Product Administration Guide > Overview >

Overview of Types of Product Administration

This guide explains how to administer a number of different types of products. You only have to read the chapters that apply to the types of product your company sells.

Simple Products Without Attributes

This is a product that only comes in one form, such as a book. The customer does not make any decisions about features of the product.

To create simple products without attributes, you only need to read Basic Product Administration.

Simple Products with Attributes

This is a product that has features that the customer can choose but that does not have components the customer can choose.

For example, a customer buying a t-shirt might be able to choose the shirt's color and its size. The shirt has two attributes, color and size. Each of these attributes has several possible values, such as white, gray, black, and S, M, L, XL.

When product lines have many products with similar attributes, you can create a class system to make it easier to define the attributes.

To create simple products with attributes, you should read:

You may also need to read Attributes with Business Component Domains which covers a more advanced way of creating attributes.

In addition, you can automatically generate a different part number for each combination of attributes that is available. To do this, read Smart Part Numbers.

Customizable Products

This is a product with different components that a customer can select.

For example, a customer buying a computer might have to select a mouse, a floppy disk drive, a monitor, and other components.

These are the products that use Siebel eConfigurator, which makes sure that the customer selects all of the components that are required for the product and selects components that are compatible with each other.

To create this sort of product, first read Select a Configuration Method to decide whether you want to use server-based eConfigurator, which is covered in this guide, or browser-based eConfigurator, which is covered in Siebel Interactive Designer Administration Guide.

If you decide to use server-based eConfigurator, you should read

Product Bundles

A product bundle is a group of products sold together. It cannot be customized.

For example, you might offer customers vacation packages that include airfare, hotel accommodations for a specific number of days, and specific special events, all for one price.

To create this sort of product, you should read:


 Product Administration Guide 
 Published: 23 June 2003