Consider Other Routes to Your Goal
More Than One Path
You’ve made it to the last step of this project, which means you’ve done a lot of work translating real-world business requirements into functional solutions. Great job helping Ursa Major Solar sell its solar products faster and more accurately!
The challenges in this project were constructed to have very little room for interpretation, but even so, it’s possible to meet some of the requirements in more than one way. Let’s consider the product rule you created in the previous step. You were asked to make a rule that acts only when the Microinverter option is selected. The condition for this requirement could take at least four different forms.
- If a summary variable is >= 1
- If a summary variable is > 0
- If a summary variable is not = 0
- If the Product Code = Microinverter
For this use case, all four are equally valid. It’s always good to have choices when designing solutions because sometimes a stakeholder introduces a new requirement on top of what they first tell you. You then have to consider which option is best given the new information.
Climb a Lookout Tower
Some business requirements are straightforward and it’s easy to translate them into solutions. However, often requirements are ambiguous and can be addressed in different ways depending on how you interpret them. As a CPQ admin, you may have to play the role of Business Analyst and do some surveying to find out what the customer really wants.
To illustrate this, let’s look at one last scenario involving the solar power bundle. In earlier steps, you created options for a charge controller and two batteries, then put them into a feature named Battery Backup.
After using the bundle for a little bit, a sales manager at Ursa Major Solar has noticed an issue in the way battery backup options are being sold.
The sales manager tells you that although sales reps have been including batteries in the bundle, they’ve been forgetting the charge controller. Without the charge controller, the battery won’t work. Your job is to find a way to ensure that both parts are sold together. You already have a solution in mind, but you have a few followup questions.
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Your Question
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Their Answer
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Do you plan to make any other bundles with battery backup options that must be sold together? |
Yes, we intend to sell another bundle for wind-powered systems. And whether the energy comes from solar or wind, batteries need charge controllers. |
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Will you ever need to sell a charge controller on its own, without batteries? |
Yes, as a replacement part. But if it’s in a bundle, it should never be sold on its own. |
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Is it acceptable to sell more than one battery in the same bundle? For example, would you include both 5kWh and 10kWh batteries for a 15kWh total? |
Yes, we want flexibility in storage sizes. We’re already planning to introduce larger batteries, and who knows what the future holds. But regardless of how many batteries are part of the system, only one charge controller is needed. |
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Would you rather have a solution that stops a sales rep when they’ve made a mistake and allows them to correct it, or a solution that makes it impossible for them to make that mistake in the first place? |
We pride ourselves on having extremely knowledgeable sales reps. They should be able to speak about a proper configuration even when away from their computers. So if we can help them learn from their mistakes, that would be great. |
There are a number of possible solutions here, but your questions helped narrow it down to the best one.
Think about how you would build a solution for UMS given what you’ve learned. Then, click the solution that’s closest to what you think is best. Clicking a solution will show the advantages and disadvantages of choosing that path.
Finally, it’s worth noting that sometimes there’s more than one thing you can do to help sales reps quote correctly. For this use case, sales reps would also benefit from additional instructions presented on the Battery Backup feature, as seen in the screenshot below. You can learn about adding additional instructions in Unit 5 of the Configurable Bundles in Salesforce CPQ badge.
As a CPQ admin, you often get to be creative with your solutions. If you discover there is more than one way to approach a problem, always take the time to consider what might be best for your customer. Also, ask the Revenue Cloud Trailblazer Community for input. There’s a good chance you’ll hear an interesting perspective, or maybe even just validation of your idea.
Now that you’ve shown your bundle building, attribute making, rule creating CPQ skills, you’ve made it to the end of your Configuration Extra Mile excursion. Look how far you've come! There's no hands-on challenge for this step. Just click Verify step to earn 100 points to earn your new badge.