When it comes to selling products that naturally go together, Salesforce CPQ makes it easy to bundle them up using Product Options. A bundle is essentially a collection of products that are typically sold together. Think of it as selling a printer along with toner, paper, and extra paper trays. While these items are individual products, the magic of CPQ is in recognizing them as a set that should be offered together.
Building the Bundle: Choosing the Lead Product
The first step in creating a bundle is selecting a lead product. This is the main product that will always be part of the bundle, no matter what. In our printer example, the printer itself is the obvious choice for the lead product. Once you've identified the lead product, the next step is to determine which other products should be included in the bundle. This is where Product Options come into play.
Understanding Product Options
Product Options are what tie the follower products to the lead product, ensuring that when the lead product is added to a quote, the other products follow suit. You can think of the Product Option as a leash connecting the dog (the follower product) to the dog-walker (the lead product). Without this leash, the product doesn't stay part of the bundle. With it, wherever the lead product goes, the follower products go too.
Order and Selectability
Product Options do more than just connect products—they also dictate how these products behave within the bundle. Several key fields on the Product Option record control this behavior:
Number: This field determines the order in which options appear on the Configure Products page. The lower the number, the higher the product appears in the list. A best practice is to number your options in increments of 10 to allow room for future adjustments.
Selected: This checkbox pre-selects an option by default. Use this for products that are typically included in the bundle to guide your sales reps toward common configurations.
Required: This field makes an option mandatory, meaning it will be selected and grayed out so sales reps cannot deselect it.
For instance, if the High Capacity Toner Cartridge is a critical part of your printer bundle, you might set its Number to 20 and check the Required box, ensuring it's always included.
Quantity Controls
Product Options also allow you to control the quantity of products within the bundle. By setting fields like Quantity, Quantity Editable, and Min Quantity, you can tailor how sales reps interact with the bundle:
Always require a quantity of 3: Set Quantity to 3, Quantity Editable to False, and leave Min Quantity blank.
Suggest a starting quantity but allow changes: Leave Quantity blank, allowing the Quantity Editable field to be ignored.
Require at least a minimum quantity: Set a Min Quantity, which restricts the sales rep from entering a value below this number.
Creating a Bundle in Salesforce CPQ
Creating a bundle is a straightforward process. For example, let’s say you want to create a copy machine bundle that includes the machine itself, a binding module, a high-capacity toner cartridge, and a case of paper. Here’s how you would do it:
Start with the lead product: Create the Copy Machine product and mark it as a bundle.
Add Product Options: Navigate to the Options related list and add the Copy Binding Module, High Capacity Toner Cartridge, and Copy Paper Letter as options.
Configure each option:
For the Binding Module, set the Number to 10, check the Selected box, and set Quantity to 1.
For the Toner Cartridge, set the Number to 20, check the Required box, and set Quantity to 1.
For the Copy Paper, set the Number to 30, check the Selected box, and suggest a starting quantity of 5.
Once your bundle is set up, you can add it to a quote and see how it performs in a real-world scenario. For instance, try adding the bundle to a quote on the Copy Machine Replacement opportunity for Edge Communications to see how all the options come together.
Conclusion
Using Product Options in Salesforce CPQ to build bundles simplifies the quoting process, ensuring that related products are always sold together. By carefully setting up your Product Options, you can guide your sales team toward the best configurations, improve efficiency, and provide a better experience for your customers.
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