Understand Advanced Approvals and Advanced Order Management
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Describe key features of advanced approvals.
- Describe key features of advanced order management.
- Explain the importance of reliability within B2B relationships.
Salesforce Approvals Versus Advanced Approvals
Salesforce has standard approval functionality, which meets a lot of common use cases. But for businesses with more involved approval workflows, Salesforce CPQ offers advanced approvals (AA).
This figure demonstrates an approval path with multiple tiers as well as serial and parallel approvers. For some systems, something like this can be complex to implement. Not for AA.
Key Features of Advanced Approvals
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Smart Approvals
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If an approver or approval group has already approved a quote and it gets rejected in a higher tier, the same approver or approval group isn't required to reapprove when the quote is resubmitted. Salesforce CPQ remembers the sequence. |
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Requiring Approvals
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Reps have complete visibility into what approvals they'll need to obtain as they work on their quotes, so there are no surprises when they submit for approval. |
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Delegated Approvers
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Used for assigning an approver to take over for someone while they are out of the office. |
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Replacing Approvers
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If a certain approver is no longer required to approve quotes, they can be replaced with clicks. This eliminates the need to delve into every single approval process the old approver was a part of to manually replace them. |
With Salesforce CPQ, approvers can also set up email or Chatter notifications and approve deals on the go!
Keeping Things in Perspective
Let's say your company is about to land a big deal—the quote has been accepted and it's time to go to the negotiating table. But things start to go south as you realize there are things coming up in the quote that are just outlandish. Oversized discounts. Untenable terms. Incompatible products and services. Yikes! That's not how you want to start off a new relationship with a customer.
Putting strong checks and balances in place with the right approval processes ensures a few things.
- Reps are making appropriate commitments.
- There are no surprises down the line for Legal or Service teams.
Simply put, you're setting the entire company up for success with accurate representation of what you can deliver. More importantly, customers will always have the right level of expectation—expectation that you can always deliver on.
To AOM or Not to AOM?
Does a deal require that you deliver service to multiple locations at different times? Do you activate subscriptions after implementation? For businesses that need to place multiple orders against a single quote, CPQ offers advanced order management (AOM).
With AOM, you can split orders to create multiple orders from a single quote, letting you send products to multiple locations or at different times. But what does this look like for your business? And what does it mean for your customers?
Say you need to get a hospital up and running, or you're working on a construction job with multiple phases. You need to ship equipment at different times. Or maybe you're helping your customer implement a new piece of software in multiple offices around the world. With AOM, you can start small with one team and help them expand when it makes sense, without having to go through multiple sales cycles.
Key Features of Advanced Order Management
So how exactly can you streamline operations and increase customer satisfaction with AOM? Let us count the ways.
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Fulfill Orders Faster
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Seamlessly generate orders from quotes to quickly get products and services delivered to your customers. |
| Flexible for Evolving Customer Needs |
Split quotes into multiple orders, manage future dated orders, and modify with point- and-click. |
| 360-Degree View of the Customer |
Quickly generate contracts with all contract term, pricing, asset, and subscription details. |
| Connect to Back Office |
Sync order details to ERP for order fulfillment. |
Reliable Delivery of Goods and Services
When it comes to your products and services, customers just want them to arrive on time and work. AOM helps you deliver on that promise. It also has the intrinsic benefit of helping your operations team recognize revenue properly with a clear view into what was delivered when. Taking it full circle, service teams know what entitlements are in place for each customer at any given time, even if they get adjusted over time due to split orders. They are able to deliver against the right SLAs with minimal effort. That's kind of a big deal.