Getting Started With PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator

This chapter provides an overview of PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator business processes and discusses:

Click to jump to parent topicPeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator Business Processes

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator is a rules-based system that enables you to sell, order, and manufacture complex items and products. You can:

Note. You must set up business units, setIDs, items, and products before using PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator.

The following graphic lists the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator business processes:

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator business processes

We discuss these business processes in the business process chapters of this PeopleBook.

Click to jump to parent topicPeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator Integrations

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator is tightly integrated with the following PeopleSoft Enterprise applications:

We cover integration considerations in the implementation chapter of this PeopleBook.

Supplemental information about third-party application integration is on the PeopleSoft Customer Connection website.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Management

PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Management directly invokes PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator to take advantage of order management functions. Entering configured orders is not much different from entering normal orders. When a customer places an order for a configured item, the distribution configuration process begins when you click the Configure button on the order entry page. At that time, the system processes the distribution configuration rules and displays and validates all of the corresponding pages.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Cost Management

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator automatically generates standard configuration costs within PeopleSoft Enterprise Cost Management once configured production orders are created in the system. In addition, the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator is integrated into the standard PeopleSoft Enterprise Cost Management procedures—cost roll-up and updating production cost by cost type and cost version.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Manufacturing

The production configuration process takes the detailed configuration information captured during order entry in PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Management and sends requirements to PeopleSoft Enterprise Manufacturing. The production configuration rules enable you to dynamically specify the components and operation elements without having to create standard bills of materials or routings for each specific configuration. The production configuration process generates configured production IDs, component lists, operation lists, and configured costs. You can use the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator’s Production Comparison inquiry to manage changes to the configured sales orders once production is already in process.

In addition, you can generate production orders in PeopleSoft Enterprise Manufacturing directly without entering a sales order. This is a useful feature if you are not in a completely make-to-order environment, and you produce configured items for stock.

Finally, the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator can access master routings and bills of materials from PeopleSoft Enterprise Manufacturing. The PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator enables the use of any existing routings and or bills of material defined in PeopleSoft Enterprise Manufacturing. As previously mentioned, you can also create dynamic bills of material in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator leveraging any existing bills of material. After running the configuration process, you can use the Configured Cost Exploded Bill Of Material inquiry to view fully exploded and costed bills of material for configured items as well as their configured subassemblies.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Inventory

PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator identifies unique configurations in inventory for reservation, picking, and costing with configuration codes. These configuration codes tie to lot numbers within PeopleSoft Enterprise Inventory. You generally enter configured inventory by receiving a configured production ID. You can also enter it into the system through an inventory adjustment. You can then track configured inventory through the system by using the lot control features in PeopleSoft Enterprise Inventory.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Purchasing

The PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator can automatically generate purchase requisitions in PeopleSoft Enterprise Purchasing. It also can dynamically create product kits based on configuration rule definitions for fulfillment in PeopleSoft Enterprise Inventory and or PeopleSoft Enterprise Purchasing.

PeopleSoft Enterprise Planning

PeopleSoft Enterprise Demand Planning converts configured items along with their dynamic bills of material into dependent demand within the forecasting process. PeopleSoft Enterprise Supply Planning has full visibility to the configuration code and dynamic bills of material and routing for configured items and subassemblies.

PeopleSoft Enterprise CRM

The PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator is integrated into both the PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials and Supply Chain Management (FSCM) and PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) databases. Within the CRM database, the PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator integrates with the PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Capture and PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Capture Self-Service product offerings. Configured orders within PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Capture and PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Capture Self-Service within CRM can be seamlessly integrated with PeopleSoft Enterprise Order Management within FSCM with a single configuration rule set. In addition, PeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator provides a full publish and subscribe mechanism in order to facilitate the synchronization of all configuration setup records between PeopleSoft Enterprise Financials and Supply Chain Management (FSCM) databases and PeopleSoft Enterprise Customer Relationship Management (CRM) databases. The following application messages can be used to synchronize configuration data between FSCM and CRM databases:

See Synchronizing PeopleSoft Product Configuration Data.

Click to jump to parent topicPeopleSoft Enterprise Product Configurator Implementation

PeopleSoft Setup Manager enables you to review a list of setup tasks for the organization for the products that you are implementing. The setup tasks include the components that you must set up, listed in the order in which you must enter data into the component tables, and links to the corresponding PeopleBook documentation.

Other Sources of Information

In the planning phase of the implementation, take advantage of all PeopleSoft sources of information, including the installation guides, table-loading sequences, data models, and business process maps. A complete list of these resources appears in the preface in the PeopleSoft Enterprise Application Fundamentals for Financials, Enterprise Service Automation, and Supply Chain Management PeopleBook, with information about where to find the most current version of each.

See Also

PeopleSoft Enterprise Application Fundamentals PeopleBook Preface