Discontinue Products Using a Hidden Filter

Flag Products for Retirement

The sales team at AW Computing notices some older technology it sells is no longer in demand. For example, in the ’90s they sold pagers along with a paging service, but it’s been years since they’ve had a new pager sale. 

To simplify the sales process, Sales wants to retire the pager and pager service products to remove them from the Product Selection page. However, they still have some long-time customers who use the paging service, and regularly renew their paging service contract. For that reason, AW Computing needs the product to still remain active so that it can be automatically added to those customer renewal quotes. 

The solution is to create a search filter that always filters out retired products from the Product Selection page while leaving them active. You’ll also hide the search filter so it can’t be inadvertently edited or deleted.

But how do you know which products are “retired?” First, create a new checkbox on the Product object named Retired, then check it for the pager products. 

Let’s do that now.

1. Click and click Setup. The Setup page opens in a new tab.
2. Click Object Manager.
3. Click Product.
4. Click Fields & Relationships.
5. Click New.
6. Choose Checkbox.
7. Click Next.
8. For Field Label, enter Retired.
9. Click Next.
10. Click Next to keep field-level security as is.
11. Click Save.

OK, you can close the Setup tab to go back to the Salesforce CPQ tab. Now let’s flag the pager products for retirement.

1. In the navigation bar, click Products, then choose the All Products list view.
2. For the Pager product, click Show Actions () then click Edit.
3. Check Retired.
4. Click Save.
5. For the Pager Service product, click Show Actions then click Edit.
6. Check Retired.
7. Click Save.

Great, you’ve identified which products need retirement, and you can use that information in a search filter to remove products from Product Selection.

Create a Hidden Search Filter for Retired Products

Remember in the last unit that before you could make the Subscription Pricing filter, you first had to add SBQQ__SubscriptionPricing__c into the Target Field picklist? In the same way, you have to update the picklist again so it has a value for the Retired field. Let’s practice those steps one more time.

1. Click and click Setup. The Setup page opens in a new tab.
2. Click Object Manager.
3. Click Search Filter.
4. Click Fields & Relationships.
5. Click Target Field.
6. In the Values list, click New.
7. Enter Retired__c.
8. Click Save.
9. In the Picklist Options section, for Controlling Field, click Change.
   
10. In the Product column, double-click Retired__c.
11. Click Save.

Close the Setup tab to go back to the Salesforce CPQ tab. Now for the fun part. You’re going to create a search filter like before, but this time you’re going to tell CPQ how to use the filter instead of letting sales reps make changes to it in the filter pane.

1. In the navigation bar, click Search Filters.
2. Click New.
3. In the Filter Name, enter Retired.
4. For Target Object, choose Product.
5. For Target Field, choose Retired__c.
   If you don’t see Retired__c, refresh your browser and go back to Step 2.
6. For Operator, choose equals.
7. For Filter Value, enter false.
   Since this time you don’t want sales reps to control the filtering, tell CPQ that the value to filter for is “false”, which is another way of saying “unchecked.”
8. Check Hidden.
   You’ve preloaded the “false” value for filtering, but we need to make sure sales reps can’t undo your work. So, make the filter hidden from view (and tampering). It’ll still be in effect even though you can’t see it.
9. For Display Order, enter 1.
   This display order is irrelevant since the filter isn’t displayed, but the field is required so enter any number.
10. Click Save.

With your new search filter in place, any product flagged as Retired will no longer appear in Product Selection. Let’s check to make sure.

1. In the navigation bar, click Quotes.
2. Click Q-00054.
3. Click Edit Lines.
4. Click Add Products.
5. Click the Filter button ().
   Notice that the Retired filter is not visible. Even so, if you close the filter pane and scroll down the product list, you shouldn’t find any pager products.

Excellent work! You’ve successfully removed the ability to add certain products to new sales, while keeping them active for renewal quotes. In this example you made a static filter that always removes products under the same conditions. In the next step, you learn how to make a search filter behave dynamically so that the filtered products depend on who is looking at the list.