This chapter covers the following topics:
This chapter describes the integration of Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting.
Oracle Quoting enables simple, secure creation and management of customer quotes across all sales and interaction channels. Organizations can propose product solutions and negotiate prices, while enforcing consistent business rules throughout the sales cycle.
Users can create quotes using modifiable templates, add and configure complex products, and perform real-time global availability checks. Users can accept product trade-ins, assign sales credits, and manually adjust prices. Quoting integration with Oracle Sales Contracts allows users to negotiate a quote with a sales contract.
Oracle Quoting is available with an HTML and a Forms user interface. Oracle Quoting-HTML is integrated with Oracle Sales Online and Oracle Quoting-Forms with Oracle TeleSales.
Set up Oracle Quoting according to the latest version of the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide.
Note: Oracle iStore uses Oracle Order Capture APIs to integrate with Oracle Order Management and Oracle Receivables. See the Oracle Order Capture API Guide for complete details.
You can integrate Oracle iStore with Oracle Quoting to allow:
Sales Assistance: See the chapter, Implementing Customer Assistance.
Terms and Conditions: See the chapter, Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Sales Contracts.
Published Quotes: See the "Quote Publishing" section, below.
Quote Sharing: See the chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders.
Sales representatives can create quotes in Oracle Quoting and publish them to Oracle iStore specialty sites. Oracle iStore customers can then view, alter (if this functionality is enabled), and place the quotes as orders.
Note: There are two columns in the Quotes page (accessible through the Cart global icon) that display important information for the user:
Updateable: In order for this column to display, the profile option, IBE: Allow Update for Draft Quotes, must be Yes (see the section, "Allowing Customers to Update Published Quotes", below). Whether this column displays a Yes or No value depends upon the quote status and the user role. If this column displays a Yes value, it means the quote is in an updateable status (i.e., Draft status ).
Orderable: If this column displays Yes, it means that quote is in a status that allows to the user to place the quote as an order -- i.e., there must be an available quote status transition from the current quote status to Order Submitted.
In both cases, the value of the columns is based on the status of the cart/quote and the permissions of the user (his role on the quote as well as which permission he has.
To publish a quote all of the following conditions must be met:
Quotes can be published to any specialty site. However, the user to whom the quote is published must be able to access the specialty site where the quote is published.
The quote is in a status that allows updating by the sales representative.
The quote to be published is in the highest version.
The quote is not in Ordered or Inactive status. In order for a customer to view the quote, the quote must be in Published status.
The quote is not expired.
The quote has a quote name.
A specialty site exists to which the quote can be published and the iStore user who will view the quote has the appropriate responsibility to access the site.
Only customers who are registered (and thus in the FND_USER table) can view published quotes in Oracle iStore. If the customer is an individual (B2C) user, the quote is published to the customer. If the customer is an organization (B2B user), the quote is published to the customer contact. There must be a customer contact for an organization, or the quote cannot be published.
If the customer or customer contact is not an FND_USER, the required username field on the Oracle Quoting Publish page will be blank. The username input by the sales representative and the system generated password are e-mailed to the customer or customer contact by the Quoting application.
The payment type and shipping method must be valid for the site where the quote is being published. See the section, "API-Level Validation of Site Settings", below.
Note: If any of these conditions are missing, the quote will not be visible to the customer, although the published flag in Quoting will indicate publication. See the Oracle Quoting documentation for more information.
Before a sales representative is allowed to complete the publishing of a quote to a specialty site, Oracle Quoting calls an Oracle iStore API which validates whether the following is enabled in the site where the quote is being published:
Shipping Method: The quote's shipping method must be valid for the target site.
Payment Type: The quote's payment method must be valid for the target site.
PaymentThreshold: If Payment Threshold functionality has been enabled, the API checks to be sure that the site contains payment-threshold-allowed payment types (unless the sold-to contact is excluded from the threshold restriction via the permission).
An error message will be returned and the quote will not published if invalid parameters are found.
The following is the business flow for Oracle iStore Web-published quotes:
Sales representative uses Oracle Quoting to Web Publish a quote.
When requesting publication, the sales representative can select from the known e-mail addresses for the customer or contact, and can enter a new customer e-mail if necessary.
An Oracle Quoting workflow event sends the customer an e-mail with a direct link to the quote details.
In Oracle iStore, the user accesses the quote in the Cart > My Quotes subtab. The customer can also view the quote by using the View Quotes link in Welcome Bin.
At any time, the sales representative can make changes to the quote that are visible to the user --- but only as long as the quote is not ordered. If the quote has been approved, the sales representative cannot change anything on the quote -- the quote is read only. The sales representative can unpublish the quote at any time.
User reviews the quote. He can check out with the quote only if the quote status allows it. The quote remains accessible to the customer only as long as the quote remains in Publish status.
Users also can share quotes, if this functionality is enabled. See chapter, Implementing Carts and Orders, for more details.
From the Review Order Details and Confirm page, the user can:
Make payment type modifications.
Request sales assistance --- See the chapter, Implementing Customer Assistance, for more information on the Sales Assistance process.
Place the quote as an order. Note that B2B users must have the IBE_CHECKOUT permission to view the Checkout button, and the IBE_CREATE_ORDER permission to view the Place Order button.
Review or reject Terms and Conditions (if implemented). Note that if a sales representative publishes a quote to Oracle iStore with no T&Cs attached, and the customer places an order with the quote, the default contract associated with the site will be attached to the sales order (assuming that there is a default contract associated with the site).
For other than payment type changes, the customer must contact the sales representative to modify the web published version of the quote. This can be done using the Request Sales Assistance functionality.
Exception: If your implementation allows customers to update quotes, then the customer will be able to modify the published quote.
From Oracle Quoting, sales representatives can edit, re-publish, un-publish, and inactivate quotes.
Sales representatives can also view Oracle iStore carts that have been converted to quotes in Oracle Quoting when customers request sales assistance.
Note that when the customer places an order with a published quote the T&Cs attached to the quote get passed to Oracle Order Management.
See the chapter, Integrating Oracle iStore with Oracle Sales Contracts, for details about T&Cs functionality.
The following profile options impact the Oracle iStore-Oracle Quoting integration.
IBE: iStore Non Secure URL: This profile option must be set to enable Web Publishing functionality. It specifies the base URL for the non-secure server (HTTP).
IBE: Use Quote Publishing: Enables customer access to quotes from two areas in the Customer UI:
Enables the View Quotes link in the Welcome Bin on sites' home pages.
Enables the Quotes subtab within the Cart menu in the Customer Application.
This profile option defaults to No if not set.
ASO: Default Quote Status: Set this to Store Draft at iStore application level.
ASO: Enable Web Publishing: If set to Yes, quotes can be published to Oracle iStore specialty sites. Note that this should be at the site level or the Oracle Quoting application level.
See the appendix, Profile Options, for more information on the iStore profile options. See the Oracle Quoting Implementation Guide for descriptions and explanations of all Oracle Quoting profile options.
By default, customers are only able to update payment information on a quote published in the Customer Application. To allow site customers to perform most of the normal cart actions with a quote, set the profile option, IBE: Allow Update for Draft Quotes, to Yes at the site level. See the appendix, Profile Options, for more information.
Note: Be sure to bounce the server after making site-level profile changes.
See also: "Update Quote Process Flow" in the chapter, Customer Application Process Flows
Keep the following guidelines in mind for published quote functionality:
Only Web published quotes in Draft status are candidates for this functionality.
Customers will be allowed to update a published quote until the sales representative moves the quote into a state other than Draft.
After the Allow Update for Draft Quotes profile is set to Yes, a new column, entitled "Updateable", appears in the Quotes page. This column's value will be either Yes or No, signifying whether the quote is updateable by the customer in its current state. A quote also must be in Draft status for the Updateable column to display a Yes value.
When a user updates a quote, the Shopping Cart page is retrieved; the quote then functions as a shopping cart, and the user can perform all of the usual functions with the cart. He cannot, however, delete the quote.
If Approvals are being used in Quoting: Once the quote has been submitted for approval, the customer must wait until the quote is approved to place the order. After the quote is approved, the web customer can only modify the payment information before placing the order. However, customers can also request sales assistance again. If the sales representative rejects the request, the quote remains in approved status and the customer can still place the order. In this case, the customer should be notified by the sales representative offline. If the sales representative accepts the request, the sales representative will need to place the quote back in Draft status to enable the update by the customer.
When asynchronous pricing is enabled: When the profile option, ASO: Enable Batch Processing, is set to Yes, quotes cannot be updated on a specialty site (even though the quote status is an updateable status, Draft).
In this case, an error message is returned by Quoting: The previously submitted pricing request has not completed. You may not update the quote until the pricing request has completed or is canceled.
The quote needs to be in a status different than Draft status while the sales representative updates the quote and the batch process (that returns the price) is over.
To accommodate this conflict, the sales representative needs to place the cart/quote into a status that is read-only for customer while he/she updates the quote. After updating it, the representative can then place the quote back into Draft mode to allow the customer update.