Process Overview: Submit Inquiry for Configurable Machine

Web Configuration

To perform an inquiry and start the configuration process for a configurable product in Commerce, the user(s) can click on the 'Add-to-Cart-&-Configure' icon. This will add the product to the cart and open up the configurator UI for configurations to be made based on the users' requirements.

Refer to 'The New Configurator UI - Workspace' for additional information on configuration workspace.

Tip: Fully configured inquiries result in fast quote creation. Configuration is optional and users can submit inquiries without any inputs or definite requests in the configurator as well. Whatever is incomplete can be corrected/completed by a salesperson in the later workflow.

Note: You can inquire about any product added to a cart, even the non-configurable products

Help Assistance

The Help Panel provides documentation with rich text and visual content, if maintained by your marketing team correctly, which can help end-users understand the benefit of each option and make informed decisions. 

As shown in the image below, errors encountered during the configuration process will also be highlighted for example missing mandatory fields or invalid selections.

The HTML content can include marketing videos. The user(s) can also upload specs and special request, for the specific like item.

Understanding the benefit of each option, not only helps you match the specific needs of the customer but also adds to the stickiness to eventually go with your offering.

Product Finder Assistance

To further assist the end user they can click on the button Product Finder - to find a matching variant (pre-configured product), that meets current inputs. Such Variants can be narrowed down as more attributes are selected.

The user(s) may compare variants, then add them to the cart, or copy attributes into the configurator as a starting point for configuration. The configuration engine can be now used as a guided selling to ask relevant questions and use that to filter products based on selected values.

For additional information on the setups, please refer to 'Assistive selling - Material Variant Finder'.

Available Actions in the Configuration view

Icon	Meaning
	Find matching variants
	Help Assist: to know about features and options, and upload specs/special request
	Settings for Configurator engine

Cart

Before submitting inquiries, users can duplicate configurable items in the cart and make any adjustments needed to configurations by clicking on the Configure icon. Notes can also be added/attached as shown in the image below. 

Available Actions in Cart

Icon	Meaning
	The Copy icon here copies the configuration and adds another line item in the inquiry tab. Products that have been copied and added to the line item list can be further configured too if necessary.
	Configure icon used in the line-item view of the inquiry section of the shopping cart. When clicked, it will launch the configuration again to view/edit.
	The Attachment icon shows the number of documents that are already attached. Clicking on it allow the user to upload more attachments if needed. The Expand View (Arrow) icon, opens up the option to write notes and attach documents in a full view popover.

View Inquiries Made by Users

As shown in the image below, clicking on the My Inquiries tab in Commerce will redirect users to view the inquiries that they have made. Business Administrators can also access inquiries made by others:

The inquiries are listed in a table format:

Inquiry Information in CPQ

When successfully submitted, the inquiry will be created as a Quote in CPQ (refer to 'Quotes' for Pricing information). These quotes differentiate themselves from quotes originated in CPQ by having the flag 'Commerce Inquiry' set to True. 

This flag is also available as a search parameter available e.g. in the pre-delivered saved search 'Commerce Inquiries' - refer to 'Saved Search' for additional information:

A quick action "Convert to Quote" is available on Inquiry which creates a follow-up Quote, copies over all relevant data as well as create a reference

Sales Reps use "Convert To Quote" to copy all information from the inquiry to a follow-up quote. The same inquiry can be converted multiple times if required and a reference between inquiry and quote is automatically created for future reference: 

Filter Inquiries

Commerce inquiries can be managed efficiently by filtering according to the customer contact user who created the inquiry. 

Under the 'Quotes' tab on the Digital Sales Platform, select to filter by 'Creator' in the drop-down list and click on the icon.

A pop-up will show to provide options to filter based on users who are either 'Contacts' or 'Employees'.

Once the selection is made, the data will be filtered accordingly.

Configuration

Under 'Commerce Administration' -> 'Operation Settings' administrators can enable/disable the inquiry process and can also turn on / off the Aftersales process (Order & Checkout). ​

​For Example: if a customer is only interested in Aftersales they can turn off the inquiry process or if they only are interested in the inquiry they can turn off Order & Checkout.​

For the configuration screen to work in commerce please maintain the following

Under 'Administration' -> 'Master Data Management' -> 'Setting String' -> 'MX Application URL' the CPQ URL (example: https://xxxxxx.hana.ondemand.com)

Product Pre-Requisites for the Inquiry Process

The right pre-requisites need to be maintained on a Product record before they can be configured and inquired for by Commerce users in addition to the regular product master pre-requisites for Commerce (refer to 'Product Master Pre-Requisites' for additional information). These pre-requisites are:

• The product attribute 'Classification' needs to be Product
• It must be a configurable product, meaning it needs to have a valid knowledge base (refer to 'Product Rules Definition' for additional information) and the flag 'Classified' needs to be set to False

Related Documentation

• Refer to 'Submit Inquiry for Configurable Machine' for configuration related documentation
• Refer to 'Process Overview: Product Details' for available actions per product
• Refer to 'Product Master Pre-Requisites' for general product master pre-requisites
• Refer to 'Saved Search' to create saved searches in CRM / CPQ