Sales Configurator

This about description offers a brief overview of the purpose and use of the sales configurator rules (for CTO, configure to order) functionality within Supply Chain and Manufacturing.

Introduction and Basic Terms

The sales configurator is a guide that helps the sales person or customer during the configuration process. The user gets prompted with possible combinations, valid values, information messages and automatically attached or detached values to ensure that a correct configuration is done and all chosen characteristics with option values are compatible with each other. This means that you create configurations that meet precise requirements on demand.

Working with your prospective customer, you can create complete, concise, and accurate product configurations designed to highlight the features, options, and benefits that the company offers. With the correct setup you minimize the risk of configuring incorrect/invalid parts.

This will benefit the salesperson since the configuration always uses the most up-to-date product information during the generation of sales quotations or customer orders. This simplifies the order taking and the salesperson can be certain that the part will not be inaccurately configured. It also allows non-specialized staff (or even customers) to enter configurations without any knowledge of the sales rule setup.

By using sales rules you will be sure that the complete configuration (added values, calculated or otherwise derived during the configuration explosion) can be produced with the back office rules (see About Back Office Configuration Rules) or to be sent to your supplier.

The basis of using the IFS Sales Configurator functionality is to have the basic data for the configured part (see About Configuration). Even if the decision to run IFS Sales Configurator is made after a product line has been set up in IFS/CTO, the IFS Sales Configurator can be used directly after a sales rule has been added for the part.

Sales Rule Engine

The sales configurator gives you the possibility to run IFS Sales Configurator in online mode as a background sales rule engine when configuring through IFS Configure To Order (CTO) functionality. In connection with the sales rule engine, it also gives you the possibility to calculate prices on orders and quotations based on the price handling that is set up in IFS Customer Order for the configured part.

If sales rules are connected to the configurable part and revision, the sales rule engine is executed automatically when you open the page in create or edit mode. All active sales rules are then executed in sequence upon any change of characteristic or option value in the configuration. Depending on the sales rule setup, a sales rule can for instance attach, detach or set a characteristic/option to unavailable. If a sales rule is executed, the configuration section on this page automatically adds or removes characteristics and/or option values.

If needed a sales rule logger is available to verify which sales rules that are executed on each change in the configuration. The logger includes information about missing values, invalid values, missing quantities and hidden characteristics.

With sales rules connected, the sales rule logger can also be displayed on the Test Configuration page that is accessed from the Sales Rules for Part or Sales Rule for Part pages to test the sales rules. This is useful if there is a need to test the setup before promoting to status Released so it can be used in production. The part configuration revision can be in any status to be able to perform the test. When using the Test Configuration page to test sales rules, it is the sales rules that are tested which means no prices are displayed and the Price Details dialog is not enabled.

You do not have to set up anything for each user, the sales rule logic and setup is handled centrally in basic data for configuration sales rules.

Integrated Media Library

You can also generate quotations and order confirmations that can include more detailed specifications, using the media library functionality that is integrated with the order taking functionality for configured parts. If images or text is connected to the configured part or to the chosen characteristics or options, they can be printed on the quotation or on order confirmation report.

Status Handling During Configuration

It is possible to partly save a configuration and continue the configuration later. A Parked status is available and can for instance be used in the situation when the configuration is complete but it shall not be possible to release the order until it has gone through an authorization step, the user can in this situation set the status to Parked. The status can be manually set from the Parked status to Complete by the user and will then be ready for Release for production or purchase.

Sales Rule Basic Terms

The following terms are central when using sales rules in IFS Cloud:

Sales Rules Functions, Conditions and Actions

The sale rules setup is structured with two different types of rules: conditions and actions. When working with conditions and actions, you can access a variety of data values relevant for the configuration family (see About Configuration).

Condition Rule

A condition allows you to define logical expressions to determine selection criteria based on specific configuration values or ranges of values. For example, conditions could be used to decide if an attach or detach shall be done based on the configuration values. The expressions are expressed as Boolean logic in the form of an equation, similar to a programmatic IF/THEN statement. If the expression is true, the action code is executed. If the expression is false, the action code is not executed. The absence of a condition (no conditions) means that the actions are always executed.

For example, you could define a sale rule condition where an action will be executed if country US is selected during configuration. The condition will then be COUNTRY = US where COUNTRY is a configuration characteristic and US is a discrete option value for the part. If the configuration specifies US, then will the action for the sale rule be executed in the configuration. If desired, you can also combine several conditions using AND/OR operators and parentheses to make more complex statements like, COUNTRY = US AND HEIGHT > 4000.

The following data values can be used when defining sales rules conditions:

Data Value

Description

Value (Option Value)

The value to be compared with the other value (Value 1 or Value 2) from the evaluated configuration.

Char Value (Characteristic)

The value for this characteristic will be compared with the other value (Value 1 or Value 2).

Char Quantity

The quantity for this characteristic will be compared with the other value (Value 1 or Value 2).

Formula

Values calculated and retrieved by a sales rule formula. The result from the formula can be compared to another value entered by the user in the sales rule, or compared to another characteristic value from the configuration.

Combination (Function)

Values returned from a combination table. Configuration characteristic values can be used as values for comparison in the combination table. The retrieved value can be used for different sale rule combinations.

Order Info

Values retrieved from connected order which will be used during evaluation of the sales rules. Possible values that can be used:
- Changed Char ID
- Customer No
- Delivery Country for the Customer
- Sales Group
- Sales Part No
- Sales Quantity
- Sales Unit of Measure
- User ID
- Supply Site, (Supply site is used for sales quotation line and customer order line. Site will be used if no supply site exists on the line).

Data Value Order Info/Changed Char ID explanation:

If a sales rule with the condition ‘Order Info’ with value 1 ‘Changed Char ID’ and value 2 ‘Characteristic A’ is used, the sales rule is only executed if the ‘Characteristic A’ is manually changed (changed value or quantity). The sales rule will not be executed if ‘Characteristic A’ is changed by another sales rule.

Note, if ‘Characteristic A’ during next sales rule validation isn’t manually changed, any flags that were previously set in the rules action will no longer apply. This means that any attached characteristics (attached as required) using the ‘Changed Char ID’ function earlier, will during next sales rule validation no longer be set as required and can therefore be changed manually by user or other sales rules.

Characteristics that were set as unavailable will also be reset as available.

Action Rules

This is used to define one or more actions to perform. An action is a rule in the form of a command that will be performed upon a condition rule, i.e., if the conditions evaluate to true.

For example, you can attach a required or optional characteristic with a value and/or a quantity for the attached characteristic. The quantity for a discrete characteristic can also be calculated with a formula, and for a variable characteristic, the value for the characteristic can be calculated instead of manually typed in.

Actions are performed whenever the conditions for the rule evaluate to true. The following action types can be defined as part of sales rules:

Action Type

Description

Unavailable

Designates the specified characteristic or option as unavailable for selection into a configuration. The specific item will not be displayed in the list of value (LOV) picker during configuration, and if user tries to add the specified item manually it will give an error.

Available

Designates the specified characteristic or option as available for selection into a configuration. User can add the item manually to the configuration and the item is also included in the LOV picker during configuration.

Attach Required

The attached characteristic is required in the configuration and can not be deleted.

Attach Optional

The attached characteristic is added to the configuration if it was not included in the configuration earlier. If an option value is also included in the Attach Optional rule, the option value will be added to the configuration if no value existed in the configuration for the specified characteristic. This value can be changed during configuration.

Detach

Detaches the specified characteristic or option value from the configuration. If the characteristic in base part is set as mandatory characteristic, the option value will be removed if a value exists and the characteristic will remain in the configuration.

Message

User-defined messages that generate a message box that is displayed to the user. Available predefined messages can be selected from the LOV picker. Messages are only displayed to the user once unless the message is connected with the type Stop.

Allowed Combination

This option will only display the valid characteristic values in the List of Values during configuration depending on the set of characteristics and their options that are valid to be used together. Combination tables are defined per base part characteristic revisions. The combination type used is Allowed.

Not Allowed Combination This option will not display the invalid characteristic values in the LOV picker during configuration depending on the set of characteristics and their options that are valid to be used together. Combination tables are defined per base part characteristic revisions. The combination type used is Not Allowed.

Stop

Stops the sales rule and stops the configuration from being completed. A stop action is useful for basic option value validations, before calculations or combination rules are executed.

External

Is an action type which triggers a specific custom defined function. Example of a custom function can be to Round all variable values to nearest integer during configuration.

Value Type

Description

Value (Option Value)

The value that will be attached as the option value for the characteristic.

Char Value (Characteristic)

The value from this characteristic will be attached as the option value.

Char Quantity

The quantity from this characteristic will be attached as the option value.

Formula

Values calculated and retrieved by this sales rule formula will be used as the value for the characteristic.

Combination (Function)

Values returned from this combination table will be used as the value for the characteristic.

Order Info

Values retrieved from the connected order which will be used during evaluation of the sales rules. Possible values that can be used:
- Customer No,
- Delivery Country for the Customer
- Latest Customer Value, (latest option value for this characteristic used by this customer in a configuration will be attached as the value. Same function is available on configuration page for the characteristics)
- Latest Order Value, (latest option value for this characteristic used on the same order (sales quotation or customer order) will be attached as the value)
- Sales Group,
- Sales Part No,
- Sales Quantity,
- Sales Unit of Measure,
- User ID
- Supply Site, (Supply site is used for sales quotation line and customer order line. Site will be used if no supply site exists on the line).

Quantity Type

Description

Value (Option Value)

The value that will be attached as the quantity for the characteristic.

Char Value (Characteristic)

The value from this characteristic will be attached as the quantity for the characteristic.

Char Quantity

The quantity from this characteristic will be attached as the quantity for the characteristic.

Formula

Values calculated and retrieved by this sales rule formula will be used as the quantity for the characteristic.

Combination (Function)

Values returned from this combination table will be used as the quantity for the characteristic.

Sales Rules Basic Terms

The following information can be used as guidelines when creating sales rules in IFS Cloud:

In addition, the following functions can be useful to have in mind when setting up and maintaining configurable parts with sales rules.

If the company wishes to remove some or all sales rules for a specific configured part, it is possible to do so with a disabled flag for the sales rules. If all sales rules connected to a configured part are disabled it means that no sales rule will be triggered and the user must handle the configuration manually by adding each characteristic and option. How to handle the manual configuration is described and covered in the standard IFS solution scenarios and process description for CTO.