Get Started with Entitlements

You may have heard the phrase “entitlement management” floating around. We know—it sounds a bit intimidating. But entitlement management is just a blanket term for a neat little group of Salesforce features that help you enforce service level agreements (SLAs), which are contracts that spell out the level of service you’ve promised to your customers. So slip into something cozy, rustle up some nourishment, and prepare to become an entitlement management wizard!

Chances are, you need to keep tabs on the level of customer support each of your customers is entitled to. After all, if Customer A is entitled to a daily heart-to-heart with a doting squad of support agents, but Customer B is allowed one email consultation per year, you don’t want to mix those two up! Enter entitlements, which tell your support team what service level each customer is entitled to based on their SLA. You can incorporate entitlements into your support process in several ways, but if you want to keep it simple, just link each entitlement to an account in Salesforce. Here’s what this approach looks like:

1. You create an entitlement that entitles a particular account to phone support.
2. A contact from that account calls support with a question.
3. The support agent looks up the account and sees it has an active phone support entitlement.
4. The agent answers the question and, if needed, creates a case from the entitlement.

Some SLAs are this simple, but you probably have some extra support details that you’d like to enforce. For example, maybe high-priority cases must be closed within 24 hours, or agents must respond to customer comments on cases within 4 hours. To enforce time-dependent support steps like these on cases, you can use a nifty tool called an entitlement process. Entitlement processes are customizable timelines that include all of the steps (or milestones, in Salesforce lingo) that support agents must complete to resolve a case. Once you set up a process, you can apply it to as many customer entitlements as you need.

Now that you’ve been introduced to some common entitlement management concepts, let’s embark upon our journey to SLA greatness! In this unit, we’ll create an entitlement for a customer. We’ll also learn about a time-saving tool called an entitlement template.

Tip

This unit just covers entitlements, entitlement processes, and milestones. To learn about service contracts and contract line items (more awesome entitlement management features), waltz your way to the Entitlement Management Help.

Before you get started, let’s take care of a few chores to make sure everything goes smoothly.

1. Enable entitlement management.
   1. From Setup, enter Entitlement Management in the Quick Find box, then click Entitlement Management > Entitlement Settings.
   2. Select Enable Entitlement Management, and save your changes.
2. Set field-level security for the Entitlement Name field on cases so you can view and edit it.
   1. From Setup, enter Field Accessibility in the Quick Find box, then click Field Accessibility > Case > View by Fields.
   2. Select Entitlement Name in the drop-down menu, and click Hidden next to your profile to display the accessibility options.
   3. Under Field-Level Security, select Visible, and under Page Layout, select Visible. Save your changes.
3. Add the milestone tracker to the case feed to let users see a milestone countdown on cases. (If you’re not sure what that means, don’t worry—we’ll get to it in the next unit.)
   1. From Setup, enter Cases in the Quick Find box, then click Page Layouts under Cases.
   2. In the Case Page Layouts section, click Edit next to Case Layout, then click Feed View at the top of the page layout editor.
      
   3. In the Other Tools and Components section, use the arrow buttons to add the Milestone Tracker to the left or right column, and save your changes.
4. Add the Entitlement Templates related list to the product page layout.
   1. From Setup, enter Products in the Quick Find box, then click Page Layouts under Products.
   2. Click Edit next to Product Page Layout.
   3. In the Related Lists section, drag the Entitlement Templates related list onto the layout, and save your changes.
5. Add the Entitlements related list to the account and asset page layouts.
   1. From Setup, enter Accounts in the Quick Find box, then click Page Layouts under Accounts.
   2. Click Edit next to Account Page Layout.
   3. In the Related Lists section, drag the Entitlements related list onto the layout, and save your changes.
   4. From Setup, enter Assets in the Quick Find box, then click Page Layouts under Assets.
   5. Click Edit next to Asset Page Layout.
   6. In the Related Lists section, drag the Entitlements related list onto the layout, and save your changes.

Now, let’s cha cha our way into the wondrous world of entitlements.

A customer’s entitlement is like a golden ticket that tells support agents what kind of support the customer is entitled to. Your best customer, Hats, Inc., has an SLA that entitles them to web support for one year. Let’s create an entitlement for them that reflects the terms of their SLA.

1. Click the Entitlements tab. (You may need to add it to your tabs first.)
2. Click New.
3. Enter the following details:
   • Entitlement Name*: Standard Web Support
   • Type: Web Support
   • Account Name*: An account of your own choosing. In this example, we’ll use Hats, Inc.
   • Start Date: Today’s date
   • End Date: 1 year from today

   *Required field

4. Leave the rest of the fields blank, and click Save.

The Hats, Inc. account now has its very own entitlement that tells agents what support level its contacts are entitled to. Awesome! We’ll come back to Hats, Inc. in a bit. But for now, let’s explore one way to create entitlements automatically in Salesforce.