7.1 Setting Up Sales Force Automation

Why setup decides who gets the lead

Sales Force Automation assigns each new lead, prospect, or customer to a sales representative. An administrator turns the feature on, then builds the rules, the web form, the lists, and the defaults reps will rely on.

OpenExamPrep provides independent study material for NetSuite Foundation, drawn from Oracle Help Center articles. This chapter is not an Oracle product.

At Setup > Company > Enable Features, on the CRM subtab, check Customer Relationship Management and Sales Force Automation. Estimates are a separate box on the Transactions subtab under Basic Features. Opportunities are enabled on the CRM subtab in the Sales section.

Sales rules, territories, and lead routing

A sales rule tests fields on a lead, prospect, or customer, such as name, address, phone, state, lead source, or a custom field. Match All Conditions assigns the record only when every criterion is true. Match Any Condition assigns it when any one criterion is true. Create the rule at Setup > Sales & Marketing Automation > Set Up Sales Rules > New.

A sales territory groups one or more rules and names the sales rep, sales group, or sales team that should receive a match. Build it at Setup > Sales > Sales Management > Sales Territories > New. Drag territories into priority order on the Manage Customer Territories subtab.

Lead routing walks that ordered list each time a new lead is saved. The first territory whose rules match assigns the rep, and NetSuite stops. A later territory cannot replace the assignment. Only a newly created lead, prospect, or customer is assigned this way. A record that already has a sales rep keeps that rep. To run existing records through the rules again, use the reassign-by-territory mass update, or choose Reassign Using Territories in the Sales Rep field and save. On the Lead Assignment subtab, the Sales Rep column can name a person, use Keep Current Sales Rep, or use Clear Sales Rep Assignment.

If no territory matches, NetSuite assigns reps by round robin. Mark the employee Sales Rep at Lists > Employees > Employees, on the Human Resources subtab. Until that box is checked, the name does not appear on a territory, a customer, a quota, or a transaction.

Western states on the web form

Harbor & Pine wants website inquiries from California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Arizona to reach Jordan Hale, and it wants new quotes to expire 30 days after they are created.

Check Sales Rep on Jordan's employee record. Create a state rule with Match Any Condition for those five states, group it into a territory named Western States, and select Jordan. Drag Western States above round robin. An Oregon lead matches once and stops. A blank state falls through to round robin, so the form should require state. If a trade-show lead-source territory is ranked higher, a California name from that list goes to the list team, not to Jordan. The 30-day rule is not stored on the territory.

The online customer form

An online customer form creates or updates a lead, prospect, or customer from a website. Build it at Setup > Marketing > Setup Tasks > Online Customer Forms > New. Check Enable Online so the form can be linked from a site. On Select Fields, include every field a territory rule will test. Mark state mandatory when routing depends on it. The Search column looks for an existing record, and First and Last Name are searched automatically.

On Set Up Workflow, Set Lead Status chooses the customer status for a new submission. Use a lead-stage status when the form is collecting new interest. Set Lead Source stores how the lead arrived, which a territory can test. Allow Update, together with a Search field, updates a matching record instead of inserting a duplicate. Send E-mail Notification tells the assigned rep that the form was submitted, so Jordan hears about the Oregon lead.

Create Customers as Companies controls the record type. Checked, a company name creates a company customer and a blank company name creates an individual. Cleared, every submission is an individual. A company submission also creates a contact from the name fields and attaches that contact to the company. Put Company Name, First Name, and Last Name on the form when both the company and the person must be captured.

Company, Individual, and the contact

On Lists > Relationships > Customers > New, Type is Company or Individual. A company is entered in Company Name, and Web Address is available for that type. An individual is entered in the name fields, and Job Title is available for that type.

Contacts are maintained at Lists > Relationships > Contacts and on the Relationships > Contacts subtab of a prospect or customer. Contact Role values such as Decision Maker or Influencer identify the person. Contact Category groups the contact list. Both values come from CRM lists. An individual customer is already the person, so that type does not also create a company record.

CRM lists

A CRM list is maintained at Setup > Sales > CRM Lists. Choose a Type, then click New. Help documents Sales Role, Contact Role, Contact Category, Win/Loss Reason (only when Opportunities is enabled), Partner Category/Role, Note Type, Sales Readiness, Buying Time Frame, Buying Reason, and Lead Source. Sales readiness, buying time frame, and buying reason appear under Sales, then Qualification. They say how close the buyer is, when the buyer plans to purchase, and why. They do not assign a rep or expire a quote.

Status defaults and estimate expiration

A customer status pairs a name with a stage of Lead, Prospect, or Customer. Create it at Setup > Sales & Marketing Automation > Customer Statuses > New. A lead status should use a 0 percent probability, and a higher probability means the status is for a prospect. That percent describes the status, not the deal probability used in a weighted forecast.

The defaults sit on the General subtab of Sales Preferences at Setup > Sales > Preferences > Sales Preferences. Help also opens that page as Setup > Sales & Marketing Automation > Sales Preferences. The defaults are Lead Status, Prospect Status - New for a prospect that has no transaction yet, Prospect Status - Opportunity, Prospect Status - Estimate, and Customer Status.

Quote expiration is a different field on Sales Preferences. Sales Force Automation Help names it Default Estimate Expiration (in days): the number of days after an estimate is created that the estimate expires, by default. Enter 30 for Harbor & Pine. An estimate created on April 1 then expires on May 1 unless the rep changes that one estimate. Editing one estimate does not change that company default. The customer record does not store this number of days. Accounting Preferences is not the page where this sales default is maintained.

Where each setup object is maintained

Western routing is a sales rule plus a first-match territory. A 30-day quote default is Default Estimate Expiration (in days) on Sales Preferences.