for customer/partner sites.

Though, what it also gives is carte-blanche for endless development cycles to get the colours right, the logo in the right place, the text in Helvetica 12, and probably the most dangerous...UI scripting !

Yep, so this now means that no need to write a new business rule in Siebel, update the srf and server - no, we can just write a bit of script put it in the HTML page and hey presto new business rule is in production!  That is going to be sooooooo tempting, and it is going to have to be resisted at all cost !


More OOW Info..

• It's still planned to be in IP 2012, which my sources are telling me is likely to be December (Oh the problems of giving a release the name of a year!) 
• Existing Task UI will work without changes, the SWE engine will render it correctly.
• Siebel Configurator runs, without changes based on the existing product model meta data. - BUT a developer will not yet be able to change this UI through the same means (i.e HTML/CSS)

Siebel Open UI for Configurator (Screenshot above)

• Siebel Order Management - Edit Promotions View - Hasn't been included.
• The standard Open UI is not linked to a Licence, but OpenUI for Mobile will have a licence and fee attached. No details yet as to the cost/metrics, though credit will be give for customers with existing Siebel 'Mobile' licences.
• OpenUI and HI UI can't run in the same OM. Maybe not a big issue but if there are non-standard UI templates that OpenUI may not be able to render then those will not be accessible to the user.
• Any non-standard UI templates will need to be cleaned up, with the removal of 'structual' information as the server is no longer dictating the UI - This is now set by HTML/CSS.  That mean's replacing all "table' definitions with DIV elements.

Open UI for Mobile

• Available sometime in 2013 and Version1 will only be available in connected mode
• Comes with new web templates for a native app look and feel.
• Built using ADF Mobile Framework
• Task Based UI will also work, but no mobile templates provided OOTB for this.
• It is Safari browser based, not a native app.
• It will use another, new Object Manager (/salesm_enu iirc)
• Views will be in Siebel tools, but it not clear yet how a developer would make use of the native functions and gestures.
• And probably most important It's going to be a new licensable product from Oracle.

So where do Siebel customers go from here?   I've said it before in a previous post, but improving usability isn't just about a new veneer on top of Siebel - Careful consideration is needed to ensure the experience is a positive one for the end-user.   And every time I would recommend a Siebel Usage Analysis   to kick off any UI/UX project.

Get in touch if you have any further questions/comments/queries.
David

david.moorman@crmantra.com  www.crmantra.com

Have CRM? Go Mobile!

The growing popularity of mobile devices, smartphones and tablets has increased the pressures on companies to equip their sales teams with mobile capabilities. Here at CRMantra we've had numerous customers asking us for an OOTB mobile solution for Siebel.  This ranges from a Telco wanting to have handheld Samsung Galaxy's in their stores to act as a 'Queue Busting' PoS, to banks, media and manufacturing companies wanting to have key sales functions on an iPad.

Key requirements were; minimal (if possible, zero) impact on the current CRM implementation.  Easy to administer and deploy, and above all else ease of use for the Sales Rep or Sales Assistant.

We have searched with them to find something suitable, and whilst there are mobile apps out there that do these things, none of them are integrated with Siebel, or even designed with the complexities of Siebel in mind.  So that only gave us one option - to build it ourselves.

We had the perfect starting position, the integration groundwork was already done thanks to InterAct Xchange and we have now developed mobile solutions for SFA and eCommerce that we are proud of.. oh and most importantly one that meets our customers needs !

In each case, upon further investigation, we uncovered that there are many different flavors of "mobile offering" companies want to deploy. Each type of mobile solution has its pros and cons.  Here are some things to consider for the various options based upon the studies we have undertaken.

Option	Pros	Cons	Results
OPTION 1 – Siebel UI via VPN	Fast Deployment / Lower cost Option	User experience is not good enough.  Performance is slow because of vagaries of the network connection.  In addition, Siebel web user interface does not lend itself with touch with fat fingers on a mobile screen.	Many IT organizations go this route to check off the requirement, only to find a scores of disappointed users and poor adoption.  In the end, they need to select Option 2 or Option 3.
OPTION 2: Browser-based connected mobile application	Lower cost option.  Features a web page formatted for the mobile device and enabled with controls for the touch interface. This option would be appropriate to deploy for customer-facing applications.  It offers the advantage of no locally stored data to alleviate any security concerns, especially in customer-facing uses.	Performance is still a function of the quality of network connection.  Slow or variable performance due to network connections could be a significant deterrent to user adoption, especially when deployed for employee access over VPN.  Need to build high-performance, mobile-optimized integrations to the backend applications and services such as CRM, ERP, Business Intelligence, etc., and possibly services such as credit check, payment authorizations, tax calculations, shipping cost calculators, address verifications, etc.	Appropriate for deployment in many customer-facing scenarios.  Tread carefully when deploying a mobile app with this option for employee-facing use.
OPTION 3: Native Disconnected Mobile application	The best user experience in terms of performance and usability.  Allows for seamless mash up of capabilities of the device apps (maps, GPS, camera, etc.), other enterprise apps (BI, ERP, CRM) and social apps such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.	More expensive to build than the other two options.  Need to build high-performance, mobile-optimized integrations to various applications.	Best performance and user experience.  More costly to implement.

Contact us if you would like to get some advice on your mobile initiatives - We believe we will have a solution that fits your needs!

david.moorman@crmantra.com    www.crmantra.com