Introduction

This chapter covers the following topics:

Overview of Oracle Advanced Pricing

Oracle Advanced Pricing is a rules-based application with an engine component to service the pricing requirements of Oracle applications to price customer transactions. Oracle Advanced Pricing enables you to set up pricing actions such as price lists, agreements, formulas, and modifiers that the pricing engine applies to transactions.

Oracle Advanced Pricing also enables you to define a set of pricing rules (and pricing controls that can be used in conjunction with the rules) to precisely govern how and when pricing actions are applied to transactions.

The pricing engine is a software component of Oracle Advanced Pricing that is called by an application such as Oracle Order Management or iStore to apply pricing actions to transactions. Applications make calls to the pricing engine when transactions need pricing services or need to be priced.

A calling application must provide the pricing engine with information about the product to be priced and the customer. This information is contained in an internal format called a pricing request structure. The pricing engine extracts from its tables the applicable pricing rules, pricing actions, and control information that have been set up. The engine then selects the proper actions and computes their effect. This information is returned by the engine to the calling application.

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides these capabilities to the pricing engine using open API calls. These APIs, along with others, are documented in the Oracle Order Management Open Interfaces, API, & Electronic Messaging Guide.

Oracle Advanced Pricing Versus Basic Pricing

The term basic pricing refers to a component of Oracle Order Management that provides pricing functionality when Oracle Advanced Pricing is not installed. Oracle Advanced Pricing and basic pricing have common software components; however, Oracle Advanced Pricing extends and expands the capabilities of basic pricing.

The pricing system software components examine the installation type (either full or shared) to determine the appropriate mode in which to run. Users of basic pricing are installed as “shared” and are not licensed to use Oracle Advanced Pricing capabilities. When in basic mode, the pricing system software components restrict exposure of advanced features in the setup windows. Because the information necessary to drive Oracle Advanced Pricing functionality cannot be set up in a pricing implementation running in basic mode, use of Oracle Advanced Pricing features is also inhibited.

Users who have licensed Oracle Advanced Pricing are installed as “Full.” The pricing setup windows enable setup for all information needed to drive features provided by Oracle Advanced Pricing.

The following table describes the primary differences between Oracle Advanced Pricing and the basic pricing capabilities included in Oracle Order Management:

Pricing Features Basic Pricing in Oracle Order Management Oracle Advanced Pricing
Archive and Purge Pricing Entities Same as Advanced Pricing. Supports removal of price list and modifier list lines data no longer required for current operations
Pricing Security
(Privileges)		 Same as Advanced Pricing. The Pricing Security Administrator responsibility can grant access privileges to the following pricing entity types:

  • Standard Price List

  • Modifier

  • Agreement Price List
Pricing Security
(Entity Sets)		 Entity sets are not available in basic pricing. Using the Entity Set Page, the Pricing Administrator can create "sets" of pricing objects such as a set of price lists that can be granted access roles.
Pricing Security
(Access Levels)		 The following access levels are supported by site level profile settings:

  • View Only

  • Maintain

 Access levels and privileges are the same as in basic pricing.
Pricing Security
(Privileges)		 You can grant access privileges to the following Grantee types:

  • Global

  • Operating Unit


Pricing Security supports authorization roles for creating maintaining, and viewing pricing data. Security Privileges are set up and managed in the HTML user interface.		 In addition to those in basic pricing, you can grant access privileges to the following Grantee Types: Responsibility and User.
Price list Enables you to set up:

  • Price List Header/Lines

  • One currency per list

  • Effective date at list

  • Rounding factors

  • Payment terms

  • Freight terms

  • Freight carriers

  • Percentage price for service items

  • Service price

  • Active Flag

  • Mobile Download

  • Global Flag to support Security feature

  • Security enabled rules checking

 Advanced Pricing includes all basic price list features and adds the capability to define point and range price breaks on a price list. In the current release, all price breaks have been made continuous, which means that the high value of one break would be the low value of the next break.
Pricing attributes on Price List In basic pricing, you can use one data source, called a context, per order line. Each context can have 100 attributes. Advanced Pricing adds the capability to support multiple contexts. You can use seeded values or you may define your own contexts. You are limited to 100 attributes per context.
Secondary price lists One secondary price list is supported. Advanced Pricing adds capability to define and use unlimited secondary lists. The chaining of secondary lists is not supported.
A profile option enables a qualifier check for secondary price lists.
Qualifiers: Price Lists Qualifiers are not supported for price lists in basic pricing. In Oracle Order Management, you can create defaulting rules that define when (and thus qualify) a price list is defaulted to the sales order header or line. As an example, you can qualify a price list based on order type, customer, and other attributes from Order Management. Qualifiers are fully supported for price lists in Advanced Pricing:

  • Ability to attach qualifier groups or enter qualifiers for the price list.

  • All seeded context values for Advanced Pricing as well as user-defined qualifiers (requires Attribute Mapping) are supported.

  • Precedence is derived from the Precedence Number field on the Contexts Setup window and can be configured by the user in Advanced Pricing.

  • Multiple with and/or relations between qualifiers is possible.

  • Qualifiers enable you to define unlimited price lists for an item.

  • Note: You cannot define Order Amount as a qualifier.
Product hierarchy price list notes Basic pricing only supports flattened categories. Advanced Pricing supports hierarchical and flattened categories.
Price breaks on price lists Not supported in basic pricing. Advanced Pricing enables price breaks on price lists using the following measures of quantity:

  • Quantity

  • Amount (excluding Item Amount)

  • Weight

  • Other user defined attributes

    The following break types are supported for Application Method of Unit Price and Percent Price:

  • Point break

  • Range break
Price include breaks on price lists: Block Pricing Not supported in basic pricing. Use Block Pricing (Application Method of Block Price) to define a price for the entire set of a block:

  • Block pricing can be used with existing setups (Point Breaks and Range Breaks).
Multi-Currency Conversion Lists Basic pricing does not include multi-currency conversion lists. Maintain prices in a single list with one base currency and to define multiple currency conversion rates and currency-specific markup/markdown equations.
A Multi-Currency Conversion window enables users to define Currency To conversion criteria.
Seeded conversion types include: Fixed, Formula, User-defined, Spot, EMU fixed, transaction, and corporate.

  • Some of these seeded conversion types require Oracle General Ledger to be installed.

  • You can define markup criteria per currency definition.

  • A concurrent program Update Price Lists with Multi-Currency Conversion Criteria is provided.
Formulas Basic pricing enables you to define Static Formulas. Static Formulas require a concurrent manager program to be run that populates the list price column in the price list window so that price is available for engine calls.
With basic pricing, you can attach formulas to price lists These formulas can include mathematical operators, numeric operands, and PL/SQL functions, such as min/max, that may be imbedded in a formula.
Sixteen seeded formulas are included (these can be updated):

  • Eight Cost-to-Charge formulas

  • Eight Cost-to-Charge with Markup formulas

 Advanced Pricing adds the following features:

  • You can attach dynamic and static formulas to modifiers and price list lines.

  • Dynamic Formulas: Dynamic formulas enable the pricing engine to dynamically calculate the formula price based on variable values available at run time. Dynamic formulas can be attached to either price lists or modifiers.

    Note: Price lists that have a dynamic formula with a Modifier Value as a component cannot be attached to a price list line.
Formula Components Component types include:

  • Numeric values

  • Factor list

  • One pricing context throughout formula with up to 100 attributes. Context must match context on the price list line to which the formula is attached.

    Adjustment factors (factor list): Basic pricing supports multiple factors. However, it has a limitation in basic pricing of one pricing attribute context throughout the formula with up to 100 attributes. Seeded context must be used.

 Advanced Pricing includes all formula component types available in basic pricing, and adds the following:

  • List price of an item in a specific price list (product and service) pricing attribute.

  • Modifier Value is entered in the Modifier Value field on the modifier setup window for a modifier line as a component to a formula.

  • A FUNCTION type that calls Advanced Pricing API Get_Custom_Price.

  • Adjustment Factors: Advanced Pricing supports multiple adjustment factors. Both context - seeded and user-defined contexts and attributes can be used as adjustment factors.

  • Multiple pricing contexts for pricing attributes.
Price List Maintenance Not available in basic pricing. Advanced Pricing provides search and maintenance capability for a single price list or across multiple price lists.
Use the Bulk Change feature for mass updates or update individual price list lines.
Updates can be made to price list lines for:

  • Value

  • Static and Dynamic Formula

  • Price List Line effective dates

    Price List Maintenance is available through the HTML user interface. See the Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide, Using the Price List Maintenance feature for more information.
Bulk Import of Price List Basic pricing:

  • Imports large volume of price lists via the interface tables.

  • Provides increased performance compared to using the Business Object API.

 Same as basic pricing.
Copy price list Basic pricing provides this capability. Same as basic pricing.
Adjust price list Basic pricing provides this capability. Same as basic pricing.
Add items to price list Supported. (User must have Maintain access privilege to add items.) Same as basic pricing. (User must have Maintain access privilege to add items.)
GSA pricing Supported Same as basic pricing.
Modifier list types Basic pricing supports the following Modifier List Types:

  • Discount

  • Surcharge

  • Freight and Special Charges

 Advanced Pricing provides all Modifier List Types provided in basic pricing, and adds the following:

  • Promotion

  • Deal
Modifier application methods Basic pricing supports the following modifier application methods:

  • Manual

  • Automatic

  • Overrideable

 Same as basic pricing and adds Ask For Promotions and Deals.
Active box on Modifier header Not enabled in basic pricing. Enabled in Advanced Pricing.
Modifier levels and level code Order, order line level. Basic level codes and adds Line Group.
Modifier header qualifiers and attributes Basic pricing provides seeded qualifier contexts including:

  • Customer

  • Price List

  • Unlimited price lists (new OM feature)

  • Seeded attributes within contexts. Customer context includes these attributes: Customer class (defined in RA customers); Site; and Customer Name.

    Note: Modifier List Type of Freight and Special Charges supports additional modifier header qualifiers and attributes.

    Security-enabled rules checking.

 Includes basic pricing features, plus Advanced Pricing adds these capabilities:

  • User assignment and override of precedence is possible.

  • Qualifiers can be used with both seeded and user defined contexts possible.

  • Users can define attributes with user-defined contexts. Up to 100 attributes can be defined for each context, and users can define any number of contexts.

  • Seeded qualifier attributes can be redirected to other data sources using the attribute mapping feature (see attribute mapping topic).

  • Users can control qualifier precedence.

  • Entered Context: Seeded and user-defined is possible.

  • User control of attribute precedence possible.

  • Attaching qualifier groups to modifier headers possible.
Modifiers: line types Types available include:

  • Discount: Fixed amount, Percent, New Price

  • Surcharge: Fixed amount, Percent, New Price

  • Freight Charges: Fixed amount, Percent, Lumpsum

  • Price Break

 Advanced Pricing includes the basic pricing types and adds:

  • Coupon Issue

  • Item Upgrade

  • Other Item Discount

  • Terms Substitution

  • Promotional Goods
Modifiers: line qualifiers and attributes Basic pricing provides the following fixed qualifiers including:

  • Agreement Name

  • Agreement Type

  • Order type

  • Customer PO


Usable Product Attributes include:

  • Item

  • Item categories

  • All items


Usable pricing attributes:
Limited to one context when product attribute is ALL Items

Note: Modifier Line Type of Freight and Special Charges supports additional modifier line qualifiers and attributes.

 Advanced Pricing includes the line level qualifiers provided in basic pricing and adds:

  • Define unlimited number of qualifiers.

  • Can attach qualifier groups as qualifiers.

  • Can use seeded contexts and define additional contexts.

  • User-defined contexts are active.

  • Multiple qualifiers with AND/OR conditions can be created.

    Product attributes in Advanced Pricing include those defined in basic pricing and adds user-defined product attributes.

    An unlimited number of pricing attributes can be created in Advanced Pricing. The user can change the precedence.
Modifiers: Buckets for Manual Modifiers Basic pricing does not provide this feature. Buckets for manual line/group of line level modifiers are supported for the following modifier types:

  • Discount

  • Surcharge

  • Price Break

  • Freight and Special Charges
Modifier: Optional Currency Enables modifier to be used across all transaction currencies:

  • Optional Currency selected from LOV.

  • Percent, Amount, New Price, Lumpsum.

  • No currency conversion applied.

  • Modifier setup numeric value will always be applied in currency units of the transaction currencies.

  • No restrictions to use; therefore, user discretion advised for appropriate use.

 Advanced Pricing provides the same capabilities available in basic pricing.
Modifiers: Price Breaks Line level price breaks in basic include:

  • Percent

  • Amount

  • Fixed Price

  • Equal operator

  • Break Type Code - Limited to point type only

  • Volume Type (Item Amount, Item Quantity)

 Line level price breaks in Advanced Pricing includes all price break functionality in basic pricing, and adds the following:

  • Equal, between arithmetic operator

  • Point and Range

  • Context - Seeded and user defined

  • Recurring

    Define automatic continuous price breaks based on Net Amount for line and group of line level.

    Define accumulated range price breaks based upon an accumulated value that is used as starting point of the break calculation. Regular unused pricing attributes with volume context can be assigned as the accumulation attribute for a modifier range break. Accumulation attribute can be sourced by the engine via two methods in attribute management

  • Attribute Mapping

  • Runtime Sourced
Modifiers: Freight and Special Charges Supported Header Qualifiers

  • Freight Terms

  • Order Amount

  • Line Weight

  • Order Weight

  • Line Volume

  • Order Volume


Supported Line Qualifiers

  • Order Volume

  • Order Type

  • Order Category

  • Line Type

  • Line Category

  • Shipment Priority Code

  • Shipped Flag

  • Shippable Flag

  • Freight Cost Type

 Advanced Pricing provides the same capabilities available in basic pricing.
Effectivity date controls Effectivity Date: order date only Order date, plus Advanced Pricing adds:

  • Ship Date

  • Order and Ship Date

    Advanced Pricing also adds fields for Promotion Version, parent promotion, and parent version.
Promotional limits Basic pricing does not provide this feature. Advanced Pricing includes this feature. You can define promotional limits by:

  • Gross Revenue

  • Usage

  • Cumulative Discount Amount

  • Item Quantity

  • Accrual Units

Limits can be set:

  • Within current transaction

  • Across all transactions

Can apply limits for:

  • Customer attributes

  • Product Hierarchy

Types of limits:

  • Soft Limit (If limit is exceeded, give the full benefit)

  • Hard Limit (If limit is exceeded, adjust or deny the benefit)

Hard Limit enforcement:

  • Hold

  • No Hold

    Security enabled rules checking
Duplicate Modifier Lines Basic pricing supports duplicate modifier lines if the profile option QP: Allow Duplicate Modifiers is set to Yes. Advanced Pricing allows duplicate modifier lines within a modifier list.
Copy Modifier Basic pricing does not provide this feature. You can create a new modifier by copying an existing one.
Pricing Organizer: Modifiers Basic pricing does not provide this feature. Advanced Pricing includes this feature, which allows users to query on the setup of modifiers:

  • Modifier List

  • Modifier Lines

  • Products (including Excluded Products)

  • Pricing Attributes

  • Qualifiers


Query criteria can be saved in Personal or Public folders. Can open Modifiers from the Organizer Summary. Security-enabled rules checking.
Pricing Engine Request Viewer Basic pricing features include viewing pricing requests information such as:

  • Pricing Engine Requests

  • Pricing Engine Request Lines

    - List Price

    - Selling Price

    - Service and Serviceable items

    - Price List lines and Modifier lines evaluated and deleted by the pricing engine

  • Pricing Engine Request Line Details

    - Price List lines and Modifier lines evaluated and deleted by the pricing engine

    - Attributes sent to the pricing engine by the calling application

    - Attributes used in pricing by the pricing engine

  • Debug Log

    Note: Accessible from the Tools menu of the Sales Order Pad.


Security enabled rules checking		 Same as basic pricing, plus can view the relationship between lines for modifier types promotional goods and other item discounts.
Also accessible from the Pricing Manager Responsibility
Agreements Basic pricing agreement features enable you to:

  • Set payment terms: Invoicing rule, Accounting rule

  • Set freight terms: Freight carrier

  • Create Standard and Agreement Price List

  • Define using customer part numbers.

  • Revise original terms.

  • Enter Revision numbers, date, and reasons at the line level only.

  • Set Effective dates.

  • Create Volume breaks.

 Same as basic pricing.
HTML Pricing Setups - Home Page Basic pricing does not provide this feature. With the Oracle Pricing User responsibility, Advanced Pricing users can perform the following tasks in Advanced Pricing HTML Pricing Setup from the Home Page:

  • Search for price lists and modifier lists

  • Shortcut links to create price lists, modifier lists, and price list maintenance

  • View Recently Created Price Lists and Modifier Lists
HTML Pricing Setups - Price List Basic pricing does not provide this feature. With the Oracle Pricing User responsibility, Advanced Pricing users can perform the following tasks in Advanced Pricing HTML Pricing Setup:

  • Create a Price List

  • Create a Price List line with Pricing Attributes

  • Create a Price Break line with Pricing Attributes

  • Update Price List and Price List Lines

  • Delete a price list line

  • Access Price List Maintenance feature

  • BSA related fields are not available in the HTML user interface
HTML Pricing Setups - Modifiers Basic pricing does not provide this feature. With the Oracle Pricing User responsibility, Advanced Pricing users can perform the following tasks in Advanced Pricing HTML Pricing Setup for Modifiers:

  • Create a modifier list (Discount, Surcharge, Deal, or Promotion List)

  • Create a modifier line for discount, surcharge, price break, or promotional goods (additional buy products not supported)

  • Update modifier list and modifier lines for types supported

  • Excluded Products
Price Book

  • Create full price books

  • Supported publishing options:

    - Send to Printer

    - E-mail

    - View Document (PDF, Excel, RTF)

  • Delete Price Book

  • Attributes for Price Calculation Criteria limited to basic pricing attributes

  • Accessible from Oracle Pricing User responsibility

  • Adds capability to create and publish price books:

    - Create Delta Price Book

    - Get Catalog XML message

  • Additional publishing option:

    - Send XML Message

  • More extensible attributes used for Price Calculation Criteria

  • Accessible from Oracle Pricing User responsibility
Attribute Mapping (Extensibility Feature) Basic pricing does not provide this capability. Use attribute mapping to extend pricing to a variety of non-standard sources to drive your pricing. These data sources can be within or from outside Oracle Applications.
Get_Custom_Price API (Extensibility Feature) Basic pricing does not provide this capability. Advanced Pricing adds this feature. The Get_Custom_Price API allows you to execute your own code as a part of the Advanced Pricing Engine's execution cycle.
Qualifiers and groups Not available in Basic Pricing. Defaulting is available for price lists and modifiers. Included in addition to defaulting for basic pricing.
Modifiers other differences Defaulted to single available bucket (bucket 1). User control of incompatibility feature inactive in basic pricing. User control of phase/event mapping inactive in Basic. Oracle Advanced Pricing adds: multiple buckets, seeded or user defined buckets, user control of phase event mapping, user control of incompatibility/exclusivity modifier control feature, user control of incompatibility resolve method by setting choice of best price or precedence, accrual features, formula in a modifier feature, and active exclude item (product attribute).
Oracle Order Management integration with Pricing Order Management integration with basic pricing supports the View Adjustments feature and the following features:

  • Manual price override

  • Manual discount override

  • Reason Code

  • Modifier Dates

  • Display Qualifier Attributes and display Pricing Attributes buttons on UI

  • One pricing attribute context

  • Up to 100 attributes can be used in the single context

  • Action >Price Order is available.

  • Action >Price Line is available.

  • Calculate Price Freeze Flag can be set.

  • Sales Agreement Order Support: Create a simple price list from the Sales Agreement window.

    Security enabled rules checking. Global Flag and security rules enforced. If Global box selected on price list, modifier, or agreement price list, the pricing window can be used regardless of which operating unit created it.

 Order Management, when integrated with Advanced Pricing, provides all features supported with basic pricing and adds:

  • View Adjustment: Relationship button, Item Upgrade, Term Substitution

  • Coupon entry

  • Ask for promotions

  • User entered attributes: Multiple attribute contexts can be used

  • Up to 100 attributes per context

  • Promotional Limits Hold:

    - Place holds where violated.

    - No holds are placed.

    - Place order on hold when any violation occurs.
Oracle Order Management integration with Pricing: Sales Agreement Create simple in-line price list and modifier list from within the Sales Agreement window. Other tab displays additional information:

  • List Source Document Number (Sales Agreement number) and List Source Code automatically populated on Price List and Modifier List.

  • Automatic creation of sales agreement as qualifier for Price List and Modifier header and lines

  • Price List provides fields for: Customer Item, Address, Address Category

  • Customer Name and Number populated

 Create price break range type modifiers based on accumulated sales agreement fulfillments (across releases). The price break here will be continuous.
Volume accumulation attributes have been seeded for Sales Agreement use only. The following accumulation attributes can be selected when setting up the modifier:

  • Sales Agreement Amount

  • Sales Agreement Line Quantity

  • Sales Agreement Line Amount
Pricing Engine In basic pricing, the pricing engine does not return Oracle Advanced Pricing modifiers or features to the calling application.
Security rules checking is enabled. Global box and security rules are used.		 In Oracle Advanced Pricing, the pricing engine is enabled to return all advanced features.
Reports Reports for basic pricing include:

  • Order Discount Detail Report

  • Order Discount Summary Report

  • Diagnostics List Line Details

  • Diagnostics Performance Analysis

    Security-enabled rules checking across all reports.

 Advanced Pricing adds the following reports:

  • Accruals Details Report

  • Attribute Mapping Rules Error Report

  • Cross Order Volume Report

  • Modifier Detail Report

  • Price List Detail Report (including Multi-currency fields when Multi-currency is installed)

  • Pricing Formulas Report

  • Qualifier Grouping Report
Concurrent Programs Not available in basic pricing. Advanced Pricing adds the following concurrent programs:

  • Build Attribute Mapping Rules

  • Build Formula Package

  • Cross Order Volume Load

  • Purge Pricing Engine Requests

  • QP: Bulk Import of Price List

  • QP: Maintains the denormalized data in QP Qualifiers

  • Update Price Lists with Multi-Currency Conversion Criteria

  • Update Promotional Limit Balances
Support TCA Party Hierarchy This functionality is only available with Advanced Pricing. This functionality is only available with Advanced Pricing.

  • Applies To Party Hierarchy check box is not visible on the Price List and Modifier Qualifiers in basic pricing

  • Party Hierarchy Enabled check box is not visible on Attributes UI in basic pricing.
Public APIs Not available in Basic Pricing. Advanced Pricing provides several public APIs. For more information, see the Oracle Integration Repository (iRepository).

Terminology

Calling Application

An application that calls the Oracle Advanced Pricing engine to obtain pricing calls. For example, both Oracle Order Management and iStore call the Oracle Advanced Pricing engine to apply pricing to customer transactions.

Customer Attributes

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides seeded qualifier attributes with context of Customer (also called Customer Attributes) You can use the preceding attributes by referencing them as qualifiers for either modifier or price list objects. For additional information, see Key Implementation Decision: Are the seeded context values on Oracle customer tables sufficient to contain customer attributes?.

Pricing Engine

The pricing engine is a program module of Oracle Advanced Pricing. A calling application (such as Oracle Order Management) calls the pricing engine when transactions that need a price are processed.

Pricing Request

A pricing request is the specific information provided to the Pricing engine when the engine is called by the calling application. In general, this includes who the customer is, what the product is, what attributes may be associated with the customer or product that may be used by the pricing engine, the pricing date, and other pricing data attributes that may be required by the pricing engine.

Product Hierarchy

The Oracle Advanced Pricing product hierarchy is pre-seeded with Item context (based on the Oracle Applications Item Master, MTL_SYSTEM_ITEMS table). This context delivers a two level product hierarchy consisting of:

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides two additional capabilities that extend this hierarchy:

You can use item, item and pricing attribute, or item categories as defaults to control the operation of price lists and modifiers.

Additional levels of product hierarchy capabilities can be defined in Oracle Advanced Pricing. For example, you may want to define flexfields on the customer tables to house additional customer groupings.

The above hierarchy is built using the Oracle Inventory Item Master. When Oracle Advanced Pricing is installed without Oracle Order Management or the standard item master tables being present, the seeded item attributes listed above will not be available. In that case, you must define an alternative table structure location where the product hierarchy exists (contexts) and attributes it contains. It is not necessary for the table structure supporting your alternative product hierarchy structure to exist within Oracle Applications.

Mapping an alternative product hierarchy can be accomplished using attribute mapping. For more information on attribute mapping, see Overview of Attribute Management.

Oracle Advanced Pricing Features

The following list summarizes the Oracle Advanced Pricing features that are supported by Oracle Applications:

Qualifiers

Qualifiers determine who is eligible for a price or benefit. Qualifiers and qualifier groups can be linked to price lists and modifiers to define rules for who can receive a particular price, discount, promotion, or benefit. They can assign discounts and promotions to:

Some example qualifiers are:

You can construct complex qualifier sets consisting of multiple qualifiers that are evaluated together in Boolean AND and OR relationships.

Qualifier Groups

Qualifier groups enable you to define multiple qualifiers relationships in preparation for association with either price lists or modifiers. You can save these qualifier groups and copy them to one or more price lists and modifiers.

Price Lists

Price lists relate a list price to a product. (The list price is the starting price before any related discounts and adjustments are applied.) Price lists can contain one or more price list lines, price breaks, pricing attributes, qualifiers, and secondary price lists. The 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. See the Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide, Price Lists chapter for information about setting up and using price lists.

You can use the pricing engine to select price lists based on a qualifier rule. However, as an alternative to using price list qualifiers, you may provide a default price list on an order based on any one of the following:

Defaulting provides equivalent functionality to the price list defaulting found in Oracle Order Entry/Shipping Release 10.7 and 11.0. You can provide by default some of the same elements you can reference in qualifier rules. Defaulting is available only for price lists. You can use only one default with a price list, and you cannot combine defaults using AND/OR relationships.

Additional Information: You can define multiple price lists. Alternatively, you may enter a specific price list on the order header or at the order line level. For each price list, you can also designate secondary price lists that the engine searches when it cannot find an item on the primary list. Multiple secondary price lists may be searched for each primary list. You may define several price lists as secondary to a primary price list. You can not define multiple levels of secondary price lists.

Price lists may be specified in different currencies. During order entry, if you enter a currency on the order, the pricing engine selects price lists with currency that matches the currency you entered on the order.

Multiple Currency Price Lists

Multiple currency price lists enables businesses that have pricing strategies based on a single price for an item in a base currency to use exchange rates or formulas to convert that price into the ordering currency. At engine run time, the pricing engine will take the currency from the order and search for a price list or price lists with base or conversion currencies matching this currency. The pricing engine converts the price from the base currency and calculates the ordering currency based upon the established conversion rules.

Price List Maintenance

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides a Price List Maintenance feature that enables you to do searches for price lists and price list information, make bulk changes or update individual price list lines across multiple price lists.

The Price List Maintenance is available through the HTML user interface. See the Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide, Using the Price List Maintenance feature for more information.

Pricing Attributes

Pricing attributes are data elements used in addition to item identifiers. These attributes control what is being priced on a price list or a modifier. Oracle Advanced Pricing is delivered with seeded pricing attributes. The seeded attributes for Oracle Advanced Pricing are the same as those for basic pricing. For more information, see the Attribute Seed Data appendix in this guide.

In some situations, an item identifier does not identify the product to a level where a price can be assigned. Pricing attributes enable you to define separate conditions for a product such that the product must be priced under different conditions. A pricing attribute can be any condition you use to further qualify an item.

The following examples show how pricing attributes are used to specify conditions of a product or service that affects the price. While these examples are appropriate to price lists, the same concept is true for modifiers. Pricing attributes can also be used with formulas.

Pricing attributes can be used in combination with each other and are passed to the pricing engine at run-time. The following image shows an example of how to define two attributes, Time of Day and Market Area. Both of these attributes must be obtained by the calling application and then passed to the pricing engine at run time. The pricing engine uses the attributes to match to the combination of product ID and conditions defined by the pricing attributes.

the picture is described in the document text

Attribute Mapping

Attribute mapping is the process used to pass in data (from other applications or systems) that is not seeded in the delivered product into Oracle Advanced Pricing for use in price lists, modifiers, agreements, qualifiers, and formulas.

Maintaining Price Lists

You can maintain price lists using any one of the following functions:

These features are available from the Oracle Pricing Manager responsibility which then submits concurrent manager jobs for each step.

The Price List Maintenance feature (available from the HTML user interface) enables you to make changes to price lists and price list lines for a single price list or across many price lists. For more information, see Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide, Using the Price List Maintenance feature.

Agreements

Agreements enable you to define prices, payment terms, and freight terms that you negotiated with specific customers. You can:

GSA Pricing

GSA Pricing enables you to define a GSA price list for your GSA customers. The GSA Price List actually uses the modifiers window and uses the new price. You create a discount that adjusts the base price of the item to the GSA price.

Formulas

Formulas, which can be used in both price lists and modifiers, enable a list price to be adjusted according to an algebraic relationship with other variables. Oracle Advanced Pricing enables pricing attributes to be passed as variables to the formula processing at run time. Formulas enable you to define a mathematical expression that the pricing engine uses to determine the list prices of items. A full complement of mathematical operators and numeric operands can be used. An example of a formula is:

Distance is a numeric value passed to the pricing engine as a pricing attribute at run time. Adjustment factor is the result of a value in a factor table, based on class of service, which is a pricing attribute variable passed to the engine at run time.

For price lists: When processing formulas, the pricing engine begins by locating a price list line that is linked to a formula. It then applies the mathematical expression to generate a final list price. In Oracle Advanced Pricing, formulas may be static; that is, the variables in the formula must be pre-populated with data by running a concurrent manager job before the formula can be used. Oracle Advanced Pricing provides a dynamic mode of formula operation. In dynamic formulas, the required data to be substituted into formula variables is collected by the pricing engine at run time.

Modifiers

Modifiers are pricing actions that, when applied to a transaction, adjust the selling price up or down. The specific action that a modifier takes is defined by its type. In Oracle Advanced Pricing, a modifier has two levels of functionality that define its action: a list type and a line type. A modifier list type enables you to define behavior characteristics that are common to all lines, which enables you to define a modifier with several different lines, each line representing a specific pricing action.

You can create the following modifier list types in Oracle Advanced Pricing:

For each list type that you define, you can associate certain line types. The available line types are:

Not all line types can be used with all list types. See the Oracle Advanced Pricing User's Guide for a listing of valid modifier list and line type combinations.

You can define a modifier that the pricing engine automatically applies, or you can manually enter a modifier. With proper setup, modifiers can be defined as manual or overrideable.

Modifiers can be used to compute price breaks. You can define breaks at the line level to be computed as percent, amount, or fixed price. Both point and range breaks are supported.

Freight and Special Charges

The freight and special charges capability of Oracle Order Management enables you to capture, store, update, and view costs associated with a shipment, order, container, or delivery. You can either itemize or summarize such charges on your orders. This capability includes functionality to pass customer charge information to Oracle Receivables for invoicing.

Freight and special charges enables you to:

When using freight and special charges, you set up freight and special charges as pricing modifiers. The pricing engine applies the qualified freight and special charges to order lines. You can view the application of freight and special charges to orders. Oracle Order Management captures costs at shipping and converts them to charges. Freight and special charges appear on invoices.

With Oracle Advanced Pricing, the full functionality of qualifier rules can be used to determine which orders should have freight and logistics charges applied to them, and to exclude certain orders from having charges. Additionally, formulas can be used to mark freight charges up or down before they are placed on the order.

Pricing Security

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides an additional level of security called "pricing security" to enhance the existing functional security. Pricing security enables you to restrict pricing activities such as updating and viewing pricing entities to users granted specific access privileges.

Get_Custom_Price API

Oracle Advanced Pricing provides an API that enables the pricing engine to execute user-supplied code to obtain a price, which as an alternative to storing the price in a price list or in a formula. This enables you to obtain a starting or beginning list price from sources that are outside Oracle Advanced Pricing's tables and yet accessible to code that you write.

The Get_Custom_Price is called by the pricing engine while evaluating a formula that contains a formula line (step) of type Function.

The technical information necessary to use this API is documented in Oracle Order Management Open Interfaces, API, & Electronic Messaging Guide.

Process Flow for Implementation

The process flow for implementing Oracle Advanced Pricing assumes that Oracle Applications, including Oracle Order Management, have been successfully installed, that Oracle Advanced Pricing has been installed as Shared, and that all necessary patches have been applied.

Implementing from a Fresh Install

The following table lists the recommended steps to implement a fresh install of Oracle Advanced Pricing (no previous implementation of Oracle Order Entry/Shipping exists).

# Process Step Step Description
1 Analyze and understand business pricing scenarios. A thorough understanding of pricing business requirements should be established before beginning an implementation of Oracle Advanced Pricing. For more information, see Chapter 3, "Implementation Methodology".
2 Determine data sources and columns needed for product and customer hierarchy definition. Oracle Advanced Pricing ships with seeded values. You may need to define additional levels or alternative data sources. For more information, see Chapter 3, "Implementation Methodology".
3 Develop logical pricing model solutions. Plan how you will use Oracle Advanced Pricing for each pricing scenario. For more information, see Chapter 3, "Implementation Methodology".
4 Set up and test prototype pricing solutions. Before implementing a production system, you should set up Oracle Advanced Pricing prototype solutions for all the pricing scenarios you have identified, and enter test orders against them to determine that they are handled correctly. (The Vision Sample database shipped with the software can be used to do this).
5 Make defaulting decisions. These decisions must be made before product setup. For more information, see Chapter 3, "Implementation Methodology".
6 Perform Oracle Advanced Pricing product setup tasks. This step involves taking results of steps 1 through 4 and creating entries in the pricing system tables that enables Oracle Advanced Pricing to act on your plans.
7 Create backup of system as setup. This step involves creating a backup of the system as set up.
8 Conduct pre-production system functionality and load tests. Before initial production, you should conduct a system test. This test should exercise all product setups by including examples of all pricing scenarios defined during pre-implementation planning. Verify that testing includes a sufficient volume to stress the system to levels equal to those that are experienced during production operations.