Our Cloud CPQ Express is an efficient Configure-Price-Quote solution, bridging SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer (C4C) and SAP ERP, with deep integration into both.
Very often detailed questions about technical requirements and our solution capabilities reach us, that today we want to consolidate in this Frequently Asked Questions special, answered by our VP Product Development, Dhaval Bhardwaj.
Question: For implementing the CPQ Express do we need to have an installation of SAP SSC (Sales Solution Configurator)?
Answer:
Cloud CPQ Express can be consumed in multiple scenarios. For ease of understanding, I list three of them here:
1. Using SAP SSC:
In this scenario, SSC application engine is used for configuration and pricing where the ERP is used as the repository of product models and price conditions. Standard RFC Destination connection is used to facilitate the transfer of data from SAP ERP to SAP HANA Cloud Platform and made available to SAP SSC. This scenario is most suitable for those customers who would like to make use of existing LO-VC product models in cloud for sale process enablement. Also there is a need to use condition type based pricing offered by SSC, in which the configuration engine and pricing engine work together to update document and line item based pricing as the product configuration changes state.
2. Using Pricing from SAP ERP (External pricing) and Configuration from Cloud CPQ Express itself:
As evident in this scenario no SAP SSC is used. Bulk of pricing is provided by SAP ERP external pricing interface and the sales configuration centric capability is provided by Cloud CPQ Express. This scenario is most suitable for those customers who do not envisage manufacturing product models in LO-VC to be same as the sales system selection or feature selection models. The bulk of sales effort is to put a quote together using a combination of finished goods that are priced in ERP but put together in Cloud CPQ Express using Cloud CPQ Express system and feature selection centric knowledgebases.
3. Using cost model approach of Cloud CPQ Express:
Another In Mind Cloud offering which facilitates bottom up creation of Sales BOM and prices using the base costs of underlying RAW materials. This implementation does neither use SSC nor the external pricing from ERP because the cost model logic to build up the costs exists in Cloud CPQ Express. This is most useful for contract manufacturing customers who offer made-to-order goods based on RAW Materials, semi-finished goods or both.
In all of the three cases most of the Cloud CPQ Express features are available for example: proposal generation, price condition mapping-readability-and-hiding, etc. In addition, Cloud CPQ Express offers a sales model which runs on top of all the scenarios, this model helps in customizing the system further and to provide further calculation and configuration capability. Lastly, the integration with SAP C4C or ERP remains the same in all the scenario with minor scenario-based changes.
Question: Is Cloud CPQ Express compatible with SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer 1608 Release?
Answer:
In Mind Cloud also runs four yearly release cycles which closely match to SAP Hybris Cloud for Customer releases. All new Cloud CPQ Express releases undergo a regression test cycle to test all integration aspects with C4C
Question: What is the minimum patch level on SAP ECC 6 required for Cloud CPQ Express to work with?
Answer:
For Scenario 1 above: EHP5 or above as SAP SSC needs the ERP side to be on that level.
For Scenario 2 above: SAP ERP needs to be installed with SAP C4C ABAP add-on to support external pricing.
For Scenario 3: EHP5 and above.
Question: If there are variant tables and variant functions used for preparing the configurable products in SAP ECC, would the same work out of the box in C4C with Cloud CPQ Express or the logic developed using the Variant tables and Variant Functions needs to be re-written somewhere and uploaded in Cloud CPQ Express like it had to be earlier dealt with IPC?
Answer:
Another good question, for the scenario 1 above we support only IPC compatible LO-VC product models. In most cases the variant tables and variant functions (constraints) need to be compiled into a run time version in ERP. ERP compilation will check for IPC compatible. Once through this is consumable in Cloud CPQ Express using SSC.
Question: SAP ECC Variant Configuration with BOM supports multilevel BOM up to 3 levels with complex selection conditions and procedures. Is there any special handling required in Cloud CPQ Express for enabling such scenarios?
Answer:
This is supported, as already stated before, the LO-VC Knowledge base in ERP needs to be compiled into an IPC compatible run time version. If this process runs through, Cloud CPQ Express is built to support any level of depth in BOM tree as it uses SSC in this case to execute the product model. For more details on SSC supported features please refer to its help portal.
Question: Does Cloud CPQ Express support the Dependencies, Dependencies Net and Constraints processing out of the box as setup in SAP ECC Configuration Profile or some additional activities are required to enable the processing of such logic in CPQ Express.
Answer:
Apart from compiling the KB in ERP into an IPC compatible run time version, none.
Question: Does Cloud CPQ Express support the Variant Pricing and P-Functions?
Answer:
Yes, to support scenario 1 a pricing procedure needs to be maintained in Cloud CPQ Express, for scenario 2 pricing procedure determination is handled by SAP ERP. Also on p-functions if the customer is using ABAP p-functions the conversion from LO-VC Kb to IPC Kb would not succeed. We recommend customers to move over the p-function logic to the constraints. Though if not possible this can be moved to Java P-functions. Another approach would be to move this logic to Cloud CPQ Express sales model where the logic runs on top of the SSC Configuration and Pricing. Here it’s more important to analyse customer requirements and offer the best implementation possible.
Question: Is the UI5 based UI of Cloud CPQ Express configurable and extendable?
Answer:
We support disabling, enabling hiding or UI sections as per user role. Also using customizing one can create new tabs in the UI and put in more data points to capture customer needs on a Quote Header level.
We hope we covered some of the most frequently asked questions and invite you to post more questions arising in the comments field or just send us a message!
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