Revision History

This document will continue to evolve as existing sections change and new information is added. All updates appear in the following table:

Date	Feature	Notes
11 MAY 2018	Line Item Grid Enhancements	Updated document. Added feature.
11 MAY 2018	Accessibility Enhancements	Updated document. Added feature.
11 MAY 2018	Rating/Pricing Engine	Updated document. Added feature.
06 APR 2018		Created initial document.

Overview

This guide outlines the information you need to know about new or improved functionality in this update.

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Oracle CPQ Cloud

Oracle Configure, Price, and Quote (CPQ) Cloud enables companies to streamline the entire opportunity-to-quote-to-order process, including product selection, configuration, pricing, quoting, ordering, and approval workflows. CPQ Cloud provides a flexible, scalable, enterprise-ready solution ideal for companies of all sizes that sell products and services across direct, indirect, and e-commerce sales channels.

MODERN SELLING EXPERIENCE

Leverage the rich interface and interactive capabilities available in CPQ Cloud to provide an intuitive selling experience using the line item grid enhancements available in the 18B release. Access CPQ with assistive technologies to enable users of all abilities.

Line Item Grid Enhancements

The CPQ Cloud Release 18B release introduces the following enhancements to improve usability when large numbers of columns or rows are displayed in a line item grid:

• Adds optional sticky headers in the line item grid so headers are visible while scrolling through the table.
• Supports freezing of columns on the left in a line item grid for improved navigation and visibility of data within large tables. This allows for the content of these column(s) to remain fixed while the rest of the line item grid data can be scrolled horizontally.

Accessibility Enhancements

CPQ Cloud is committed to making our product accessible, which includes supporting the use of assistive technology such as screen readers and screen magnifiers. CPQ Cloud Release 18B improves keyboard navigation, button highlight focus, and screen reader support for the following screens:

• Login
• Reset Password
• Change Password
• My Profile
• Part Search and Serial Number Search
• Part Search Results

Enterprise Platform

Cater to the need by large, complex enterprises for a robust, integrated, and performant platform using the following CPQ Cloud Release 18B features:

• Subscription Pricing
• Subscription Ordering Enhancements
• Administrator Access Control
• Foreign Key Support for Data Tables
• Single Select Pick List Enhancements
• BOM Mapping Enhancements
• Commerce Cloud Integration Enhancements
• Product Eligibility REST APIs
• Transaction REST API Enhancements
• Additional CPQ Cloud Enhancements

Subscription Ordering Enhancements

Companies use Subscription Ordering to sell tangible assets or subscriptions for services delivered over a period of time. Sales users can create, modify, suspend, resume, renew, and terminate asset-based products using orders stored in CPQ Cloud/Oracle Commerce Cloud. They can also reconfigure an order or create a follow-on order to make changes to an existing order stored in CPQ Cloud.

As part of continuing improvements to Subscription Ordering, CPQ Cloud and external applications such as Oracle Commerce Cloud can now directly launch the Model Configuration page using URL parameters for ABO operations. This simplifies the Modify and Follow-On order integration scenarios. When users modify an asset or make changes to an existing order not yet fulfilled, the ABO operation makes only one REST API call as opposed to the two REST calls required in prior releases.

Administrator Access Control

CPQ Cloud is commonly administered by teams of individuals who are responsible for administering different subsets of CPQ Cloud administrative data. Using the Administrator Access Control feature available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B, companies can delegate and restrict access to certain areas of CPQ Cloud’s setup and administration. This prevents unauthorized users from introducing unintentional errors, clarifies areas of responsibility, and protects sensitive or proprietary information.

CPQ Cloud Release 18B supports the following:

• Use a new user group type called Administrator groups to define the administrative features to which Full Access users have access.
• Interact with a cleaner and easier to use Group Administration page updated with Alta UI styling for both Sales groups and Administrator groups.
  • Allows administrators to provide descriptions for groups
  • Supports quick filtering of users and bulk selection of users
  • Provides a new access selector that allows the filtering and bulk selection of administrative features to which member users have access
• Experience a dynamic Admin Home page and navigation menus where logged in users view only the pages and navigation menus to which they have access.
• Security features prevent unauthorized access to administrator features and web services.

Foreign Key Support for Data Tables

Data Tables are an important part of CPQ functionality and extensibility. CPQ Cloud Release 18B delivers enhancements that allow increased access to Data Tables to enable expanded CPQ solutions. Foreign Key (FK) support for Data Tables provides the following features:

• Create a new foreign key column or convert an existing column to a foreign key column to define relationships between tables.
• Prevent deletion of tables referred by foreign keys from another table and allow user to specify actions upon deletion of a referenced row.
• Support deployment of Data Tables with foreign key relationships.
• Support import, export, and migration of Data Tables with foreign key relationships.

Single Select Pick List Enhancements

A Single Select Pick List, also referred to as a Dynamic Menu, is a Configuration attribute type. Administrators manage the domain of values for a Single Select Pick List attribute within a defined resource (e.g. Data Tables or Configuration arrays). The enhancements available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B address scenarios where a Single Select Pick List filter returns multiple results with the same value, resulting in users seeing the same result multiple times in Single Select Pick List values.

In CPQ Cloud Release 18B, administrators can filter previously returned multiple results to ensure that a value displays only once to users in the Single Select Pick List. This is accomplished by selecting a “Distinct” checkbox in Attribute Editor to display only distinct values. The checkbox is only available when using a data table as the resource for a Single Select Pick List.

BOM Mapping Enhancements

The Bill of Materials (BOM) Mapping feature allows administrators to import multi-level BOM product structures for use in CPQ Configuration, Commerce Transactions, and downstream integration of orders to an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This data-driven solution significantly reduces the amount of time needed to set up and maintain integrations of configured products with ERP systems using BOM tables and the BOM Mapping rule type.

As part of continuing improvements to BOM Mapping, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Provide BOM Mapping support for Single Select Pick List attributes, which will invoke applicable BOM Mapping rules to add parts to a Transaction based on a Single Select Pick List selection.
• Provide inherited hierarchies in BOM Mapping, which automatically map parent items when administrators map to a child item.
• Allow mapping to multiple Configuration attributes to allow the evaluation of multiple attributes or attribute values when adding Line Items to BOM-related Transactions.
• Allow administrators to add conditions to BOM Mapping Rules to invoke rules based on conditional logic.

Commerce Cloud Integration Enhancements

Self-service users in Commerce Cloud can configure complex products for purchase in Commerce Cloud using the CPQ Cloud Configurator. They can also request a CPQ Cloud quote, thereby initiating a CPQ Cloud Transaction that a sales specialist can modify, reconfigure, or discount.

As part of continuing improvements to the Commerce Cloud integration, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Use a new REST API to retrieve usage metrics related to the number of times the CPQ Cloud Model Configuration page is accessed from Commerce Cloud (i.e. the number of interactions). The new API is usable in ICS and its metadata is available in Interface Catalogs.
• Display usage metric data in the User Administration List page. The viewable data is related to the number of interactions in the current month. 
• Allow users to view daily interaction metrics from the Oracle Cloud portal, preventing the need to access CPQ Cloud directly.

Product Eligibility REST APIs

Customers can add parts to a Transaction in a variety of ways including via Recommended Item Rules, BOM Mapping Rules, Part Search, Multi-Part Search, Quick Keys, and API calls. CPQ Cloud Release 18A introduced Eligibility Rules as a feature, allowing administrators to define the parts available to specific customers. In CPQ Cloud Release 18B, all methods of adding parts now enforce Eligibility Rules.

Administrators can use REST APIs to do the following:

• Allow external applications to create, read, update, delete, and deploy Eligibility Rules.
• Perform a Quick Key search, advanced part search, or search based on a list of parts.    
• Customize the REST response using an advanced query object in the payload.

Transaction REST API Enhancements

The Transaction REST API enables administrators to update transactions from external systems.

As part of continuing improvements to Commerce Transaction REST services, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Full administration support to send single or multiple e-Signature requests, show details for the e-Signature request, and cancel the e-Signature request.
• Support to refresh the Quote Transaction with the latest data from the server.

Additional CPQ Cloud Enhancements

The CPQ Cloud Release 18B release introduces the following enhancements to improve performance and simplify CPQ Cloud integrations.

• Allow users to change the language for the current session directly from UI pages, without updating their user profile.
• Allow SuperUsers to access the site during Overcrowded mode to enable site administrators to address performance issues.
• Include a timestamp on email notifications to indicate when a site enters and exits Overcrowded mode.
• Log incoming SOAP and REST API requests, method type, and properties in the CPQ Performance Log.
• Provide migration log enhancements that prevent deletion of migration events for a customer-defined duration to adhere to audit compliance requirements.
• Provide Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) to better control access to CPQ Cloud REST APIs when invoked by external applications.
• Data resource consolidations provide improved memory usage.

Differentiate

Pioneer the next generation selling platform using the following CPQ Cloud Release 18B enhancements:

• Rating/Pricing Engine
• Deal Managements Enhancements
• System Configuration Enhancements

Rating/Pricing Engine

Companies use a Rating/Pricing Engine to address increasing market requirements to sell products and services in a subscription model. The subscription model allows customers to manage a given product or service that is priced as a recurring price item. The exact value for the recurring price is derived by applying various pricing schemes such as flat fee, tiered, usage, overage, etc.

To allow customers to manage pricing charged at multiple intervals over time, the following platform upgrades are delivered in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Enable administrators to create custom pricing schemes using pricing module enhancements.
• Allow administrators to define conditions to apply specific pricing schemes to CPQ Cloud products.
• View calculated list prices during Configuration and Commerce using integrated pricing schemes.
• Use a dedicated REST API to send pricing information to external applications.
• Allow administrators to define pricing components for the Calculate Pricing REST API and upload the customer-specific REST API to the CPQ Interface Catalog.
• Enable migration of Pricing attributes, advanced profiles, and advanced rules.

Deal Management Enhancements

CPQ Cloud's Deal Management provides robust tools for sales representatives using CPQ Cloud to drive profitability. The Deal Negotiation features guide CPQ Cloud sales representatives in achieving optimal prices and discounts for their customers using Price Score metrics, Last Price Paid, and a Deal Comparison analytic. The Win Probability employs machine learning technology to aid sales users in understanding their customers' price sensitivity in the quoting process. The Price Optimization feature also utilizes machine learning to maximize either margins or net revenue to predict the optimal discount percentage for a Transaction.

As part of continuing improvements to Deal Management, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Offer administrators the option to use machine learning to automatically select driver attributes for Win Probability. Administrators can view the selected attributes on the training details page.
• Provide an Analytics Training and Preview page, which allows administrators to view the resulting Win Probability analytic for the driver attributes that are automatically selected.
• Allow administrators to clone Win Probability and Price Optimization analytics for quick definition of alternative analytics to evaluate the optimal parameters.

System Configuration Enhancements

System Configuration refers to the manner in which customers use CPQ Cloud to configure and bundle the product or set of products they wish to sell using a group of related models that together define an entire system. A system is a hierarchical arrangement of connected configurable models with a system root containing other models.

As part of continuing improvements to System Configuration, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud Release 18B:

• Selection of System Configuration attributes from other product families in advanced inter-model rules
• Migration of System Configurations with inter-model relationships between product families