GNM_SLM_Customer_Management_FS

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• 1. .Introduction

     1. Purpose

GNM authorises 3rd parties to reuse GNM content through ad hoc licence agreements and longer term contracts. The details of these 3rd parties are stored in a Customer database in SLM.

Customer contact details are stored to ensure they can be contacted easily, and billing details to ensure the Accounts department can collect any fees owed.

• 1. Scope

This document is intended as a high-level document outlining how the Customer data is managed within SLM, but it does not include the details of the automated interfaces between SLM and Oracle AR as they are documented separately.

This is not a detailed functional specification from which the system could have originally been developed.

Separate Technical specifications document the implementation of these functions.

• 1. .Customers

A unique list of Customers is held in SLM. This Customer list is maintained by the syndication sales team and also by the RCS administrator.

• 1. Sites

Each customer must have one and only one billing address. Additionally a customer may have any number of sites that reflect contact / correspondence details, if different to the billing address.

• 1. Rights profiles

A customer can have a rights profile. A rights profile in this context is a template set of rights that is applied by default to any new licence request from the customer.

Rights profiles can change over time and so a history can be maintained.

• 1. Fee profiles

A customer can also have a fee profile. A fee profile in this context is a template of fees (service fee and licence fee) that is applied by default to any new licence request from the customer.

Fee profiles can change over time and so a history can be maintained.

• 1. VAT & charity status

The VAT status of a customer is needed in SLM in order to ensure the correct VAT rate is applied to any payments taken in advance i.e. prepayments. This applies to the first licences of most customers before they are given credit terms. The applicable VAT rate is partly determined by the address data. This is because different VAT rates are applicable to UK, EU and non-EU countries.

Organisations with charitable status may also be exempt from VAT, so this is recorded as well.

• 1. Data ownership

Once a customer has agreed a fee their billing details are sent to Oracle along with details of the fee that needs to be paid (or has been prepaid).

Once the customer and customer billing address data has been sent to Oracle AR the Oracle AR system assumes ownership of that data and it can no longer be changed in SLM. Instead changes made in Oracle AR are automatically updated in SLM.

All other customer data i.e. that not sent to Oracle AR can still be updated in SLM.

An audit of changes to key data elements is maintained in SLM.

• 1. Customer approval

Customer data must be approved by the RCS administrator prior to being sent to Oracle AR. This ensure the data is in the correct fields, and gives the opportunity to assess whether the customer is a duplicate of another, or perhaps part of a publishing group.

Customers are not queue for approval until they have a valid licence or redistribution contract.

• 1. Pubishing groups

A list of Publishing groups is maintained, and each customer may (optionally) be linked to a Publishing group.

• 1. .Marketing data import

GNM receives data files from Cision containing marketing data. This data can be loaded into the SLM database by means of a load program. This software must be run manually.

The data is supplied in comma separated values (csv) format with the following data elements:

Owner, Firm

Media Group

Outlet

Outlet Topic

Media Type

Salutation

First Name

Last Name

Contact Title

Contact Topic

Address Line 1

Address Line 2

Address Line 3

City

Postal Code

Country

Email

Phone

Fax

Mobile

Circulation

Language

Publishing Frequency

The Outlet topics and Content topis are drawn from the same master list.

The Country names need to be mapped to RCS/SLm countries.

This data can be searched in SLM, and imported to SLM at the customer level if and when it is needed.

• 1. .Searching for a customer

Users can search for a customer in the following ways:

• • By customer name (including publishing group if applicable);

  • By contact name;

  • By email address;

  • By address; and

  • By reference (customer reference, licence reference or contract reference).

The search is carried across both the SLM customer data and the Cision customer data.

The list of search results is then a launch point for maintaining customer details, for viewing the customer’s history of licence requests, for entering new requests, and for reviewing a customer’s redistribution contracts if applicable.

• 1. .Customer reports

A Customer requests report is available which provides a history of requests made, as well as any content associated with any redistribution contract the customer has entered into with GNM.

The report can be restricted by Customer name, published content format, and a date range. It can also be restricted to only those requests that led to a licence being issued.

The report is generated in batch and is emailed to the requesting user. The report contains comma separated values that can be loaded and viewed in MS Excel.

End of Document