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 FEB 2019	Microsoft Dynamics 365 Integration Enhancements	Removed feature from update 18D.
22 NOV 2018	JET Responsive Transaction UI Enhancements	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	JET Support for UI Designer Pages	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Configuration Run-Time Data APIs and Administration REST APIs	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Transaction Arrays	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Administrator Access Control Enhancements	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Identity Management Service Enhancements	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Subscription Ordering Enhancements	Updated document. Revised feature information.
22 NOV 2018	Oracle Engagement Cloud Integration Enhancement	Updated document. Feature delivered in update 18D.
19 OCT 2018		Created initial document.

Overview

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.

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

DISCLAIMER

The information contained in this document may include statements about Oracle’s product development plans. Many factors can materially affect Oracle’s product development plans and the nature and timing of future product releases. Accordingly, this Information is provided to you solely for information only, is not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and timing of any features or functionality described remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.

This information may not be incorporated into any contractual agreement with Oracle or its subsidiaries or affiliates. Oracle specifically disclaims any liability with respect to this information. Refer to the Legal Notices and Terms of Use for further information.

Modern User Experience

The following CPQ Cloud Release 18D enhancements leverage the rich interface and interactive capabilities available in CPQ Cloud to provide an intuitive selling experience:

• JET Responsive Transaction UI Enhancements
• JET Support for UI Designer Pages
• Accessibility Enhancements

JET Responsive Transaction UI Enhancements

Introduced in CPQ Cloud 18C, the JET Transaction UI provides a modernized and fully responsive user experience for viewing and editing Transactions and sales orders on any device and in any language.  CPQ’s JET Transaction UI supports virtually every feature available in the Legacy Commerce UI combined with full extensibility and improved usability.

The JET Transaction UI is an option that can easily be enabled for some or all of your users.  With the addition of the JET UI, CPQ Cloud customers now have the choice between three different standard interfaces for the Transaction UI all provided by Oracle: the JET Responsive Transaction UI, the Legacy Transaction UI, and the Salesforce Lightning Transaction UI.

The following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud 18D:

• Use a Simple Filter to quickly locate key line items using a keyword or phrase.
• Use an Advanced Filter to define filter criteria for multiple column items for Transaction line items.
• Display a group of actions as a drop-down menu or a strip of buttons.
• Retain user-customized Line Item Grid settings across logins on the same browser.
• Display the Line Item Grid sticky header while column freezing is active.
• Navigate through the Quick Add fields, add items, delete items, and close the Quick Add window using the improved keyboard access.
• Resize the Quick Add window and use buttons to add items, delete items, and close the Quick Add window.
• Allow integrated users to select and store alternate address values retrieved from their CRM system.
• Provide Commerce Pipeline Viewer support for FullAccess users to list main and sub-document attributes and actions impacted by active Transaction rules and AJAX formulas.
• Display a page loading indicator while the JET Transaction UI is being loaded into the page.

JET Support for UI Designer Pages

In CPQ Cloud Release 18D UI Designer layout pages, which include Customer Assets, Performance Logs, and the Eligibility Rules pages, have been converted to JET UI. The JET UI provides a modernized and fully responsive user experience for viewing UI pages on any device and in any language.  The JET UI supports the most vital functionality of the previous UI while enhancing usability and standardization of the UX across CPQ Cloud. Upon upgrade to Release 18D, these pages are converted to the JET UI framework.  The layouts for these pages continue to be managed through UI Designer.

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 18D improves accessibility in the Home Page, Favorites List, and Transaction Manager areas of the application. Keyboard navigation for power users in JET Transaction UI is also improved in Release 18D.

Enterprise Platform

The following CPQ Cloud Release 18D features and enhancements cater to the needs of large, complex enterprises for a robust, integrated, and performant platform:

• Configuration Run-Time Data APIs and Administration REST APIs
• Transaction Arrays
• Administrator Access Control Enhancements
• Identity Management Service Enhancements
• Oracle Engagement Cloud Integration Enhancement
• Subscription Ordering Enhancements

Configuration Run-Time Data APIs and Administration REST APIs

Customer configuration flows dictate how users go through the pages and the options available to the user as they define a configured product. Configuration flow rules consist of a condition and flow attributes. Actions display based on which node in the flow the user has available based on defined criteria. CPQ Cloud Release 18D provides access to the current layout definitions as REST endpoints to support the UI interfaces.

In CPQ Cloud Release 18D, the following new Configuration REST APIs are added to the Interface Catalog:

• Configuration Metadata REST APIs for product families, product lines, models, attributes, array sets, and translations
• Configuration Layout REST APIs for product families, product lines, and models
• Configuration Process Invocations Definition REST APIs for pages and actions
• Configuration Run-Time Data REST APIs for flow input support, update action, Pick Lists, create Transaction, Add to Cart action, reconfigure action, add/save/cancel Configuration data to Transaction, start over, resume Configuration, and multi-node flow actions

Transaction Arrays

Organizations using CPQ heavily rely on CPQ Commerce to sell their product offerings to customers and capture the orders. In the quote life cycle, there is a lot of information that needs to be captured at the Transaction and Transaction Line level. Some of this information is repetitive, but dynamically varies from one Transaction to another. This requires customers to maintain a large number of attributes and control their access through rules. In Release 18D, CPQ Cloud introduces Transaction Arrays as a way for customers to group multiple, scalar attributes using a single data structure that can capture repeatable data. The array attributes can then be instantiated multiple times at runtime without explicitly defining each instance.

The following Transaction Array functionality is available in CPQ Cloud Release 18D:

• Manage Transaction Arrays on JET Responsive Transaction Main and Sub-Document UIs.
• Create Transaction Arrays and define Boolean, Currency, Date, Text, Text Area, Integer, Float, and Language attributes to be included in the array.
• Define and associate Array Control Attributes to set array size.
• Control the array attributes' state using Commerce Steps.
• Retrieve and modify Transaction Array Sets and attributes using BML.
• Support Transaction Array data, states, and delta functions for the following Commerce REST API services:  Open, Interact, and Modify actions.
• Use REST API services to query and retrieve Commerce layout and status information for main document and sub-document Transaction Arrays.
• Support migration and bulk data services for Transaction Arrays.
• XML Integration Support for Transaction Arrays.

Administrator Access Control Enhancements

CPQ Cloud is commonly administered by teams of individuals who are often a composite of different skill sets. Using the Administrator Access Control feature introduced in CPQ Cloud Release 18B, companies can delegate and restrict access to certain areas of CPQ Cloud. This prevents unauthorized users from introducing unintentional errors, clarifies areas of responsibility, and protects sensitive or proprietary information.

As part of continuing improvements to Administrator Access Controls, the following enhancements are available in CPQ Cloud 18D:

• Assign access to Data Table Folders and Product Families using an improved Access Selector, which uses a hierarchical structure that allows independent selection of parent and child items.
• Filter Available Access by keyword.
• Expand and collapse the Available Access hierarchy.
• Allow administrators with feature-level Data Table access to create and delete Data Table Folders and inherit access to newly created Data Table Folders.
• Allow administrators with Product Definition-level and Catalog Definition-level access to create and delete Product Families and inherit access to newly created Product Families.

Identity Management Service Enhancements

As in prior releases, CPQ Cloud customers can leverage identity management solutions such as Oracle Identity Cloud Service (IDCS) to simplify the administration of users and passwords. CPQ Cloud’s integration features simplify the implementation of identity services for Enterprise customers by allowing customers to delegate user management activities such as user creation, activation, revocation, and password management for host company users to IDCS or other Identity Service providers.

The following enhancements are available in Release 18D:

• Access Swagger metadata schema for User REST APIs from Interface Catalog
• User Management REST APIs
• Support for currency and language codes in User REST APIs

Oracle Engagement Cloud Integration Enhancement

The CPQ Cloud - Oracle Engagement Cloud (previously known as Oracle Sales Cloud) integration enables sales representatives to manage quotes and orders from accounts and opportunities, finalize pricing and proposals in CPQ Cloud, update opportunity revenue with quote lines for accurate forecasting, and access proposal documents from within Engagement Cloud. All user interactions are initiated and controlled by Engagement Cloud and CPQ UIs display as embedded iFrames within the Engagement Cloud application.

CPQ Cloud Release 18D provides an easier, more efficient method to return users to Oracle Engagement Cloud. Beginning in Release 18D, administrators can use the new Close Parent Window destination option for Commerce Modify actions to close the current embedded Transaction and return the user to the parent site. Using this method provides the following benefits:

• Simplifies integration by removing dependency upon the "Return To Sales Cloud" BML script, which required administrators to specify and maintain multiple return URLs.
• Improves the user experience by retaining user context when a user is directed back to Engagement Cloud from CPQ. Previously the web page was refreshed to generic return URL, and the user's navigation history was lost.

Subscription Ordering Enhancements

Companies use Subscription Ordering, often referred to as Asset Based 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 in CPQ Cloud. They can also reconfigure an asset or create a follow-on order that modifies an order that was previously quoted in CPQ Cloud.

The following enhancements are available in Release 18D:

• Use Subscription Ordering flows on System Configuration models in both CPQ Cloud and Oracle Commerce Cloud order scenarios.
• Retain Configuration attributes in Subscription Ordering flows without mapping the attributes in BOM tables.
• Use the getConfigurations SOAP API to return Configuration attribute values and price information after a Renew operation.
• Perform Suspend and Resume actions on child and grandchild models and parts.
• Reconfigure an asset after performing a Resume or Renew operation on the asset.
• Use new system variable and Library Functions.
• Simplify administrator setup with 18D ABO Implementation Package updates.

Differentiate

The following CPQ Cloud Release 18D enhancements pioneer the next generation selling platform:

• General Configuration Enhancements
• System Configuration Enhancements

General Configuration Enhancements

CPQ Cloud Release 18D provides a "Bulk Table Lookup" recommendation rule action type. Administrators can use this new action type to streamline the Configuration process by applying Configuration attribute value changes based on content in a Data Table column. The "Bulk Table Lookup" action type is available for all recommendation rules. When using a "Bulk Table Lookup" recommendation rule, the attribute variable name, attribute value, set type, and messaging can be provided dynamically.

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 all of the other models.

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

• View the BOM of the entire system from the Bill of Materials panel when configuring a model.
• Use a single value populated by a URL parameter across all models in a system.
• Immediately access modified attribute values via system data.
• Use System Configuration in conjunction with the Subscription Ordering and Oracle Commerce Cloud integrations.

Customer Requested Enhancements

CPQ Cloud Release 18D introduces the following customer requested enhancements:

• Allow Web Services users to access CPQ Cloud during Overcrowded Mode.
• Add production details to the Overcrowded Mode email template.
• Modify User Administration List page to include list pagination and a new list iterator.
• Add BML support for request calls and responses in gzip file format.
• Allow file download and email delivery tasks to process in the background, allowing users to continue CPQ Cloud activities while tasks complete.