(Assumptions and rationale for integration)
SAP CPQ
SAP Sales Cloud (formerly Cloud for Customer – C4C for short) as part of its functionalities has a tool for creating offers for customers. Standard Integration with ERP (SAP ECC or SAP S / 4 Hana) allows you to prepare offers and their valuation from ERP (basic price, discounts, reductions, surcharges for freight, etc.), information about the availability or the customer’s credit limit. However, there is no product configuration in the interactive dimension.
What if, due to our portfolio, we need to work with different product configurations and – depending on them, make valuations? For obvious reasons, working in Excel is not recommended. A much better move is to use CPQ.
The answer to this is the SAP Configure Price Quote (CPQ for short, https://www.sap.com/products/cpq.html ), providing work improvement for people who prepare and manage sales offers in SAP Sales Cloud. The integration between these two systems is based solely on one joint offer in SAP CPQ and SAP Sales Cloud – the SAP Sales Cloud sales offer is created in the background. When you first switch to SAP CPQ, an offer created in SAP Sales Cloud cannot be edited again in SAP Sales Cloud. The commencement of its edition opens the offer in CPQ.
The main difference for the user is that the entire process on the SAP Sales Cloud side begins with the introduction of the sales offer, then it is transferred to CPQ. On the SAP Sales Cloud side, the offer is only available in readout mode.
The product configurator on the CPQ side can be configured to facilitate the procedure of adding and configuring complex products, e.g. a server offer (hardware configuration, external devices, additional warranty). There are also many tools to help you calculate prices and discounts, or even generate the name of an item on offer.
Integration requirements
- Tenant Tenant SAP Sales Cloud (C4C) and SAP CPQ
- SAP CPQ and SAP Sales Cloud (C4C) must be synchronized with each other in terms of products (materials), markets and price lists through integration with SAP ECC or SAP S / 4 HANA
- SAML 2.0 single sign-on configured
- Integration user compatibility between systems
The process of creating a sales quotation in SAP Sales Cloud and then an order in ERP using CPQ is as follows: (Screen in PL)
The diagram above shows the process where a sales representative creates an offer in SAP Sales Cloud. Optionally, it adds items such as products to it. Then, by opening the mashup (link leading to SAP CPQ), it starts the process of transferring the document to the SAP CPQ system. At the same time, the offer document on the SAP Sales Cloud side becomes a read-only document. It is constantly updated with the CPQ.
Sales Rep logs into CPQ, where he has already created an offer document. By adding products to it (using the product configurator), the system determines product prices, taxes, delivery costs, etc., based on the data from the price list tables downloaded from ERP. PH can add various kinds of discounts (the system checks whether discounts are allowed or not). This is how a ready offer with products is created, which is sent to the customer by e-mail for approval (CPQ creates and attaches a PDF or MS Word document).
After the client accepts and the proposal is generated, with the appropriate status on the CPQ side, “we place the order”. The offer is transferred to the ERP system, where the sales order is generated. We set the offer status back in CPQ and in SAP Sales Cloud. The diagram below presents in more detail the process of placing an order in CPQ.
Having a confirmed offer, Sales Rep clicks “Place an order in ERP”. In CPQ, the document status changes to “Awaiting order confirmation” (the status also replicates to SAP Sales Cloud). The document is then replicated to the ERP, where the process of creating a sales order begins. Of course, we are skipping the entire ERP process that is started for our sales order (ordering, packing, shipping from stock, delivery, etc.)
After successfully creating the document, a return message is sent to CPQ with the return status “Order placed” and the ID of the sales document. Finally, CPQ updates the offer on the SAP Sales Cloud side, providing the status and ID of the sales document.
