Overview of Supplementing Your Model

Use a supplemental structure to improve your user's experience, such as adding guided selling questions.

PIM Structure

Use a supplemental structure to improve your user's experience, such as adding guided selling questions.

A PIM (Product Information Management) structure is a structure that you use in your configurator model where you import the structure from Product Information Management. Consider these points when you use a PIM structure.

• The Primary structure of a model that you create in the Product Information Management work area determines the structure for your configurator model.
• The structure can include model items, option classes, and standard items.
• Configurator duplicates the item's structure from Product Information Management into Configurator when you import the item.
• The item in Product Information Management is a PTO or ATO model, and it's the root of the structure.

Get details about how to import a PIM structure. See Create and Maintain Configurator Models.

Some Reasons to Use Supplemental Structures

• You need to modify an attribute on the item. You can't use Configurator to modify attributes on the items that are in the PIM structure that you import. For example, you can't modify the name or description of an item, attributes on the option class, such as minimum, maximum, or quantity, or user-defined attributes.
• You need to include a required component. The snapshot doesn't include required components. If you specify that a component item in the structure is required in the Product Information Management work area, then the import doesn't import it. Your configurator model won't include these components.
• You need to add or remove a child item. You can't add or remove a child item from a configurator model. Instead, you must modify the structure in Product Information Management, then import or refresh your snapshot.

You can use a supplemental structure to meet these needs while maintaining the PIM structure that you import.

Supplemental Structure

You import your model from Product Information Management into Configurator, then supplement it in Configurator to meet your specific needs.

A PIM structure that you import can include:

• Model items
• Option classes
• Standard items
• Transactional attributes

But these might not meet your needs. Here's what you can add as a supplemental structure in Configurator:

• Option features and options
• Integer features
• Decimal features
• Boolean features
• Text features
• Connectors

Use a supplemental structure when you need to add:

• More choices to your configured item than what you can have on a PIM structure.
• Questions that help your user configure the item at run time.
• Questions that your rules can use to reduce the number of option features at run time.
• Temporary storage for details about your rules.

A complex item, such as a car, might have a lot of options that your customers can choose. Some options might be compatible with each other, while others aren't. You can use a supplemental structure to reduce the number of items that you display at run time.

You can use a supplemental structure only with the configurator model where you add it. For example, you can't add supplemental structure y to model x, and then add structure y to model z. You must recreate structure y on model z.