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Roadmap for Creating Products with Components

A product with components has 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.

Before you create a product with components, perform the following task:

• Decide which rules to use for compatible products. You can define rules that specify which products are compatible by using configuration rules, compatibility rules, or product validation rules. To decide which to use, see When to Use Configuration, Compatibility, Eligibility, and Product Validation Rules.

If you decide to use Siebel Configurator, perform the following tasks:

1. Set up cache administration. You specify how product models will be cached during run time, in order to improve performance. For information about cache administration, see Performance Tuning Guide.
2. Create the product with components and the component products. You create these in the same way you create simple products, as described in Basic Product Administration. If the product with components or any component products have attributes, create them in the same way you create simple products with attributes, as described in Roadmap for Creating Simple Products with Attributes.
3. Define the structure of the product with components. You define the structure of the product with components by specifying which products are its components. See Designing Products with Components.
4. For special techniques for defining and managing products with components, see Managing Products with Components.
5. Decide whether to use the default user interface or create a custom user interface. For information about the default interface, see About Default and Custom Siebel Configurator User Interfaces.
6. Design the custom user interface. If you decide to create a custom interface, see Creating Custom Siebel Configurator User Interfaces. For more advanced methods of designing a custom interface, see Siebel Configurator UI Properties. and Siebel Configurator Web Templates.
7. Create constraints for the product with components. For most products with components, you must create constraints to define which components are compatible. For example, if the product with components is a computer, you must define constraints to specify which processors are compatible with which operating systems, and so on. To create simple constraints, see Configuration Constraints.

   For more advanced methods of creating constraints, you can perform the following tasks:

   • Designing Links. Links provide access to other types of information besides products. You can define links to fields in a business component, to the login name of the user, or to the current system date. This lets you write constraints that affect only certain login names, are conditioned on dates, or are conditioned on business component information. See Configuration Links.
   • Designing Resources. Resources keep track of configuration-related amounts in a customizable product. For example, you are designing a customizable product that is a computer. This product has several choices of chassis, each with a different number of card slots. Several of the components in this product are expansion cards that consume these slots. To keep track of the number of slots available you could define a resource called Slots Available. When the user selects a chassis, a constraint associated with the customizable product would add the number of slots in the chassis to a Slots Available resource. Thus, you can write constraints that monitor slot usage. See Configuration Resources.
   • Modifying the Configuration Constraint Templates. The Constraints view provides constraint templates that allow you to create a wide variety of configuration constraints. See Configuration Constraint Template Reference.
   • Writing Constraints using Siebel Configurator Rule Assembly Language. Rule Assembly Language (RAL) is for users who are more comfortable working in a programming environment rather than using templates. See Siebel Configurator Rule Assembly Language
8. Designing Siebel Configurator Scripts. Optionally, you can enhance the behavior of Siebel Configurator by writing scripts in the Siebel eScript or the Siebel VB language. Scripts allow you to add procedural logic to the configuration process. When the user selects certain items or does things like updating the shopping cart, you can use scripts to check the configuration, verify and adjust pricing, or forward information to other applications. See Siebel Configurator Scripts.
9. Testing Products with Components. After you have designed the product with components, user interface, and rules, you should test the product with components to make sure that it works with the products that are available now and in the future. See Testing Products and Using Workspace Projects.
10. Releasing Products with Components. After you have tested the product with components, you can release it to customers. See Releasing Products and Other Versioned Objects.
11. Set up cache administration. You specify how product models will be cached during run time, in order to improve performance. For information about cache administration, see Performance Tuning Guide.

For additional information about products with components, see:

• Siebel Configurator Technical Reference. This chapter includes information about a number of features that can be used by developers.
• Siebel Configurator in Release 6.x, 7.0 and 7.5. If you are upgrading from version 6 to version 7 of Siebel Configurator, read this chapter describing the differences between the products.