Version_9.1114 (August 2016)

New Features

The following features are new to CPQ in this release.

Favorite Configurations

Favorite configuration enhances the product configuration and quoting process by providing the user an ability to create, share, and import favorite configurations or its favorite designs. The sales rep can use private and public favorite configuration for bundles and sub-bundles. The saved configuration can then be re-used later. You can add a favorite to the cart within the same flow as you would add any other product from the catalog. While importing a favorite, you can also control whether you want to include discounts to the cart or not.

Proposal Document Generation

This release introduces brand new AngularJS interface for Proposal Document Management. Proposal Document Generation provides the ability to select a template, select the output format, merge the Quote/Proposal document with additional documents and sequence them, email the collated file with attachments and preview the different versions of documents. As a sales rep, you can invoke the new wizard from the cart as well as from the Quote/Proposal header page. This reduces the number of clicks and provides an integrated experience from the shopping cart as well as the Quote/Proposal header. All functionalities reside in a single page application that is easier to use.

Smart Search

The new smart search powered by Apttus Intelligent Cloud provides much faster product search results, type-ahead functionality, and faceted search to help narrow the product search results. From the type-ahead suggestions, if the user selects a product that is blocked by the visibility rules, the system displays the following message on the catalog page: Products are not visible.

Enhancements to the New UI

• Displaying attributes and options as inline or on a new page: For the new products (bundle or sub-bundle), you can choose to display the options and attributes as inline or on a new Visualforce page. A new drop-down list, Config Type, implements this enhancement. When you associate attributes to your product, you can choose to select Inline or Open in new page. The default value is Inline configuration.
• Rich Text support for the bundle configuration page: Rich Text support is introduced for Listed Options Column 2, and Listed Options Column 3 fields available at Config Settings > Bundle Page Settings > Option List Settings. You can specify the API name of the product field whose Data Type is Rich Text Area.
• Ability to specify the explicit max length of the product name: A new custom setting Product Display Max Length allows you to specify the maximum number of characters to be displayed for the product name on the cart page. The default value is 21 characters for backward compatibility. Hiding recommended products: You can now use a custom setting, Config Select Products Settings > Show Recommended Products Cart View, to hide the recommended products on the catalog and cart pages. Deselecting this check box hides the recommended products.
• Dynamic Filter Fields for Refine Your Search: The filter fields used under the Refine Your Search section on the catalog page are dynamic and let you further filter the products based on your results in the Category and Search Bar.
• Rich Text support for Product Description fields: The content with the Rich Text format (such as bullets and italic) is now supported for Product Description field. The system is now able to render this type of content on the Catalog page.
• Help Text support for product attributes: The system displays the help text for your product attributes when you hover over the icon on the Configuration page. You can define the help text for your product attributes when you create a new field under Product Attribute Value object.

Enhancements to Quote Collaboration

• Ability to review the completed Child configuration: Sales Rep who initiated the collaboration request can review the completed configuration submitted by the collaborator before merging with the parent configuration. A link from that tab will enable the sales rep to view the child cart (completed configuration in read-only mode) and decide whether to merge the configuration or not.
• Re-submit the configuration request: Sales rep can use the latest version of the assigned line items from the parent cart along with original configuration request details and re-submit the task to the same collaborator or to someone else.
• Sequential collaboration: Sales rep can assign a collaboration request to Collaborator A, who in turn can assign to Collaborator B. The completed configuration of B will merge onto the cart of A, and the completed configuration of A will merge onto the cart of the sales rep.

Enhancements to Rule Engine

• Ability to write a rule firing between different levels of nested bundles: With this enhancement, you can execute a given constraint rule across all levels of a bundle structure. You can now set up rules that get executed across the following bundle structure:
  • From parent bundle structure to nested bundle structure
  • From next bundle structure to parent bundle structure
  • Across nested bundles
• NOT operator in Condition Association of a Constraint Rule: For a Constraint Rule, you can now build a condition using the NOT operator in the Condition Association field. You can use this to specify the condition for a product that is not in the cart or asset. You must use the following syntax to implement NOT operator:

Example usage:

• • 1 AND NOT 2 — 1 is in the cart while 2 is not
  • 1 AND NOT(2) — 1 is in the cart while 2 is not
  • NOT(5 OR 6) — neither 5 or 6 are in the cart
  • NOT 5 AND 6 — 5 is not in the cart, but 6 is
• New methods for Range function in Product Attribute Rules: Two new methods, JOIN() and DISCRETEINTERVAL()are introduced for the Default and Allow Action Type of a Product Attribute Rule record. You can use these methods to further filter the attribute records that can be displayed on the Configuration page.
• Defining Bundle Context for Constraint Rule Conditions: A new check box, IsBundleContext, is introduced to define whether the Constraint Rule Conditions are evaluated within a bundle context or outside of bundle context.

Example: If set to true, all the Constraint Rule Conditions are evaluated for a specific bundle and all the option products only within the same bundle are auto-included. If set to false, all the option products outside of the bundle (sub-bundle, nested bundle or other bundles) context are also auto-included.

• Setting an attribute value using Force Set: The Application Type drop-down list in an Attribute Value Matrix has a new picklist value called Force Set. Selecting this value lets you automatically set the picklist values which you have configured in the Matrix View (considering the last user selection). As soon as you change the attribute value for one attribute, the system sets the attribute values for other attributes immediately on the Configuration page. If there is a Matrix entry with null values and Treat Null As Wildcard is set to false, the system resets the attribute values to null.

Enhancements to Multi-Currency Management

A new custom setting named Multi Currency Management is introduced to handle the precision of decimal places on the cart page in a multi-currency org. This new drop-down field, available at All Tabs > Config Settings > System Properties > Precision Settings contains Platform as a value.
Consider the following combinations and the corresponding system behavior:

Enhancements to Pricing Engine

• In the Totals section, the adjustments that you apply are uniformly distributed across all the Line Items in the specific category. The system now ensures that the adjustments are distributed such that the sum of the prices of all the Line Items equals the total Net Price for the cart.
• With this release, Apttus recommends to avoid using ROLLDOWN mode in your pricing callback class. This mode impacts the performance of the pricing engine and increases the chances of hitting the Salesforce governor limit. When you upgrade to this release, you must examine the pricing callback class and ensure that there is no logic or custom code written in the ROLLDOWN mode.

Enhancements to Related Pricing:

• You can now group the source for related pricing by different filters. These groupings are available at the record level in the Related Price List Item related list. New filters such as Related Product, Related Product Family, Related Product Group and Related Charge Type are available when you create a new record in the Related Price List Item related list. Earlier, you could do the entire setup for related pricing only at the Price List Item level.
• You can set the related pricing context for Line Items using a new custom setting, Related Price Scope, available at Setup > Build > Develop > Custom Settings > Config System Properties > Manage. This setting enables you to choose if you want to perform the related pricing calculations over the entire Cart or confine the calculations to a Bundle product only. For example, if the price of an Option product is a percentage of another Option product in the same bundle, consider the following scenarios with Related Price Scope = Cart and Bundle,
  • Related Price Scope = Cart, the Option price is based on the price of all the instances of the related product in the Cart, whether it is in the same Bundle or a Standalone or in another Bundle.
  • Related Price Scope = Bundle, the Option price is based on the related product instances within the same Bundle.

Enhancements to CPQ Admin Console

With this enhancement, an admin can use the new administrative console to manage rules and advanced pricing, apart from creating and managing products and its related activities such as configuring options, attributes, and categories. This console helps you to create new products, and associate them with the categories, price lists, and price list items on a single page. The key enhancements in this release are:

• Deep cloning of Products
• Creating new Categories and Option groups
• Creating Constraint and Product Attribute rules via drag & drop
• Managing Product collaterals (Images, videos, documents, footnotes and more) for detailed product information
• New tab for creating and managing catalog

Enhancements to Multi-language support

With the new release, multi-language support has been extended to more number of labels, picklist values and sections on different pages in CPQ. Based on the user's local language, the content of the different fields is displayed in the translated language.

Enhancements to Asset-based Ordering

• This release introduces Grid User Interface for the Installed Products page. The new interface helps you perform a quick search on assets and offers better control on the column visibility. You can also experience better performance in terms of page load time and navigability.
• For asset renewal, the Auto Renewal Term on the Asset Line Item is considered for applying the renewal term. You can define a global renewal term which is applicable to all assets using a new custom setting from, Custom Settings > Installed Products Settings > Default Renewal Term.