The Catalog allows the end-users to browse product collections, display item characteristics and finally add standard or configurable products to the quote. (Quote module from CPQ if available).

CONFIGURATOR

The application web pages are built from the interactions between three layers:

• The Repository: stores the complete configuration to deploy and the basic presentation elements
• The UI Definition layer: defines how the front-end is customized by the definition of the structure of pages as well as the definition of the style to apply and potentially the addition of custom UI objects
• The UI engines layer: assemblies the instantiation of the business logic run by the Configurator engine and the presentation of this logic controlled by the CPQ UI engine
  
  

CATALOG

Catalog is the web front-end application for product collections. Like the Configurator, the application web pages are built from the interactions between three layers:

• The Repository: stores the complete catalog, collections and products and the basic presentation elements
• The UI Definition layer: defines how the front-end is customized by the definition of the structure of pages as well as the definition of the style to apply and potentially the addition of custom UI objects
• The UI engines layer: assemblies the instantiation of the business logic run by the Catalog engine and the presentation of this logic controlled by the CPQ UI engine

As configurable products can be embedded in the catalog, the CPQ UI engine is common to both Configurator and Catalog modules.

THE LAYERS

HTML Page (Client Side)

The Configurator and Catalog UI provide a rich internet user interface (Web 2.0):

• A set of DHTML pages (HTML+ JavaScript) allows the client to run a catalog and configurable products in a standard web browser.
• Ajax requests are used to dynamically refresh the content of the pages

The CPQ engine is made of 3 main components:

• CPQUI building the User Interface for both Catalog and Configurator depending on a designed theme
• ConfiguratorEngine managing the configuration process and returning this information to the Interface builder.
• CatalogEngine managing the navigation in the catalog and the search process.

The UI Definition brick provides to the CPQ UI engine the material it requires to build the User Interface.

Definition: The Layout XML File (XML UI Definition) contains the description of the elements and components of the configuration and/or catalog pages. It defines the way the dialog will be presented to the end-user in terms of:

• Pages structure
• Pages components design (Parameterization of the boxes, definition of popups etc.)
• Behavior policies to be applied during the runtime session

  Based on this information and on the configuration model, the CPQ UI engine dynamically generates the resulting web pages.

  Definition: The Predefined UI Objects represent the library of UI objects and pages components delivered with CPQ. (These components are described in the current guide.):

  Definition: The Custom UI Objects represent external components that can be designed and integrated to the pages to extend the standard UI object library to fit specific needs.

  Definition: The Customize Style represents the set of Cascading Style Sheets that will be applied to each UI object to control its display and rendering.

The repository gathers data related to the configuration process and catalogs modeled with the Designer.

• The model repository is accessed by the database server through JDBC.
• The Multi-media Gallery stores the media files attached to the model.

• externalFlyer (Configurator UI only):
  • The externalBox (externalFlyer) purpose is to display dynamic information representing the current configuration

• The externalValueSelector purpose is to provide new ways to input data in the configuration dialog.

• The external action purpose is to provide a function not implemented by the predefined actions of the application.