Managing Product Prices

This step allows you to manage prices for standard items.

Tip: Before addressing this step, make sure that at least one pricing method has been defined.

Product prices are defined as follows: each workspace contains multiple pricing methods, which represent each a “price list”. For instance, you can create a “customerPriceList” and a “distributorPriceList”.

Definition: A Pricing Method represents a price list; a list of all pricing data for all products for a particular market segment.

Pricing methods are composed of pricing aliases, and of price ranges.

Definition: A Pricing Alias represents a pricing criterion that is important in order to decide which price to apply.

For instance, in order to determine the price of an airline ticket for a particular customer, it is important to know his frequent flyer status. Gold customers can have lower prices than “normal” customers.

Definition: A Price Range represents a specific aspect of a price. CPQ supports up to 15 price ranges.

For instance in the telecommunication industry, some services have an initial activation cost and a subsequent monthly cost. These represent 2 aspects of the total price for a certain customer.

Alternatively, for some companies it is important to track the “price excluding sales tax”, the “price including sales tax” and the “buying cost”. These refer to different aspects of the product price.

Once the pricing method has been defined, prices can be input for the products belonging to a workspace or a collection.

information: A price is determined in a certain period, and for a certain currency

The following shows an example of the pricing for one standard item:

In this example, you can see that the first line has an “*” for the criterion “Loyalty”. This refers to the notion of a default price.

information: A default price is the price of a product corresponding to “empty” values for all criteria.

This default price is mandatory in the Designer. If you provide pricing aliases, you should always provide a default price.

information: Product Prices can be defined in PROS PPSS (Price Optimzer module). In such a case, the products pricing grids defined in CPQ are ignored and product prices are retrieved from PO.

Viewing product prices

In order to view the default prices for a set of products, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in. If only one pricing method has been created, it will automatically be selected.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Choose the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description. or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Choose the label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Choose period” function after having selected the right period of interest.
Alternatively, execute the “Go to date” function and choose the date of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show ranks” function after having selected the ranges of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show products without prices” function in order to view the products for which no prices have been entered at all.

In order to view the prices for an individual product, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the step toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the product table]
Select the product of interest
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the function “Add to selection”
[Via the “Explore selection” explorer]
Choose a product by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the menu toolbar]
Execute the “Choose period” function after having selected the right period of interest.
Alternatively, execute the “Go to date” function and choose the date of interest.
[In the menu toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show ranks” function after having selected the ranges of interest.

Building up the pricing structure

In order to create the pricing structure which is necessary to enter the prices for all products, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, switch from the “Show Products without Prices” or “Show Product with Prices” function
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Add period” function in order to create a new pricing period. In the popup:
Enter a name for the period. Beware: the name has to be unique for a given pricing method. It is the unique identifier of the period and cannot be modified once created.
Enter a Label for the period.
Choose a start date for the period
Click OK
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Add alias” function in order to create a new pricing criterion.
In the popup:
Enter a name for the alias
Enter a CPE for the alias
If necessary, flag the “must exist” checkbox
If necessary, flag the “must be answered” checkbox
Verify and, if necessary, update the CPE type.
Click OK.
[In the menu toolbar]
Save
Note: The pricing structure you have just created is global for the workspace meaning that it will be present for every product in every collection in the workspace you are working on.
The supported CPE for the criteria can be either external CPE (e.g. CPE.Settings.Session.mySetting), static CPE (e.g. CPE.workspace/SI/SI001. workspace/BPS/bps1.BP/bp1.value), dynamic configuration CPE (e.g.
CPE.workspace/CP/myCP.workspace/FO/myForm. FP/myFp.value), as well as relative configuration CPE (CPE.currentForm.FP/myFP.value)

Editing product prices

In order to edit prices for a product or a group of products, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show/Hide Alias” function.
[In the product table]
Edit the prices in the column “Current Price”.
Warning: The Designer does not require you to redefine all prices in a new period if they do not change, because on-the-fly price inheritance is supported by the CPQ engine. Indeed, the CPQ engine will automatically look up the latest “valid” price, even if it has not been defined in the “latest” period. In the Designer, an inherited price is indicated between square brackets, as
follows: [10]. When editing prices, you can:
Enter new prices: give a price for a previously empty cell
Update prices: update an existing or inherited price
Remove prices: empty a cell
Warning: Beware that a price is composed of multiple pricing ranges. Therefore, whenever you change one range in an inherited price, you will have to make sure that all other ranges are also updated.

Managing pricing variants

information: A pricing variant is a specific combination of pricing alias values for a certain product.

In the event that no pricing aliases have been defined, only one variant can be defined per product.

However, if multiple aliases have been created, standard item pricing can be defined for each variant (i.e. for each specific combination of pricing alias values).

In order to create new variants for a given product, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the product table]
Select a product and execute the function “Add to selection”
[Via the “Explore selection” explorer]
Choose a product by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the table toolbar]
Execute the “Insert line” function after having selected a variant in the product pricing table. For the inserted line:
Specify an operator and a value for each pricing alias (or leave them empty)
Specify the price in the column “current price”
[In the menu toolbar]
Save

Deleting product prices

In order to delete a price range for a set of products, proceed as follows:

How to

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Choose period” function after having selected the right period of interest.
Alternatively, execute the “Go to date” function and choose the date of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show ranks” function after having selected the ranges of interest.
[In the product table]
Empty the price range cell of interest.
Warning: Again, beware that a price is composed of multiple pricing ranges. If you “empty” one range, you will not have a "price" any longer for that range.

In order to delete a price for a given product, proceed as follows:

How To:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the product table]
Select a product and execute the function “Add to selection”
[Via the “Explore selection” explorer]
Choose a product by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Choose period” function after having selected the right period of interest.
Alternatively, execute the “Go to date” function and choose the date of interest.
[In the step toolbar]
Optionally, execute the “Show ranks” function after having selected the ranges of interest.
[In the product table]:
Empty all price range cells for the chosen period.
Warning: When all price range cells have been emptied for a certain period and a certain product, the inheritance mechanism will take over again, meaning that the prices from the previous period will be used by the CPQ engine.

In order to delete specific pricing variants combinations, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the product table]
Tick the checkbox of the line for the specific combination(s) you would like to delete.
[In the table toolbar]
Execute the “Delete line” function.
[In the menu toolbar]
Save

In order to remove a whole set of prices, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]
Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Select the catalog or the collection for which you want to delete the prices
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Select the label for which you want to delete the prices
or
[Via the “Explore Selection” explorer]
Select the product for which you want to delete the prices
[In the table toolbar]
Execute the “Show currency” function after having selected the currency of interest.
[In the table toolbar]
Execute the “Choose period” function after having selected the right period of interest.
Alternatively, execute the “Go to date” function and choose the date of interest.
[In the “Explore structure” explorer]
Click on the icon of the collection or the label for which you want to remove the prices
[In the menu toolbar]
Execute the “Empty prices” function. In the popup:
Choose the scope of the operation in terms of periods (all versus current)
Choose the scope of the operation in terms of currencies (all versus current)
Click OK.
[In the menu toolbar]
Save.
Warning: The “empty prices” function will empty the prices for all products for the given period and currency, regardless of the displayed collection or label.

Working with periods

In order to delete an existing period, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Remove period” function after having selected the period of interest.
[In the menu toolbar]
Save
Warning: The period will be deleted for the complete pricing method you are working on and thus for all products having prices in that pricing method.

In order to change an existing period, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Update period” function after having selected the period of interest. In the popup:
- You cannot update the name of the period
- You can update the label and the start date of the period
  [In the menu toolbar]
  Save

Working with pricing aliases

In order to delete an existing alias, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar]

Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.
[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]
Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the product table]
Remove all variants that would lead to double records once the alias has been removed (double records are not allowed)
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Remove alias” function after having aselected the alias of interest.
[In the menu toolbar]
Save
Warning: You can only remove aliases that are displayed. If necessary, display the to-be-removed alias using the "Show/hide aliases" function in the menu toolbar.

In order to change an existing alias, proceed as follows:

How to:

[In the menu toolbar] - Select the view corresponding to the pricing method you want to work in.

[Via the “Explore structure” explorer]

Open the catalog or a collection by selecting its name or description
or
[Via the “Explore Labels” explorer]
Open a label by selecting its name or description
[In the step toolbar]
Execute the “Update alias” function after having selected the period of interest. In the popup:
You can update the CPE of the alias
You can update the alias type (if it has not been automatically detected)
[In the menu toolbar]
Save
Warning: If you change the type of the pricing alias, the existing content of that column will become invalid and thus it will be deleted.

Working with currencies

In order to add, delete or update the currencies which can be used in the Designer, you can edit the currencies.xml file located in the “conf” folder in the Designer installation folder.

A section defining an XML file looks as follows:

<currency name='EUR'>

<symbol>€</symbol>

<reference currencyName='EUR'/>

<description localeCode='bg_BG'>Евро</description>

<description localeCode='en_US'>Euro</description>

</currency>

In order to delete a currency, you can simply delete the corresponding section.

In order to add a currency, you can simply add a section respecting the same format.

Do not: Do not remove currencies which have been used in your model.

Exporting and importing prices

In order to mass-update prices, you can also export the collection to a CSV file, modify prices in a spreadsheet, and import the collection again.

When exporting prices, all price ranges are exported for all products in the chosen scope (collection or label, currency, period). In order to export prices, proceed as follows:

How to:

[Via the menu toolbar]

Execute the “show currency” function after having chosen the currency of interest.
Click on the “export” button.
[In the “popup”]
Choose a CSV delimiter. Default value = “;”
Choose a list delimiter. Default value = “~”
Indicate the decimal separator to be used in the export file.
Indicate the encoding to be used by the export file.
Click “ok”.
The export process starts. The browser will allow you to open or save the CSV file to a certain location.

The import process is completely incremental. In order to import CSV files, you have to specify the action to undertake in the CSV file itself, by proceeding as follows:

How to:

For each variant to be inserted
- Put a “I” in the first column (for “Insert”)
  - The corresponding line will be imported in the grid; if the line already exists an error will be displayed for that line.
For each variant to be updated
Put a “U” in the first column (for “Update”)
The corresponding line will be updated in the grid; if the line does not exist an error will be displayed for that line.
For each variant to be deleted
- Put a “D” in the first column (for “Delete”)
- The corresponding line will be deleted from the grid; if the line does not exist an error will be displayed for that line.
For each variant not to be changed
- Remove the line from the CSV file, or
- Keep the first column empty
- All the lines in the grid which are not present in the CSV file or which do not have an action associated in the CSV file will not be changed.

In order to import prices again, proceed as follows:

How to:

[Via the menu toolbar] - Execute the “show currency” function after having chosen the currency of interest. - Click on the “import” button.

[In the “popup”]

Indicate the CSV delimiter used in the import file. Default value = “;”
Indicate the list delimiter used in the import file. Default value = “~”
Indicate the decimal separator used in the import file.
Indicate the import file encoding format.
Choose the CSV file to be imported.
Click “ok”.
The import process starts. This is an asynchronous process and you can continue to model. The Designer will inform you automatically when the process is completed.
[Via the menu toolbar]
Save.
Tip: The import file should have the following heading:
Action(U/I/D); Workspace; Class; Product name; Description; Operator; Alias1; Operator; Alias2;…; Operator; AliasN; Range1, Range2, … RangeN.

Conga Product Documentation

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Managing Product Prices

Viewing product prices

How to:

How to:

Building up the pricing structure

How to:

Editing product prices

How to:

Managing pricing variants

How to:

Deleting product prices

How to

How To:

How to:

How to:

Working with periods

How to:

How to:

Working with pricing aliases

How to:

How to:

Working with currencies

Exporting and importing prices

How to:

How to:

How to:

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