Contract Templates can be set up by going to Home, Settings, Template Manager, Contract Templates. Because Contract Templates are in the administrative area of the application, (for example, Settings) you need the appropriate privileges to access this. Each Contract must be based on a Contract Template, so you have to have at least one template in place before you can set up any Contracts.
Figure 9.2. The Contract Template screen.
Service Contract templates contain a subset of the fields you will see on the Service Contract object. As you can probably guess, the values in these fields are inherited in the Service Contract when you base a Contract off of a template. If values on the template later change, the corresponding values on Contracts created from that template do not. Table 9.1 lists and explains the fields on the Service Contract template screen.
Table 9.1. Service Contract Template Fields and Their Uses
Field
Description
Name
Descriptive name of the template. This name, along with the abbreviation, is displayed when a user sets up a new Contract.
Abbreviation
Abbreviation of the template name. Consider a logical convention for this as it is used to list the templates when a user chooses to set up a new template. You might want to incorporate the product line into the abbreviation if your contract templates relate back to your product list.
Billing Frequency
The interval at which you intend to bill for the service provided by contracts created from the template. Like all values on this screen, you can change this once a Contract is created from it.
Allotment Type
This refers to how the system is set up to show reduction of the services as they are provided per the Contract. Allotment type is set at the Contract level, but the actual allotment amounts are set at the Contract Line item level. So, you cannot mix Allotment types within a single Contract. You have three Allotment type options by default:
Number of Cases
If you select this option you will be allowed to enter a total number of cases on each contract line item added to the contract. As the customer uses these cases, the number of cases is reduced from the total. Microsoft CRM allows you to create Cases when the number of Cases has been used, but it will continue reducing the number of Cases into negative numbers.
Time
This option enables you to enter a total number of minutes at the Contract line item level. As each case is used, the Customer Service Rep can log the number of minutes the case took and this amount will be reduced from the total. Microsoft CRM allows you to create Cases when the number of Cases has been used, but it will continue reducing the number of Cases into negative numbers.
Coverage Dates
This option allows the user to enter a date range for which the customer is entitled to Customer Service. After the end date of that date range has passed, the contract moves to the expired status. New Cases cannot be created against expired Contracts.
Response Level
This field gives some default response levels. These can be used in workflow processes or simply as an indicator to tell the Customer Service rep something about the promised service level for the Contract.
Discount Type
Amount or Percent. This determines how the discount numbers entered in the Contract discount field of the Contract line items are applied to the Contract price. For example, if the user selects “Percent” here and later enters a price of $250 for a contract line item with the number 10 in the Discount field, the discount on that line item will be $25 (i.e. 10% percent of $250).
Description
This provides an area for a longer description of the Contract.
Calendar
The calendar allows the user to select the times of day in which the customer is entitled to Customer Service.
