Open UI Opens Doors

Siebel Open UI – Making the Business Case

In the last few years, no functionality has excited the Siebel install base as much as the Siebel Open UI.  It has been a long wait to get here.  The Open UI has now been available in GA form in Siebel 8.1.1.9 for over 6 months.   We have had access to this functionality for almost a year and have spoken with a number of our customers who have expressed interest in it. 

Open UI opens doors

With Open UI, one can circumvent the closed system under SWE (Siebel Web Engine).  Users are now free of the yoke of Internet Explorer and Windows platform.  Developers can now invoke Siebel capabilities through alternate UI languages (Javascript, HTML/HTML5, Java, Flex, etc.).  One can design alternate UI paradigms without being constrained by the traditional Siebel Screen-view-applet format.

What’s the verdict so far – many presentations and conversations, no real action.  Customers haven’t yet taken the plunge and rolled it out to their users.  We sense a lot of hesitation and caution on part of customers.  Why?

Here are some of the challenges that we have seen:

What's the Difference – Looks like old Siebel. 

Looks are an issue.  Open UI based Siebel looks hardly any different from regular Siebel.  We have had to demo Open UI to customers using a Mac to highlight the difference!

 

Siebel Quotes in Open UI

While familiarity is very helpful in reducing the change management required in rolling out a new UI paradigm, this very factor is working against it.  Users are asking, so what’s new?

Given the breadth and diversity of Siebel install base, Oracle has the unenviable challenge of creating new UI designs and flows with the “difference” users are looking for.  Perhaps, the current approach of releasing the Open UI as a toolkit and letting customers exercise their imagination is the most pragmatic solution.

What Users Want. 

Our interactions with customers on this subject have led us to ask, so why was everyone waiting so expectantly for this functionality? We discovered that users were really yearning for a fix to the usability and user adoption issues with the Siebel application.  Replicating the old Siebel UI using the latest technology does not address the underlying usability issues.

So Many Views, Where Do We Start? 

If merely exposing the Open UI and letting the users loose on it is not enough to address usability, then what is?  Does it make sense to redesign and rebuilt the views now that Open UI toolkit provides one with that freedom?  Based on the work we have done in Siebel Usage Analyses with customers (see this blog entry - our our website) , this is a monumental task.  There are well over 5000 views available in Siebel!  This could be a never-ending project with questionable ROI. 

Making the Business Case – The 5 Point Plan

1. Know your Customer (i.e., the User)
2. Start Small, Think Big
3. Its about Flows, Not Fancy Forms and Views
4. Estimate the Cost of Pain and Benefits of Gain
5. Staff with Right Skills

Read more about CADD and our approach to Open UI Projects.

Your questions and comments are very welcome

david.moorman@crmantra.com

InterAct2Go from CRMantra

Thought I would quickly post up details of our new 'Ad' on youtube for InterAct2Go.
Take a look, would welcome your comments.

click here for the full screen version > http://youtu.be/ptWx8ir5cPs

Any questions, then feel free to get in touch
More details of our full Mobility Platform are on our website.

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

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