Model N - Configurable Groups

BACKGROUND

I worked on a web-based Salesforce application called Configure, Price, and Quote. It is a sales tool that allows sales people to accurately define the price of goods, to configure products and services, and quote customers with the best price possible.

For system administrators, I led a revamp of the workflow for administrators to create configurable groups of products and services.

CONTEXT

Because our customers mainly come from medical technology companies, these products and services can get really complex and extremely configurable. As a system administrator, it is important to accurately model all possible configurations so that sales people in the field can provide the best product offering to their customers.

sOLUTION

Workflow

Because this creation process is not a linear one, I wanted to make sure that our interface supported the back and forth nature of this creation process. This is one example of a workflow that a system administrator can follow to create configurable groups.

Add Products and Services

Users can do one of the following:

• Add an entire category of products. Users might choose this if they want the group to be linked to the category and not the specific set of products. If a new product gets added to the category, it will be automatically included in this group

• Add individual products from a list of SKUs, short for stock keeping unit (product identification code), in their database

• Manually add an option that is not tied to an SKU

Add Global or Local Attributes

Attributes are useful for sales people to specify specific characteristics (either physical or functional) about the option. Examples of attributes include: height, weight, color, material.

Global attributes are attributes applied to all options in the group.
Local attributes are ones that may be unique to one or more options.

Administrators have the option of adding attributes before and/or after adding products.