Removing Accounts from Territories in CRM and Align

To enable end users to avoid waiting for a feedback window to remove an account from their territory, Align automatically creates CRM-sourced account exclusion records for successfully processed Remove from Territory DCRs in CRM.

For example, Sarah Jones is informed that Dr. Ackerman, one of her accounts, moved offices and is no longer in range of her territory. She creates a DCR in CRM to remove the account and provides the relevant reason. An Account Exclusion record is created in Align with a source of CRM. Dr. Ackerman is not re-added to Sarah’s territory by Align’s alignment rules engine because of the exclusion record created in Align.

Considerations

  • Any removal reasons selected from CRM are copied to the exclusion record in Align
  • Since the exclusion has a source of CRM, end users can re-add the account to their territory via global account search or territory feedback. This contrasts to other kinds of Account Exclusions, which cannot be overridden by end users.

Prerequisites

Configuring Custom Challenge Reasons

To ensure the challenge reason entered by the user in CRM is correctly populated in Align, edit the challenge_reason__aln picklist on the account_exclusion__aln object to add values that match the values of the Challenge_Reason_vod picklist on the Data_Change_Request_vod object in CRM.

These values must have the exact same API name in Align as in CRM.

Using CRM-Sourced Account Exclusion Records

When a user successfully submits a DCR to remove an account from their territory in CRM, an account_exclusion__aln is created in Align with the following properties:

  • crm_dcr_record_id__aln – References the DCR in CRM that resulted in the account being removed from the territory
  • exclusion_reason__aln – Populates as Remove from Territory Request
  • exclusion_type__aln – Populates as Territory
  • assignment_type__aln – Populates as Account
  • source__aln – Populates as CRM
  • start_date__aln and start_datetime__aln – Populates with the value of the Response_Datetime_vod field from the DCR in CRM
  • end_date__aln – Populates with the end date of the associated territory__aln record
  • country__aln – The country of the associated account
  • send_to_crm__aln – Populates as selected

The new account exclusion record end dates all types of account_territory__aln records associated with the account being removed from the user’s territory. The account_territory__aln records are end dated with the start_datetime__aln field of the account exclusion record.

If the corresponding ObjectTerritory2Association cannot be found, the account_territory__aln record’s crm_is_deleted__aln field updates to Yes during the next push to CRM.

If a user removes an account via DCR while an associated modeling project is open for feedback, the removal displays as an added account in Territory Feedback. The removal does not display in Territory Feedback if the project is imported into modeling before the feedback period begins.

Re-adding Previously Excluded Accounts

If users use Network Account Search, Global Account Search, or a successful challenge in Territory Feedback to re-add accounts previously removed via DCR, the CRM-sourced account_exclusion__aln record in Align is end-dated and a new account_territory__aln record is created to restore the account to the territory. This account_territory__aln record has a source__aln field of CRM.