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Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications

Updated on May 11, 2021

Pega Customer Service, Pega Sales Automation, and Pega Customer Decision Hub are components of the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications. Client implementations using these components build an implementation layer on top of these applications, which are built on Pega Platform.

Apart from the core functionality of the individual components, the following Pega Customer Relationship Management shared features are available:
Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide Pega Customer Service Implementation Guide
  • Shared case types. For example, Pega Sales Automation operators can process Pega Customer Service cases, and Pega Customer Service operators can create and update Pega Sales Automation leads and opportunities, and can schedule appointments.
  • Shared customer history across applications, including: recent leads, opportunities, sales activities, marketing engagements, service cases, and interactions.
  • Shared customer events across applications, displayed in the Customer journey or Customer movie widget in the customer composite of the Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation portals.
  • Integration with Pega Customer Decision Hub to enable next-best-action and next-best-offer recommendations and listening across all inbound and outbound channels.
  • Next best sales activities. Intelligence to identify the top sales activities that a sales representative can perform to work an account.
Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications
Pega Customer Relationship Management application stack

For information about how to implement the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications, see "Optional: Configuring your applications to support CRM," next.

Optional: Configuring your Pega applications to support CRM

These procedures are required only if you will use the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications to share data and service cases across the Pega Customer Service, Pega Sales Automation, and Pega Customer Decision Hub applications.

These procedures involve configuration across multiple applications, and therefore include links to multiple application implementation guides.

Before you begin:

Your Pega Customer Service, Pega Sales Automation, and Pega Customer Decision Hub applications must already be created. For information, see the Implementation Guide for each product on Pega Documentation home page.

Important: If you plan to implement Pega Customer Decision Hub in a configuration with the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications, the Pega Customer Decision Hub application should be created on a different Pega environment with a its own database and application servers separate from the ones used by Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications. The Pega Customer Decision Hub application is a back-end analytical application with a typically smaller number of active users compared to the operational Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications. Keeping the operational and analytical clusters separate helps ensure easier maintenance and decreases update complexity.

If you have installed industry-specific applications on top of Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation, complete these configuration steps in the industry applications, and not in the base Pega Customer Service or Pega Sales Automation applications.

To configure your Pega applications to support shared features, complete the following steps:

  1. For environments that include both Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation, complete the following steps:
    1. Add the Pega Sales Automation implementation rulesets to your Pega Customer Service application, and add the Pega Customer Service implementation rulesets to your Pega Sales Automation application. See "Adding shared rulesets," next.
    2. Create an integration ruleset for your Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications, and then add the integration ruleset to the top of the ruleset stack for each application. See "Creating integration rulesets," later in this section.
    3. Enable the Pega Customer Relationship Management features. See "Enabling shared features," later in this section.
    4. In your Pega Customer Service application, update the operator access groups to include the CustomerService:CSRSalesAccess role that is required to access the shared features. See "Updating an access group to allow shared access," later in this section.
  2. For environments that also include Pega Customer Decision Hub, complete these additional steps.
    1. Configure your Pega Customer Decision Hub application as described in Configuring your application to the Customer Relationship Management suite in the Pega Customer Decision Hub Implementation Guide on the Pega Documentation home page.
    2. Configure your Pega Customer Service application to support Pega Customer Decision Hub.
      1. Enable Pega Customer Decision Hub. See Configuring application settings.
      2. Configure Customer Decision Hub settings. For each setting, copy the rule to the highest ruleset shared by Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation, and save your changes in that ruleset. See Configuring Customer Decision Hub suggested actions.
    3. In Pega Customer Decision Hub, configure the application to support the Pega Customer Relationship Management features. See "Configuring Pega Customer Decision Hub to support the Pega Customer Relationship Management features" in the Pega Customer Decision Hub Implementation Guide on the Pega Documentation home page.
    4. In your Pega Sales Automation application, configure the integration between Pega Sales Automation and Pega Customer Decision Hub. See "Configuring the integration between Pega Sales Automation and Pega Customer Decision Hub" in the Pega Sales Automation Implementation Guide on the Pega Documentation home page.
    5. In Pega Customer Decision Hub, train the adaptive model for sales offers. See "Configuring Adaptive Decision Manager for sales offers" in the Pega Customer Decision Hub Implementation Guide on the Pega Documentation home page.
    6. In your Pega Sales Automation application, test the integration with Pega Customer Decision Hub next best offers. See "Testing the Pega Sales Automation integration with Pega Customer Decision Hub next best offers" in the Pega Sales Automation Implementation Guide on the Pega Documentation home page.

Adding shared rulesets

To enable sharing of data between your Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications, add the implementation rulesets from one application to the other. The implementation rulesets are created by the New Application wizard for a new application.

This procedure is required only if you are sharing data and service requests between two or more applications in the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite.

Add only the rulesets that you want to expose in the other application. The lead system architect (LSA) or project architect can provide guidance on what functionality is included in each ruleset.

Add these rulesets at the bottom of the ruleset stack so that you do not override your application's implementation rulesets. When you want to overwrite your application's rulesets, use an integration ruleset as described in "Creating integration rulesets," next.

  1. View the implementation rulesets created for each of your applications.
    1. Log in to each of your applications in Dev Studio.
    2. Click Application menuDefinition.
    3. In the Application rulesets section, note the implementation rulesets created for each application.
  2. Add the implementation rulesets from your Pega Sales Automation application to the bottom of the ruleset stack for your Pega Customer Service application.
    1. Log in to your Pega Customer Service application in Dev Studio.
    2. Click Application menuDefinition.
    3. In the Application rulesets section, click Add ruleset to add Pega Sales Automation rulesets to the bottom of the ruleset stack, and then click Save.
  3. Add the implementation rulesets from your Pega Customer Service application to the bottom of the ruleset stack for the Pega Sales Automation application.
    1. Log in to the Pega Sales Automation implementation application in Dev Studio.
    2. Click Application menuDefinition.
    3. In the Application rulesets section, click Add ruleset to add Pega Customer Service rulesets to the bottom of the ruleset stack, and then click Save.

Creating integration rulesets

When using a Pega Customer Relationship Management configuration that includes both Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation, you must sometimes override the rules in one application to expose functionality from the other application. To support this, create an integration ruleset in both applications, and then save the override rules to the integration ruleset.

For example, if the Pega Customer Service application will show Pega Sales Automation Lead case service cases, you want the service case header and footer to look the same as the other Pega Customer Service services cases. In that case, save the perform harness rule for the service case into the integration ruleset for the Pega Customer Service application. Doing so overrides the Pega Sales Automation header and footer for that service case.

This procedure is required only if you are sharing data and service requests between two or more applications in the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite.

The applications include a sample integration ruleset that you can copy or use as a model for a new integration ruleset. The sample integration ruleset for Pega Customer Service is SAforCS, and the sample integration ruleset for Pega Sales Automation is CSforSA.

Complete the following steps to configure the integration rulesets:

  1. Log in to your Pega Customer Service application in Dev Studio.
  2. Click Application menuDefinition.
  3. In the Application rulesets section, click Add ruleset.
  4. Type a name for the new integration ruleset that identifies its purpose. For example, MyApp CRMIntegration, where MyApp is your application prefix.
  5. Click the Open icon to the right of the ruleset field.
  6. Review the default Ruleset Name, Version, and Description values, and modify the values if needed.
  7. Click Create and Open, and then click Save.
  8. In the ruleset field, identify which version of the ruleset to use by appending the major and minor rule version to the end of the integration ruleset name in this format: :NN-NN. For example, to select the first version of the ruleset, append :01-01 to the end of the ruleset name.
  9. Move the new integration ruleset to the top of the ruleset stack by dragging the number to the left of the ruleset name to the top of the stack.
  10. Click Save.
  11. Repeat this procedure for your Pega Sales Automation application.

Enabling shared features

To share data and service cases across the Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation, enable the shared features. For more information about the shared features, see Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications.

  1. Open your Pega Customer Service application.
  2. In the navigation pane of App Studio, click SettingsGeneral.
  3. In the list of general settings, click Sales Automation.
  4. To enable your application to use the pre-integrated Pega Sales Automation features, select the Enable Sales Automation check box.
  5. Click Save.
  6. Open your Pega Sales Automation application.
  7. In Dev Studio, search for the CRMModeDeployment dynamic system setting and set it to true.
  8. Click Save.

Updating an access group to allow shared access

In order for a Pega Customer Service operator to use Pega Sales Automation functionality within a Pega Customer Service application, you must update the access group for that operator to include the CustomerService:CSRSalesAccess access role.

This procedure is required only if you are sharing data and service requests between two or more applications in the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite.

This procedure is not needed for Pega Sales Automation operators because that application has a built-in security model.

  1. Log in to your Pega Customer Service application.
  2. In Dev Studio, click Dev Studio > Org & Security > Organization > Operators.
  3. In the Access group column, click the access group for an operator who requires Pega Sales Automation functionality.
  4. In the Available roles section, click Add role.
  5. Enter CustomerService:CSRSalesAccess.
  6. Click Save.
  7. Repeat this procedure for all Pega Customer Service operators who require Pega Sales Automation functionality.

Sample components included with the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite

The installation media for the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite of applications includes sample applications, a shared application, sample access groups, sample operators, and sample integration rulesets.

Note: Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation ship with an integration ruleset that is built on the shared Pega Customer Relationship Management application. To use Pega Customer Decision Hub, you must install it separately.

The table below lists Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications:

Application ruleUsage
Pega Customer ServiceThe main Pega Customer Service application that has the SAforCS integration ruleset at the top of the ruleset stack, followed by the Customer Service and Sales Automation rulesets, respectively. The Localization ruleset is the top rule of the ruleset stack.
PegaCSSamplePega Customer Service sample application that has the customer relationship management stub rules overridden to support customer relationship management use cases. Contains sample data for demonstration purposes, such as dialogs and data transforms.
Pega Sales AutomationThe main Pega Sales Automation application that has the CSforSA integration ruleset at the top of the ruleset stack, followed by the Sales Automation and Customer Service rulesets, respectively.

PegaCRMBase is a shared application contains the PegaCRMBase, PegaFW-NewsFeed, and MKT-Integration shared rulesets.

  • The PegaCRMBase ruleset contains rules, such as properties, data pages, when rules, and classes, that can be reused by the Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications.
  • The PegaFW-NewsFeed ruleset contains RSS features that are shared by the Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation applications.
  • The MKT-Integration ruleset is an integration ruleset that contains the REST services, data pages, classes, and properties that are used to connect to the Pega Customer Decision Hub application.

In the Pega Customer Relationship Management configuration, applications include the following access groups:

Access GroupApplicationDescription
CASysAdminPegaCSSampleAn admin persona having access to all the portals.
CACSRPegaCSSampleA Customer Service representative persona.
CAManagerPegaCSSampleA Customer Service manager persona.
CSSalesUserPegaCSSampleA Pega Sales Automation persona with access to the Account Manager and interaction portals in Pega Customer Service.
CSRSwitchAppPegaCSSampleA Pega Customer Service persona with permission to switch between Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation.
SalesManagerPegaSalesAutomationA sales manager persona.
SalesRepPegaSalesAutomationA sales representative persona.
SalesOpsPegaSalesAutomationA sales ops persona with permissions to set up sales organization operators and territories.

The table below lists the sample operators included with the sample artifacts:

Note: For security reasons, sample operators are disabled by default and can be enabled for use in the sample application or copied to create new operators. For information about how to enable an operator, see Enabling, disabling and deleting operators.
Login CredentialsApplicationUsage
Mikejones/installPegaCSSampleA Customer Service representative with access to Pega Sales Automation and the ability to switch between Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation.
DPercival/installSFASampleA sales representative with access to Pega Customer Service.
CSCSR/installPegaCSSampleA customer service representative.
CASysadmin/installPegaCSSampleA customer service admin with access to interaction, account manager, CSR, and back office operations portals.
CAManager/installPegaCSSampleA customer service manager with access to the interaction portal.

Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation include the following integration rulesets to support Pega Customer Relationship Management use cases:

  • SAforCS – This ruleset is available in the Pega Customer Service application and contains Pega Sales Automation rules that override Pega Customer Service rules. The override rules include harnesses, data transforms, data pages, and sections that are required to present Pega Sales Automation service cases in the Pega Customer Service portals.
  • CSforSA – This ruleset is available in the Pega Sales Automation application and contains Pega Customer Service rules that override Pega Sales Automation rules. The overridden rules include harnesses, data pages, data transforms, and sections that are required to present Pega Customer Service service cases in Pega Sales Automation portals.

For information about how to create a new integration ruleset, see Creating integration rulesets.

Pega Customer Relationship Management suite data model

Pega Customer Service and Pega Sales Automation use their native data models for contact, organization, and other data entities. Because the data models are different in both of these applications, the synchronization of data for contact or organization entities is accomplished by using stub rules.

Applications in the Pega Customer Relationship Management suite use stub rules to synchronize the common attribute values. Each stub rule is overridden in the top-most ruleset to add appropriate logic to perform synchronization of data.

The following table lists the stub rules for Pega Customer Service:

Rule NameRulesetDescription
crmCreateContactPegaCSSampleApplies to the Work- class. A utility to create contacts.
crmCreateOrgPegaCSSampleApplies to the Work- class. A utility to create organizations.
CRMUpdateContactDataPegaCSSampleApplies to the PegaCA-Work-UpdateContactName class. A utility to update contacts.
CRMUpdateBUDataPegaCSSampleApplies to the PegaCA-Work-UpdateBusinessDetails class. A utility to update organizations.

Stub rules from Pega Customer Service contain steps to integrate with Pega Sales Automation. These stub rules are overridden in the Pega Customer Service PegaCSSample sample ruleset. If your Pega Customer Service application reuses the stub rules to update them, then save these rules into the highest ruleset in your application.

The following table lists the stub rules for Pega Sales Automation:

Rule NameRulesetDescription
PegaCRM-Entity- Contact.UpdateExternalContactCSForSAUpdates the customer service contact when the sales automation contact is updated.
PegaCRM-Entity- Contact.UpdateCSContactCSForSAUpdates ExternalContact internally and calls UpdateCSContact..
PegaCRM-Entity- Org.UpdateExternalOrgCSForSAUpdates the business unit in Pega Customer Service when the Pega Sales Automation contact is updated.
PegaCRM-Entity- Org.UpdateBizUnitInCSCSForSAUpdates ExternalOrg internally and calls UpdateBizUnitInCS.
PegaCRM-Entity-Contact.crmEdit_ExternalRequestPegaCRM-SFAThis activity is called when a customer service flow calls a sales automation edit flow with the isExternalRequest flag set to true.
PegaCRM-Entity-Org.crmEdit_ExternalRequestPegaCRM-SFAThis activity is called when a customer service flow calls a sales automation edit flow with the isExternalRequest flag set to true.

Integration with Pega Customer Decision Hub

Pega recommends to deploy Pega Customer Decision Hub in a separate Pega cluster and configure data replication jobs to push the data into analytical store.

A typical deployment is shown in the figure below.

Pega Customer Relationship Management application stack with Pega Customer Decision Hub integration
The application layers that make up the application stack for the CRM applications.

Send a request to Global Client Services (GCS) to for assistance with the Pega Customer Decision Hub integration. See Pega Support for contact information.

Pega Customer Relationship Management suite relationship table

In the Pega Customer Relationship Management configuration, a cross-reference table is required to match the keys of a contact or organization entity from multiple systems of record to a master contact or organization entity key. Pega Customer Service is the system of record for customer data, and Pega Sales Automation is the system of record for customer and prospect data. It is designed that Pega Sales Automation is the master system of record for customer and prospect data. To match these entity keys from the two different system of records, two cross-reference tables are available in the product – one for contacts and one for business units.

The crm_data_contact_xref contact relationship table has CRMEntityId and ExternalSystem columns. CRMEntityId is the master record key based on the assumption that Pega Sales Automation is the master system of record.

Note: All of the rules, classes, properties, and data pages listed below are available in the PegaCRMBase application.

The table below shows the structure of the crm_data_contact_xref contact relationship table with the sample record pattern:

CRMEntityIDExternalIDExternalSystem
PEGACRM-ENTITY-CONTACT CON-123CON-890CS

The following table shows the crm_data_org-xref organization relationship table definition with the sample record pattern:

CRMEntityIDExternalIDExternalSystem
PEGACRM-ENTITY-ORG ORG-123ORG-890CS

Relationship management tables are mapped to the following data classes:

  • The PegaCRM-Data-EntityxRef-Contact data class is mapped to the crm_entity_contact-xref table.
  • The PegaCRM-Data-EntityxRef-Org data class is mapped to the crm_entity_org-xref table.

Tags

Pega Customer Service 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Communications 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Financial Services 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Healthcare 8.7 Pega Customer Service for Insurance 8.7

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