Explore Versioning and Lifecycle Management
Learning Objectives
After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:
- Summarize the additional features available with an EPC license.
- Explain how versioning makes it easy to track and manage changes in EPC.
- Discuss the benefits of product lifecycle management in EPC.
- Explain how EPC product lifecycle management works.
EPC Features
So far, Devi’s excited about all the new, out-of-the-box capabilities he’ll get with Shared Catalog. Now he wants to find out what else comes with his EPC license. The Infiwave team definitely needs to improve how they manage the iterative changes they make to products as they evolve over time. He decides to look into the versioning features.
Entity Versioning
Devi often needs to modify catalog items even after they’re available for sale. He must make the updates with little to no downtime so he doesn’t disrupt ongoing orders. Let’s explore how EPC versioning can help him.
In EPC, you can create multiple “draft” and “released” versions of these EPC entities.
- Commercial products
- Object types
- Picklists
Storing separate versions of entities helps you keep track of any modifications you make over time and roll back to previous iterations when necessary. Use versioning to adjust products and components while keeping the changes hidden from sales channels or other catalog functions. Assign effective dates to control when each version is relevant and usable.
In this diagram, you can see how Devi rolls out new versions of a smartphone product as additional color options become available over time.
Versioning allows him to introduce changes without having to create a new instance of the product and reconfigure attribute values. He can also roll back to a previous version if a new color option sells out.
When you create a new version of a product or component, you clone all related entities for use in the new version. This saves lots of time! When you publish the new version, EPC automatically assigns it a unique version number. Once published, the product entity is frozen and can’t be modified. If you need to update the entity again, you create a new version.
EPC versioning is going to be a massive help for Devi and his team. This way, they can shape product and component iterations behind the scenes and better plan for new offer rollouts.
Lifecycle Management
Time is a big factor in product management. Products come and go, and sometimes Devi must modify them, even after they’re launched to market. With changes happening all the time, Devi has longed for a better way to work, including defining how long products are up for sale.
With EPC lifecycle management, Devi and his colleagues can control changes to released products without disrupting current sales. This includes establishing timeframes for each critical stage of the product lifespan–from incarnation to eventual retirement.
Product Lifecycle States
In EPC, you manage the product lifecycle by assigning states to products and components. The default product states are: Draft, Released, and Amendment Pending. You can also create custom states to suit your business processes.
|
Lifecycle State
|
Description
|
|---|---|
|
Draft |
When a product version is in the Draft state, you can make any necessary changes behind the scenes to the version as you prepare it for release. Product versions with a Draft state aren’t visible to sales channels or available for purchase by customers. |
|
Released |
A product version with a Released lifecycle state means that it’s available for sale and orderable in the Cart. Released versions only allow for limited modifications. When you change the status of a product from Draft to Released, EPC validates the product to ensure the integrity of any referenced products and their individual selling dates. To eliminate potential errors, it’s not possible to delete a released product. Instead, you make it inactive. |
|
Amendment Pending |
When you make changes to an Active version, a temporary Amendment Pending state is assigned to the product. This locks the version and prevents any additional changes. |
As this diagram shows, Devi creates a product version that’s automatically set to Draft.
Once it’s ready for product launch, he sets the lifecycle state to Released to make the version orderable in the Cart. Any adjustments he makes to the released version changes the status to Amendment Pending and locks the product from further changes. Once he approves the amendments, the lifecycle state of the version reverts to Released, and the modified version is viewable in the Cart.
Product Selling Dates
An integral part of product lifecycle management is assigning selling-period dates. By establishing selling periods, you define products in the catalog based on the date and duration of their availability. This governs when and for how long key milestones, such as activation and discontinuation, take place for a given product or product bundle.
You can specify the following date fields when configuring a commercial product.
- Selling Start Date defines when the commercial product can be ordered and sold.
- Selling End Date controls when the product is no longer available for order.
- Fulfillment Start Date sets the date that the product is ready to be fulfilled. By default, this is the same as the selling start date but can be set for a future date.
- End of Life Date specifies when the product is no longer supported.
Let's look at different product stages and their definitions.
| Lifecycle Stage | Description |
|---|---|
|
Current |
A product that’s currently available for sale. |
|
Future |
A product planned for sale in the future. Customers can order the product, but the order won’t be fulfilled until the selling and fulfillment dates. |
|
Past |
A product that’s no longer available for sale but can still be fulfilled if it’s part of an order that’s already placed. |
|
Retired |
A product that’s no longer supported and therefore cannot be ordered or fulfilled. |
Next-Level Features
In this unit, you learned how an EPC license supercharges Shared Catalog with two highly advantageous features for product planning and deployment. With versioning and lifecycle management in your toolkit, you can accelerate product innovation and development, introduce changes to products without disrupting orders, and better track and compare iterations of catalog offerings as they evolve over time.