This chapter covers the following topics:
This chapter contains information on how to implement price lists and other pricing features for an Oracle iStore implementation.
Oracle iStore displays prices for site products in both the catalog pages and the shopping cart. All item prices are retrieved from price lists; thus, every Inventory item for sale in your sites must appear on at least one price list. You can create price lists in Oracle Order Management Suite's Basic Pricing module, which is included in your purchase of Oracle iStore. Using Oracle Advanced Pricing, a separately licensable product, you can enhance the range of pricing functionality in your sites. In addition, you can use qualifiers and modifiers to alter the list price of items based on specific parameters. By setting a profile option, you can specify whether the Pricing Engine retrieves site-specific price lists or retrieves the best price from any available price list.
Oracle iStore caches prices in the catalog for site-based price lists and guest users. In the shopping cart, which retrieves prices through Oracle Order Capture, prices are not cached.
Note that this guide contains summarized pricing information and data specifically related to Oracle iStore. For complete pricing information, consult the following guides:
Basic Pricing - Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual
Advanced Pricing - Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide
The following definitions of common pricing terms can assist your understanding of Oracle Pricing functionality.
Best Price: The best price is determined when the pricing engine searches through all qualifying price lists to find the best price for the customer (could either be lowest price or lowest precedence price). To use best price in Oracle iStore, set the IBE: Use Price List Associated with Specialty Site profile option to No.
Context: A data source used by Oracle Advanced Pricing to obtain attributes. For example, Oracle Advanced Pricing considers the customer order itself to be a context. Various attributes from the order, such as order date, can be used by Pricing to control the selection of a price or modifier.
List Price: The base price per unit of the item, item category, or service offered. You define the list price on a price list. All price adjustments are applied against the list price.
Note that through the use of the permission, IBE_VIEW_NET_PRICE, you can control whether B2B users see only List Price or also prices with discounts and net prices; see the appendix, Seeded User Data, for details.
Modifier: Modifiers enable you to set up price adjustments (for example, discounts and surcharges), benefits (for example, coupons), and freight and special charges that the pricing engine applies immediately to pricing requests or accrues for later disbursement.
Precedence: Used by Oracle Pricing to resolve Incompatibility. Precedence controls the priority of modifiers and price lists. If a customer qualifies for multiple modifiers that are incompatible with each other, precedence determines the discount that the customer is eligible for based on the precedence level of the modifier. The lowest level (lowest number) precedence receives the highest priority.
Pricing Event: A point in the process flow of a pricing line (for example, an order or a contract) at which a call is made to the pricing engine to fully or partially price the order.
Qualifier: A pricing attribute which the pricing engine uses to determine who can receive a particular price, discount, promotion, or benefit. Qualifiers and qualifier groups can be linked to price lists and modifiers.
Request Type: Used to identify the transaction system that calls the pricing engine for price calculations (for example, Oracle Order Management or Oracle Order Capture).
Selling Price: Price derived after applying price adjustments to the list price. In the Oracle iStore Customer Application, this can display as "Your Price" in the catalog.
Sourcing Rules: Sourcing rules are used by Oracle Pricing for binding attribute values for attributes defined in a qualifier or pricing context.
Using Basic Pricing a price list can contain:
Pricing formulas
Pricing agreements
Basic discounts
Freight and logistic charges
Using Advanced Pricing, a price list can contain:
Volume breaks
Item or item hierarchy structure
Simple or complex formulas
Dynamically calculated prices
Percentage, fixed and/or lump sum discounts and/or surcharges
Customized qualifiers
Qualifier sourcing rules
Deals
Promotions
Oracle iStore retrieves price list information in one of two scenarios, depending upon the value of the profile option, IBE: Use Price list Associated with Specialty Site.
If the profile option is set to Yes, Oracle iStore retrieves prices from the site-based price lists specified in the Site Administration Application Pricing page for four main user types: B2C, B2B, Guest, and Partners. This is also called site-based pricing. In this case, Site ID is passed to the Pricing Engine.
If the profile option is set to No, Oracle iStore passes a null price list, with Party ID, Account ID, and Site ID to the pricing engine. In this case, the pricing engine searches through all eligible price lists to determine the "best price" for which the user qualifies.
See the appendix, Profile Options, for more information on this profile option.
Note that when using this method, prices are not cached in the catalog -- therefore performance will diminish.
The only exception to this rule is for walk-in/guest users. Regardless of the value set for IBE: Use Price List Associated with Specialty Site, for walk-in users, the default price list is always determined by the price list set in the Site Administration UI. In addition, guest users always see the cached prices.
Note: Depending on the Incompatibility Resolve Code setup in the Event Phases, the pricing engine uses either the lowest price or the lowest precedence (lowest number) value per item to get the best price.
For details on other profile options used in the pricing process, see the following sections of the appendix, Profile Options,: "Customer UI Pricing Profile Options" and "Customer UI Mandatory Setup Profile Options".
Price lists are essential to ordering products because each item entered on an order must have a price, and item prices always come from some price list. Each price list contains basic list information and one or more pricing lines, price breaks, pricing attributes, qualifiers, and secondary price lists. Basic price list information includes the price list name, effective dates, currency, pricing controls, rounding factor, and shipping defaults, such as freight terms and freight carrier.
Price lists can be tied to modifiers and qualifiers, giving you the ability to offer discounts, promotions, and deals to your customers -- or to automatically add freight charges or surcharges to an order.
You can define the following types of prices on price lists:
Unit price: A fixed price
Percent price: A price which is a percent of the price of another item
Formula: Multiple pricing entities and constant values related by arithmetic operators. For example, you define the price of an item to be a percentage price of another price list line.
Price break: If the price of an item varies with the quantity ordered, you can define bracket pricing or price breaks.
In addition to single-currency price lists, Oracle iStore supports price lists in multiple currencies. Multiple-currency price lists reduce maintenance costs if you are doing business in more than one currency, because all items in all currencies can be contained and maintained within a single source price list.
Following are some key points of multiple-currency price list support:
When the merchant creates a price list, he specifies one base currency for the price list, and any number of converted currencies. All of the converted currencies use the base currency as their basis.
In Oracle iStore, when a pricing request is made, the pricing engine converts the price on the base price list to the ordering currency and returns the new price in the ordering currency to the Customer Application.
Oracle iStore supports catalog caching of both prices in the base currency and the other currencies on the price list.
When a user changes the currency in the Customer Application, the catalog gets refreshed with the prices in the selected currency (known as session currency), and the shopping cart also is re-priced in the session currency. This scenario works both in site-based pricing, as well as best pricing.
In the Site Administration Application Search and Select: Currencies page, Oracle iStore retrieves not only base currencies, but also the converted-to currencies based on the currency conversion setup, providing multi-currency price lists are enabled.
In the Site Administration Application Search and Select: Price Lists page, Oracle iStore retrieves all price lists which have the selected currency either as a base currency or converted-to currency, providing multi-currency price lists are enabled.
The Global Bin is used in the Customer Application to allow switching of currencies -- see the chapter, Implementing Initial Customer Application Pages, for more information on the Global Bin.
Important: Once you convert your data structure to enable multi-currency price lists, you cannot revert back to single-currency price lists.
To set up multiple-currency price lists:
Ensure that each currency you plan to use has been set up. See the Oracle General Ledger User Guide for more information.
Set the Oracle Pricing profile option, QP: Multi-Currency Installed, to Yes at the site level.
Run the Oracle Pricing concurrent program to convert existing single-currency price lists to multi-currency: Run (one time) the concurrent program, Update Price Lists with Multi-Currency Conversion Criteria. The program creates a currency conversion list for each combination of price list currency and rounding factor, and attaches a currency conversion list to each price list and agreement. This is a mandatory step, since without this the pricing engine cannot use the current price lists as multi-currency price lists.
Note: You only need to run this program if you are not implementing a fresh install of Oracle Applications.
Set the profile option, QP: Multi-Currency Usage, to Yes at iStore application level.
Note: Ensure that other Oracle applications which use price lists and which you are integrating with also have the same setting for this profile option.
Create or update a base currency price list and attach the conversion list to it. In Oracle Pricing, set up Currency Conversion Rates (Price Lists > Multi-Currency Conversion Setup) and, optionally, currency specific markup/markdown equations.
For information about how to set up price lists, see the "Creating Price Lists" section, in this chapter.
After you set up price lists, you must assign price lists to specific sites using the Oracle iStore Site Administration Application. Assigning price lists is covered in the chapter, Implementing Site Management.
Refer to the Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide for additional information on the pricing functionality described above.
Pricing qualifiers can modify an item's price based on various criteria, such as site name, item number, or quantity. Once the qualifiers are set up and associated to a price list, in most cases, the price change is automatically applied by the pricing engine, either in the Customer Application catalog or the shopping cart.
After you tie qualifiers to price lists, the attributes are used to pass specific data (for example, information about a customer, an item, or an order) to the pricing engine, and then to apply the price change. Qualifiers also can be tied to modifiers to provide List Price/Your Price discounts. In addition, pricing qualifiers can be grouped into qualifier groups and these groups also can be tied to price lists.
See the following sections within this chapter for more information:
"Pricing Qualifiers Supported by Oracle iStore"
"Oracle iStore Site as Pricing Qualifier"
For detailed information on pricing qualifiers, see the Oracle Advanced Pricing User Guide.
All of the pricing qualifiers that are supported by Oracle iStore are supported at the shopping cart level -- but in the catalog pages, a only subset these supported attributes are available to the pricing engine.
The following table shows the pricing attributes supported in the Customer Application. The table also shows the context for the attributes, whether they are supported in the catalog in addition to the shopping cart, and whether they are supported at item level (also known as line level) or cart level (also known as order or header level). Remember, all of the following are supported in the shopping cart; some are only supported in the catalog. Customer contexts are supported in a Best Price scenario only.
| Context | Attribute | Catalog Support? | Supported Level(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Customer | Customer Name | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Customer Class | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | GSA | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Account Type | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Party ID | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Sales Channel | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Agreement Name | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Agreement Type | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Bill To (site) | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Invoice to Party Site | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Ship To (site) | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Ship To Party Site | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Customer | Site Use | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Item | Item Number (inventory_item_id) | Yes | Item level only |
| Item | ALL_ITEMS (all items being priced) | Yes | Item level only |
| Item | Item Category (determined by inventory_item_id) | No | Item level only |
| Item | iStore Section | No | Item level only |
| Item | Segments 1-20 (key item flexfield segments) | No | Item level only |
| Minisite | Minisite_ID | Yes | Item and Cart level |
| Modifier List | Price List | Yes | Item and Cart levels |
| Modifier List | Promotion Number (Promo Code) | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Order | Line Category | No | Item level only |
| Order | Line Type | No | Item level only |
| Order | Customer PO | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Order | Order Category | No | Item level only |
| Order | Order Type | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Order | Request Date | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Order | Pricing Date | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Order | Shippable Flag | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Pricing Attribute | Parent List Price | No | Item level only |
| Pricing Attribute | Model ID | Yes | Item level only |
| Segment | Market Segment | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Segment | Target Segment | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Terms | Shipping Terms | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Terms | Payment Terms | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Territory | Sales Territories | No | Item and Cart levels |
| Volume | Line Volume | Yes | Item level only |
| Volume | Line Weight | Yes | Item level only |
| Volume | Order Amount (sum of the list prices on all active order lines) | No | Cart level only |
| Volume | Item Amount | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Item Quantity | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period1 Item Quantity | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period2 Item Quantity | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period3 Item Quantity | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period1 Item Amount | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period2 Item Amount | No | Item level only |
| Volume | Period3 Item Amount | No | Item level only |
You can use an Oracle iStore site as a pricing qualifier, with the following features:
Different sites can have different prices, discounts, or promotions for the same Inventory item, while utilizing the same price lists
Supported in single-organization as well as multiple-organization scenarios
Supported in both best price and site-based price list scenarios
Using site as a qualifier is supported at cart and item levels, and is supported both in the catalog and cart/checkout phases of an order.
You set up this qualifier in pricing just as you would any other qualifier, selecting Minisite as the Context and Minisite_ID as the Attribute. Minisite_ID will be the Site ID of the site.
To enable the use of site as a pricing qualifier, you must also set the profile option, IBE: Use Site As Pricing Qualifier, to Yes, at the iStore application level. The default value is No.
Here are some other guidelines to keep in mind:
With the exception of merged items, qualifier prices are based on the price list in the site where the item was added to the cart.
In a multiple-site situation, if IBE: Merge Shopping Cart Lines profile is enabled, Oracle iStore will merge the lines and apply the price of the product from the site most recently accessed. See the chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders, chapter for more information on this profile option.
B2B users must have the IBE_VIEW_NET_PRICE permission in their user role in order to see discount prices. See the appendix, Seeded User Data, for details on this permission.
If a user accesses the shopping cart from any other site except where it was created, the prices in the shopping cart will not be updated by the pricing engine unless the user performs some activity which causes cart to get updated/activated. See chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders, for more information about how a cart can be updated.
In the case of site-published quotes that can be modified by a user, if no site name is known at item level, the site name will be populated at cart level based on the site where the quote was published.
The following use cases can aid your understanding of this functionality.
Use Case 1
Business Justification: Site for Web specials
Setup: One operating unit (OU), one site
Discount is defined as a modifier and site name as a qualifier defined in Pricing.
User Flow:
User adds items to shopping cart from catalog.
All items use the same price list (site-based price list) except for the ones for which any pricing agreements have been applied in the shopping cart.
The site name is stored at the item (line) level. Item-level site name is passed to Pricing as a qualifier, and discounts will be applied as set up in Pricing.
Use Case 2
Business Justification: One price list (potentially); different discount schedules per site
Setup: Multiple OUs, one site per OU
Discount is defined as a modifier and site name as a qualifier defined in Pricing.
User Flow: Same as in Use Case 1.
Use Case 3
Business Justification: Site for specials: one regular site and one refurbished site. Refurbished site has X percent off. User can place items from both sites in one order. Promotion goods are applicable to selected sites. Site can be used as a qualifier, where certain promotions are not valid in some sites (e.g., a buy-1-get-1 free promotion may be allowed in B2C site but not in B2B site).
Setup: Multiple sites per OU
Discount is defined as a modifier and site name as a qualifier defined in Pricing.
User Flow:
User adds items to cart from Site A, which offers 10 percent off.
Site name is populated at cart (header) as well as item (line) level. Site price list is used for all lines, unless a pricing agreement is specified.
User adds items to cart from Site B (zero percent off).
iStore passes the item (line) level site name and Site B price list to Pricing, which results in 10 percent off on items which were from Site A and zero percent off on products from Site B.
Preconditions ---
Price lists can be same/different; all items can be on one or both price lists.
Site A has 10 percent off, for Site B, either it didn't qualify for any discounts or there were no modifiers setup for it
Items published are mutually exclusive to Site A and Site B.
Use Case 4
User Flow ---
User adds items X1 and X2 to cart from Site A, which offers 10 percent off.
Site name is populated at cart (header) as well as item (line) level. Site price list is used for all lines (unless pricing agreement is specified).
User adds X1 and Y1 to cart from Site B (offering 5 percent off) and Merge lines in shopping cart profile is set to Yes.
Assume the price is different in both the sites for the X1. iStore will pass (via ASO) to QP: Site B minisite for the combined X1s (hence, quantity is 2).
User will see following:
--X1, quantity 2, Site B, price list 2, discount of 5 percent
--X2, quantity 1, Site A, price list 2, discount of 10 percent
--Y1, quantity 1, Site B, price list 2, discount of 5 percent
Preconditions ---
All items are on both price lists.
Site A has 10 percent off, Site B has 5 percent off
Use Case 5
Business Justification --- Sites with "best pricing" options
All the above scenarios are valid. Users can add items to shopping cart; all items can have the different/same item level price list. In this case, discount will be calculated based on site from where the item was added. In this scenario, guest user will see list price in catalog, as best price is calculated after the user signs in.
Modifiers are pricing actions that drive your pricing processes in addition to price lists, formulas, and agreements. Modifiers can adjust net price either up or down. Modifiers enable you to set up price adjustments (for example, discounts and surcharges), benefits and promotions (for example, coupons) and freight and special charges that the pricing engine applies immediately to pricing requests or accrues for later disbursement.
To create a price list that contains a discount, use the Discount List Modifier. This enables you to display a different price for List Price/Retail Price and Your Price in the Customer Application. These prices appear next to the product in the catalog pages. The value for List Price is from the basic price list, while the value for Your Price is the basic price list plus the associated discount list modifier. For steps detailing how to set up a 0discount modifier, see the section, "Creating Price Lists with Discount Modifiers", within this chapter.
Pricing modifier functionality also can be used to set up promotion codes in Oracle iStore. See the chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders, and the Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual for complete details.
Order Management Suite's Basic Pricing module includes discount list modifier functionality. Although the discount is created using basic pricing, it must contain specific attributes to function properly in Oracle iStore.
For more information, see the Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual and the Oracle Advanced Pricing documentation.
Setting up promotion codes for Oracle iStore involves the following high-level process:
Set up promotion code in Oracle Order Management: Set up a modifier of type "Promotion". The modifier must also be marked as "Automatic" and "Ask for". See the Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide, "Modifier Type Setup" section, for more information.
Set iStore promotion code profile option: The profile option, IBE: Use Promotion Code, enables/disables the appearance of the Promotion Codes link in shopping cart. For more information on this profile option, see the appendix, Profile Options, in this guide. More information on cart behavior and promotion codes can be found in the chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders.
Ensure setting of B2B user permission: B2B users must have the IBE_VIEW_NET_PRICE permission to use promotion code functionality.
Promotional goods (PRG) modifiers allow you to automatically add buy-one-get-one-free items when users purchase another item. They also allow you to offer discount products in your sites.
The following PRG terminology may aid your use of this feature:
Promotional Good (PRG): The item that is automatically added to the cart if the qualifying item is added to the cart
Qualifying Item(s): The item that must be added to the cart in order for the PRG to be received
In addition to the Oracle Pricing setups, the following are the steps/guidelines specific to Oracle iStore:
Ensure Pricing Event Phase: When setting up PRGs, ensure that they are in the pricing All Lines Adjustment event phase.
Modifier Level Setting: Be sure to set the modifier at the Line Group level. If set at the Line Level, when a customer splits a qualifying item, the quantities of the promotional item and the qualifying item will not remain consistent.
Point or Range Setup: Implementers can set up the PRG modifier in Oracle Pricing in two ways:
Point --- Irrespective of quantity of qualifying item, always give x quantity of PRG.
Range --- Depending on quantity of the qualifying item, give y quantity of PRG. For example: If a user buys item A, he will get 2 of PRG item B. If the user buys 2 of item A, he will get 4 of PRG item B.
Add PRG Information to Products or Sections: By default, the Oracle iStore catalog does not differentiate between promotional/qualifying goods and non-promotional/non-qualifying goods in terms of how these items display. Therefore, if you wish customers to recognize a PRG/qualifying item in the catalog, you must manually tell customers that such an item exists. One way to do this is to add the PRG/qualifying information directly into the item name or description. Another way would be to create a specific section populated with the applicable PRG/qualifying items and then label the section accordingly.
The following rules, guidelines, and behavior apply to PRG functionality with Oracle iStore:
Display in carts: PRGs are always the last set of line items in the cart, with a visual indicator that resembles a price tag. When a user does a mouse-over, the PRG displays its information -- for example, "Promotional item for qualifying item 1, item 2". PRG items appear in saved carts, shared carts, and order review pages with the visual indicator and mouse-over information.
Order Tracker display: In Order Tracker, PRG items appear as any other item.
Qualifying products: Qualifying products can be an item, item category, or all items. Merchants can define a single qualifying item as an item, an item category defined in Inventory, or any item added to the shopping cart.
Ability to get PRG by having sum of quantity of qualifying items in cart: The customer can add qualifying items from the catalog to the cart multiple times with different quantities. The sum of the quantity of qualifying items determines if the PRG criteria are met or not. If yes, the PRG is added to the cart.
When are PRG items added to the cart: If the modifier is set to be automatic in Oracle Pricing, then as soon as user adds the qualifying item to the cart, a new cart line is created for the PRG. If the modifier is set up as "ask", then only when the end user provides the promotion code is the PRG added to the cart.
To enable the Promotion Code link in the Your Shopping Cart page, set the profile option, IBE: Use Promotion Code. Note that in addition to any required merchant setups, B2B users must have the IBE_VIEW_NET_PRICE permission in their user roles to access promotion code functionality.
Add/Remove promotional goods from cart as quantity of qualifying items changes: If the quantity of the qualifying item is changed, then the PRG is added/deleted as per the definition in the Oracle Pricing modifier screen. See Scenario 4, under the section, "PRG Use Cases", below, for an example.
Configured items as qualifying items: When the pricing engine is called from Oracle Configurator, PRGs are not returned to the cart at that time. When the configured item is a qualifying item, only when the user completes the configuration session are the configuration items added to the cart. At this time, a full pricing call is made. The PRG will not be part of the configuration, but will be a separate line.
Configured items as PRGs: Users can add a qualifying item to the cart (for example, flowers). A PRG (for example., a birthday card) can be added to the cart, and the user can select Reconfigure to add text to the card; however, he cannot delete or add new components to the configuration. If the user adds a qualifying product, and a configurable product is the PRG, the user can reconfigure the product and get x percent off the whole configuration.
Price list of PRG line: Merchants can select the price list for the PRG in the Define Modifier screen. The price list for the cart line is the price list set for the PRG in Oracle Pricing. The list price on the cart is the price from this price list. No issues arise with site-based pricing, nor with best pricing, as Oracle iStore always uses the price list as defined in the modifier definition.
Restrict changes to item information: Customers cannot change the item, quantity, or UOM of the PRG line.
Pricing agreements: Oracle iStore does not apply any pricing agreements to PRG lines. Since pricing agreements can be attached to commitments, customers cannot pay for PRGs with commitments. Oracle iStore does not show PRGs in the pricing agreements screen in the shopping cart, nor in the commitments screen from the billing page during checkout.
Deletion of PRG items: Customers can delete PRG items, just as with any other item in the cart. Once the user has deleted the PRG, it will not automatically appear again. The customer must delete the qualifying line and then add the same again to retrieve the PRG item again. However, if the user deletes the PRG for a qualifying line and adds a new qualifying line, and the profile option, IBE: Merge Shopping Cart Lines, is No, then the PRG will also get added to the qualifying item.
Automatic removal of PRGs: If a customer deletes the qualifying item, the PRG is automatically removed from the cart. If more than one required qualifying item exists and the user deletes any of them, the PRG also is automatically removed from the cart.
Available To Promise (ATP) checks: Customers can do ATP checks on PRG items.
Descriptive Flexfields (DFFs): PRG items can be used with DFFs.
Entering bill-to information: Customers can enter item-level bill-to information for PRGs.
Ability to enter line-level ship to information: Customers can enter line-level ship to information for PRGs, provided the functionality is set up.
Returns: Customers can search for and select items which were received as PRGs. For a referenced return, Oracle Order Management doesn't enforce that the PRG line must be returned with the buy line. Also, Oracle Order Management allows the return of PRG lines. Oracle iStore allows users to return qualifying items as well as PRGs, providing merchants have set up the functionality appropriately. Merchants can determine their own rules for returning PRGs and qualifying items. Users can order qualifying as well as promotional goods and may need to return one or more items. Depending upon merchant policy of returns, there can be various scenarios.
Viewing tax information: Customers can view line-level tax information with PRGs.
Promotions: Cart-level adjustments can be applied to PRGs. Item-level adjustments will be applied to PRGs only if they are defined in a pricing phase with the Freeze Override flag as Yes. Currently, line-level adjustments are done as a result of deep linking.
Service items: Merchant can define a service item as the qualifying good for a serviceable item that is the PRG. However, as Oracle Pricing does not currently support it, merchants cannot offer service items as the PRGs in an order.
Shopping lists: PRG items cannot be copied to shopping lists.
Express Checkout: If a user does an Express Checkout for a qualifying item, the related PRG will also get ordered and will be visible on the Express Checkout pending orders page.
Merging items: The profile option, IBE: Merge Shopping Cart Lines, is ignored for PRG items. PRG lines are read-only and can have prices different from normal lines -- therefore, PRG lines and non-PRG lines items for the same item are not merged.
Validate PRG quantity in cart as set up in PRG modifier: Customers can add qualifying items to a cart. Based on the setup in Oracle Pricing for the PRG (either for point or range) the correct quantity for promotion good will be shown in the cart. The same check occurs when the items in the cart get merged.
Restrict PRGs by sites: Merchants can set up some promotions to not apply in some sites. Site as a pricing qualifier can be used in this scenario.
Expired modifiers: PRGs are deleted from the cart if the modifier is expired. If a user adds a qualifying item to the shopping cart and a PRG also is added, but later the user updates the cart and the PRG is no longer active, the PRG is deleted from the cart.
Currency re-pricing: On a change of currency, PRG items also are re-priced in the new currency. For example, a user adds items to a cart with a session currency of USD. When the user changes the currency to Euro, all items in the cart (including PRGs) will be re-priced in the new currency.
Navigation to catalog: PRG items expose a hyperlink that allows the user to navigate to the catalog.
The following use cases can aid your understanding of the PRG feature:
Scenario 1: Buy one computer, receive one free mouse:
If the customer adds a computer to the cart, as soon as the pricing engine is called, a new line is created for the free mouse item. The user should not be able to change the item, quantity, or UOM of the PRG.
The price list for the line should be the price list set for the PRG in Oracle Pricing. The list price on the cart should be the price from this price list.
The user should be able to delete the PRG.
Any freight charges for the PRG should be returned by pricing and added to the cart.
If the user deletes the computer, the mouse should automatically be removed from the cart.
Scenario 2: Buy one computer and one keyboard and receive one free monitor:
All requirements from Scenario 1 are valid for this scenario. In addition, if the user deletes either the computer or the keyboard, the monitor should be automatically removed from the cart.
Scenario 3: Buy a telephone and one year of phone service and receive one free cell phone:
All requirements from Scenario 1 are valid for this scenario. Currently, the pricing engine doesn't support attaching services to PRGs, and Oracle iStore currently only allows users to buy services for a serviceable item with a reference to an existing order line. Hence, merchants can implement this functionality as, "Buy 1 computer and 1 year extended warranty" and get a printer for a 50 percent discount. In this case, the computer and extended the warranty together are the qualifying items.
Note that Oracle iStore must have the quantity of the qualifying item and promotion item the same.
Scenario 4: Add/Remove promotional goods from cart as quantity of qualifying items changes:
For example, if the merchant has set up the following:
Qualifying item: Computer (Quantity: 2)
PRG item: Printer (Quantity: 1)
Steps:
The user adds one computer to the shopping cart.
The user increases the quantity of computers to two. Printer gets added to cart.
User decreases the quantity of computers to one. Printer gets deleted from the cart.
User increases the quantity of computers to two. Printer gets added to cart.
Pricing agreements define the price list of the items in the cart and provide mechanisms to derive discounts. Agreements can be universal or customer-specific -- however, Oracle iStore does not support universal agreements unless previously added to a quote through an integration with Oracle Quoting.
Oracle iStore makes pricing agreements available as an action from the shopping cart. The Pricing Agreements action retrieves the Pricing Agreements page, where customers can assign available pricing agreements at the cart or item level. For information on how agreements display in the shopping carts, see the chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders.
Consider these guidelines as you implement pricing agreements:
When a pricing agreement is retrieved in the Customer Application, only the price list attribute is passed in with the agreement. In addition, agreements will only display which are in the customer's session currency and Account ID.
Each pricing agreement can only have one price list assigned to it. However, one price list can be linked to multiple agreements.
Oracle iStore supports two types of agreements:
Standard Agreements: Standard Agreements use standard price lists. Price list lines are set up and maintained through the Price List setup form. Use Standard Agreements to define special terms and conditions that are defaulted onto the order, but that use prices available to other orders. Standard Agreements can be generic or can be specific to a customer or customer group.
Pricing Agreements: Pricing Agreements use Agreement Price Lists. These price lists are set up and maintained through the Agreements form. Use Pricing Agreements to set up special pricing arrangements with either a customer or a group of customers. This type of agreement also supports special terms and conditions that are defaulted onto the order.
B2B users must have the IBE_USE_PRICING_AGREEMENT and IBE_VIEW_NET_PRICE permissions to use agreements.
For information on implementing pricing agreements, see the Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual .
B2B customers can select pricing agreements in a shopping cart at item level. To enable item-level agreements for B2B users, set the profile option, IBE: Use Line Agreements, to Yes at iStore application level.
If a B2B user is assigned the permission, IBE_USE_PRICING_AGREEMENT, and the profile option, IBE: Use Line Agreements, is set to Yes, the user can set cart and item-level agreements.
Note that service items and promotional items are not candidates for item-level agreements.
If a pricing agreement is assigned at the item level, the price will be retrieved by the corresponding price list. Otherwise, Oracle iStore will use the price list associated to the pricing agreement assigned at the cart level.
In a B2B scenario, users can use commitments to complete the billing process. To enable commitments in your sites, set the profile option, IBE: Use Commitments, to Yes at the iStore application level.
Commitments can be associated with an agreement. Thus, the agreement and corresponding price list can get pulled for the line, even if users do not have permission and the agreement profile is turned off. If those are off, then users will not be able to set agreements on the commitment page, but the agreements tied to commitments will still be pulled in, and so will the corresponding price list.
The Customer Account Price Lists feature allows implementers to display, in the Customer Application catalog, products and prices from price lists tied to a customer. This feature is implemented as an iStore profile option, along with Oracle Pricing setups.
Following is the functional flow for catalog logic when using the customer account price lists feature:
If the customer account profile option is Yes and the price list can be located, the application retrieves and caches the account-level price list, and displays these prices in the catalog.
However, if the price list cannot be located, the application checks the value of the site-based price lists profile, IBE: Use Price List Associated with Specialty Site.
If the site-based price lists profile is Yes, the application retrieves and caches the price list specified for the site, and displays these prices in the catalog. If it cannot retrieve this price list, the application sets the price list to null, and no prices are retrieved.
If the site-based price lists profile is No, the application sets the price list to null, and no prices are retrieved.
Use the following steps to implement customer account price lists:
Step 1 - Set Profile Option
Step 2 - Link Customer to Price List
The profile option, IBE: Use Customer Account Price List, controls whether the customer account price lists feature is available to the runtime catalog. Set at site level to Yes to use the feature. The default value is null, which is treated as No.
Note that specific behavior is exhibited when using this profile option with the site-based price lists profile option, IBE: Use Price List Associated with Specialty Site. See the following table for more information.
| IBE: Use Price List Associated with Specialty Site is. . . | And IBE: Use Customer Account Price List is. . . | Effective Price List will be. . . |
|---|---|---|
| Yes or Null | Yes | Customer account price list if existing, otherwise, site-based price list |
| Yes or Null | No or Null | Site-based price list |
| No | Yes | Customer account price list |
| No | No or Null | Best price from Pricing Engine |
Note: Best price search should be enabled only when both of the above profile options are set to No. For other combinations of the above two profile option values, best price search is not supported and should not be enabled.
Steps
Set up a price list.
Link a customer to the price list. Refer to the Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide for steps.
Bounce the middle-tier and Web Cache servers.
This section contains quick steps for creating price lists. See the pricing documentation listed in this section's Reference area for complete information.
Prerequisite
Required currencies and languages are installed. See the chapter, Verify Mandatory Dependencies, and the Oracle General Ledger User Guide.
Steps
Log in to Oracle Forms as a user with access to the Pricing menus and navigate to the Price List Setup menu.
Navigate to the Price List form and enter required values. Use the points below as a guide; for complete information, see the Oracle Order Management and Oracle Pricing documentation.
Price List Name: Use a name that reflects the site implementation. For example, VISION_US_PL.
Description: Include a short description of the price list. For example, Euro price list for VISION_US implementation.
Currency: Choose a default currency. For example, choose DOL for the VISION_US_PL.
Multi-Currency Conversion: If multiple-currency price lists have been implemented, select the conversion price list for the price list you are creating.
Navigate to the List Lines tab and add products to the price list:
Enter Items in the Product Context field.
Search for and select products in the Product Value field.
Enter Prices in the Value field.
Save your work.
Guidelines
Remember, if you are using different price lists for different sites, you should ensure that all items are listed on all price lists being used across your instance. Pricing errors will occur if a user places an item in a cart in one site, navigates to another site, and attempts to check out with an item which is not on the price list of the site where he is checking out.
If you set up a price list to be operating unit specific, be sure to associate this price list only to sites whose associated customer responsibilities are linked to the OU where the price list is enabled.
Reference
Basic Pricing - Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual
Advanced Pricing - Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide
This section contains quick steps for creating price lists with discount modifiers. See the pricing documentation listed in this section's Reference area for complete information.
Prerequisites
Required currencies and languages are installed. See the chapter, Verify Mandatory Dependencies, and the Oracle General Ledger User Guide.
Price list for discounts must contain:
Product Attribute value - ALL_ITEMS
Default currency reflecting the currency of site implemented
Steps
Log in to Oracle Forms as a user with access to the Pricing menus.
Navigate to the Define Modifier Form.
In the Main tab, enter the following fields:
In the Type field, enter Discount List.
In the Name field, enter a user-friendly name.
In the Currency field, choose a default currency for the modifier.
Check Active and Automatic.
In the Modifiers Summary tab, enter the following values:
In the Level field, choose Line.
In the Modifier Type field, choose Discount.
In the Start Date field, pick the start date that applies.
Check Automatic.
In the Pricing Phase field, choose List Line Adjustment.
In the Product Attribute field, choose ALL_ITEMS.
In the Volume type field, choose Item Amount.
In the Break Type field, choose Point.
In the Operator field, choose Between.
In the UOM field, choose Ea.
In the Discounts/Charges tab, enter the following values:
In the Formula field, choose Handling.
In the Application Method field, choose Percent.
In the Value field, enter your discount percentage amount.
For example, enter 10.
Save your work.
After creating the pricing modifier, to generate and display the correct prices, run the pricing concurrent program, Build Attribute Mapping Rules. Bounce the Apache server after the concurrent program completes.
After running the Build Attribute Mapping Rules concurrent program, the price list is available in the Site Administration UI. Associate the discounted price list to a site. For more information, see the chapter, Implementing Site Management.
Reference
Basic Pricing - Oracle Order Management Implementation Manual
Advanced Pricing - Oracle Advanced Pricing Implementation Guide