Salesforce Industries CPQ (Vlocity CPQ)

In this session we will talk about what is Salesforce Industries CPQ (aka Vlocity CPQ). After this session, you’ll have an understanding of the differences between Salesforce CPQ and Industries CPQ as well as some of the key functionalities of Vlocity CPQ. We’ll try to touch on all of the topics covered to kick start your journey to Salesforce Certified Industries CPQ Developer.

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What is Industry Cloud and Salesforce Industries CPQ

Salesforce Industries CPQ is also know as former Vlocity Clouds. Salesforce Industry Cloud is not just Industry CPQ its a combination of Configure, Price, Quote and Digital Commerce.

What is Vlocity CPQ?

Vlocity CPQ is an industry-specific platform that provides tailor-made CPQ solutions for every industry. It capture and validate new and MACD orders for consumer and enterprise services. It enables asset-based ordering based on customers existing products and services. Vlocity CPQ leverages powerful rules engines, is lightning fast and enables the flexible configuration of product and pricing rules/

Vlocity CPQ is also called as Salesforce Industries CPQ or Vlocity communication cloud. Learn more about Salesforce Industries Order Management.

Difference between Salesforce CPQ and industry/Vlocity CPQ?

Salesforce CPQ (formerly Steelbrick) is a horizontal CPQ and Billing application. Industries CPQ (formerly Vlocity CPQ) is a module included in Industry Clouds* (Communications, Media, Utilities).

Both products support:

  1. Design-Time Product and Pricing Definition
  2. Configuring Products
  3. Complex Pricing
  4. Quote Approvals
  5. Generating Quote Documents
  6. Contract Lifecycle Management
  7. Order Management
  8. Install Base Modifications (Contract Amendment and Asset-Based Ordering)

Features of Industries CPQ/Vlocity CPQ

Let’s look at a few key industry-specific features of Industries CPQ:

  1. Headless CPQ Cart and Digital Commerce APIs: Build B2B and B2C applications using a third-party web or mobile app, and let CPQ handle the rules/pricing for you.
  2. Seamless integration to Industries Order Management (OM): Decompose orders following industry standards (TMForum) and fulfill them in various downstream systems.
  3. Modify Assets and Amend In-Flight Order: Customers can add roaming to their subscription, or make modifications to long-running B2B orders after submission
  4. Change of Plans: Customers can migrate from a Medium plan to a Large plan or from Mobile-only to Mobile + Internet without service interruptions
  5. Multi-Site Quoting and Ordering: Quote/Order for B2B customers with multiple locations, at the same time, without juggling multiple records and screens

How to decide? Salesforce CPQ Vs industry CPQ?

How to decide CPQ Solution in Salesforce

Salesforce CPQ Training

Check our Apex Hours FREE Salesforce CPQ Training to learn more about Salesforce CPQ.

The Basics of Salesforce Industries CPQ

Let see the Salesforce Industries CPQ Features and what is do.

  • Configure: Configure simple and complex commercial products respecting EPC configuration and rules via the CPQ Cart UI, OmniScript, or Digital Commerce LWCs
  • Price: Price products via List Price or Attribute Based Price, and apply discounts
  • Quote: Generate DOCX, PPTX, and/or PDF documents containing your line items
  • Sales and Service Cloud Integration: CPQ works on the out of box Opportunity, Quote, and Order objects, so seamless integration with Sales Cloud and Service Cloud
  • Industries Order Management Integration: Seamlessly submit your order to Industries
  • Order Management for decomposition, fulfillment, and reflect fulfilled items as Assets
  • Move, Add, Change, Delete (MACD): Modify assets by performing an asset-to-order

Configure Price Quote User Interface

  • CPQ Cart: Shopping cart UI where agents can add, configure, and remove products. Currently Angular-based on the Vlocity Cards framework. Safe Harbor: stay tuned for the LWC version coming soon!
  • Guided Selling OmniScripts: Build a guided flow via OmniScript where a customer/agent selects the handset, then plan, then value-added services using Cart APIs
  • Digital Commerce (Lightning) Web Components: prebuilt WC/LWCs to create a UI on top of the Digital Commerce APIs
Salesforce Industries CPQ

Digital Commerce Key Features

  • Digital Commerce APIs are a high-volume, customer-facing set of APIs providing a caching layer on top of the Cart APIs – for guest and authenticated customers
  • Communications & Media Cloud + B2C Commerce Cloud Connector to leverage Digital Commerce on your B2C Commerce Cloud Storefront
  • Digital Commerce Gateway add-on for super-high scalability during peak periods
  • Leverage the Digital Commerce LWCs (on-platform) or Web Components (off-platform) as a starting point to build a UI
  • Build a Guided Selling OmniScript using the Digital Commerce APIs and use on-platform (Lightning and Communities) or off-platform on your third-party web site or mobile app (via OmniOut)

Enterprise Product Catalog (EPC)

Commercial products sold to customers (CPQ), technical products used for fulfillment (OM), or both

Salesforce Industries CPQ Enterprise Product Catalog
  • Commercial and Technical Products: Configure commercial products for Order Capture (CPQ & DC) and technical products for Order Management, and the decomposition between them
  • Industry Standards Compliant: Model products following industry standards (TMForum SID) using Offers, Products, CFS, RFS, etc.
  • Product Versioning: Define and maintain versions of your products and resulting assets as they go through changes over time
  • Offer Specification: Configure offers that inherit characteristics from an product specification and have pricing, adhering to industry standards (TMForum)
  • Multi-Language: Define translations for EPC data beyond Translation Workbench
  • Configurable, Extendable, Customizable: UI build with Lightning App Builder so can customize, extend, and build your own custom LWCs

Enterprise Product Catalog User Interface

Enterprise Product Catalog (EPC): an Industry Cloud module which enables managing end-to-end processes and product data related to product lifecycle management
Product Designer & Pricing Designer: Salesforce App using Lightning Pages and Industry Cloud Lightning Web Components (LWCs) to configure and maintain EPC
Product Console: The original UI for EPC built on Angular – going forward Product Designer will be the focus for new features and other enhancements

Enterprise Product Catalog User Interface

Enterprise Product Catalog Modeling Capabilities

  • Products: Define products for your commercial and technical products, for example a SIM card, mobile plan, and handset (yes, in Product2)
  • Bundles: Define bundles with simple or complex structures and cardinality
  • Attributes: Store product-related information such as handset color, storage size in a JSON rather than custom fields
  • Object Type: Define a template that you create products from – supports a hierarchy and inheritance between parent and child Object Types
  • Rules: Define rules to filter, auto-add, exclude, recommend products and promotions
  • Pricing: Define one-time charges, recurring charges, attribute based pricing, and more
  • Promotions: Define special time-bound offers such as a back-to-school 3 month discount on the monthly service price

Pricing and Promotions

Pricing – Design Time

  • Price List and Price List Entry: Analogous to Price Book and Price Book Entry – allows for define multiple prices for the same product across different time periods
  • Pricing Variables: Metadata for defining the pricing
    • Charge Type: Allows for subscription based products with upfront and monthly charges
      • Recurring: Daily, Monthly, Yearly recurring charges such as a monthly plan fee
      • One-Time: Upfront fee such as for a mobile handset
      • Usage: Fee for usage – for example price per MB for data roaming
      • Adjustments: Used for pricing adjustments (discounts)
    • Type: Price for what is charged to the customer, Cost for the cost to the company (for margin)
  • Bundles:
    • Zero Price: final price is the rolled up price of the children
    • Non-Zero Price: final price is this non-zero price plus the rolled up children
  • Attribute Based Pricing: Price products based on their attribute values
    • Products, their attributes, and the resulting prices are stored in a Pricing Matrix
    • Standard ABP: Attributes on the product determine its price
    • Source/Target ABP: Attributes on one product determine the price of another target product
    • Range ABP: Quantity falling into different buckets determines the price (e.g. 1-5 -> 50, 6-10 -> 40)
    • Custom ABP: Write your own!

Promotions

  • Behaves like a Product, but a separate entity that contains Products
  • Applies time-limited pricing adjustments to Products
  • Typically expires after some time period – for example Back to School Promo for 3 months
  • Configurable functionality doesn’t fit? Pricing is fully customizable!
  • Pricing Engine executes each step in the Pricing Plan in the defined sequence
  • Enable/Disable out of box Pricing Plan Steps
  • Write your own custom Pricing Plan Steps for any requirements that do not fit the configurable options
  • Design for performance when customizing pricing!

Rules and Interfaces

  • Context Rules: Determine which products, promos, pricing appear on your cart
  • Advanced Rules: Compatibility, Pricing, Availability, Eligibility
  • How to choose? Default to Context Rules, but both can be used together
  • Product + Price List + Context Rules + Advanced Rules determine what Products are qualified (visible) in the Cart
  • Similar patterns exist for qualifying Promotions, Price List Entries, Pricing Adjustments
  • Create Penalty Rules via Context Rules when a customer terminates a Promotion or Contract early
Rules and Interfaces in Vlocity CPQ

Advanced Functionalities and Topics

  • Enterprise Sales Management and Mobile Subscription Management: Pre-built, persona-based apps for Communications B2B and B2C providers. Similar apps exist in other verticals as well.
  • Change of Plans: Customers can migrate from a Medium plan to a Large plan or from Mobile-only to Mobile + Internet without service interruptions
  • Multi-Site Quoting and Ordering: Quote/Order for B2B customers with multiple locations, at the same time, without juggling multiple records and screens
  • Catalog Publishing (Inbound and Outbound): Consume an upstream product catalog into EPC or push the EPC to a downstream system
  • Deploying EPC: Industry DX Workbench is a GUI tool that enables developers to extract and deploy products and all EPC dependencies via clicks, and Industry DX CLI is a command-line version for automating deployments. Third-party tools such as Copado also provide the capability to deploy EPC metadata

Industries CPQ (Vlocity CPQ) Demo

If you are planning for Salesforce Certified Industries CPQ Developer exam then must watch this session

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FAQ’s

What is Salesforce Industries CPQ?

This also know as former Vlocity Clouds. Industry Cloud is Not just Industry CPQ its a combination of Configure, Price, Quote and Digital Commerce.

Is Salesforce CPQ and Vlocity CPQ same?

NO, Salesforce CPQ (formerly Steelbrick) is a horizontal CPQ and Billing application. Industries CPQ (formerly Vlocity CPQ) is a module included in Industry Clouds* (Communications, Media, Utilities).

When to use Salesforce CPQ or Vlocity CPQ?

Here is when use Vlocity CPQ in Salesforce

Salesforce Certified Industries CPQ Developer Exam

The Salesforce Industries CPQ Developer credential is designed for individuals who have experience developing configure, price, and quote applications for the Salesforce Communications, Media, and Energy & Utilities Clouds.

Amit Chaudhary
Amit Chaudhary

Amit Chaudhary is Salesforce Application & System Architect and working on Salesforce Platform since 2010. He is Salesforce MVP since 2017 and have 17 Salesforce Certificates.

He is a active blogger and founder of Apex Hours.

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