Product Administration Tasks

This section contains the tasks related to creating and maintaining specific products.

To Create a Product

Products are created either in the context of a specific product category or as unassigned products, not affiliated with any category.

Note:

When you create a product, you should consider adding it to the price list that is used for C3 Analyzer: the so-called reporting price list. Only products on this price list will have prices associated with them for reporting purposes. By default, this price list is the Enterprise Master List price list. Depending on the setup of your Comergent eBusiness System Knowledgebase, product IDs may or may not be case-sensitive. Check with your Comergent eBusiness System administrator for details.

1. Click Product Master in the Product and Catalog Administration panel on the Comergent eBusiness System home page.

   This displays the Product Management tab of the C3 Product Manager page.

2. Create and assign the new product.

   You can either create the product unassigned, or you can create it assigned to a product category.

   To create a product unassigned to a product category, click the Unassigned tab. A New Product tab appears.

To create the product assigned to a product category:

1. Navigate to and select the product category in the Product Category navigation frame.
2. Click the Product tab.
3. Click Create New Product to display the New Product tab.

   Note:

   Partner administrators can only create product within categories they have created or within categories to which they have been given access by the enterprise administrator.

3. Enter a Product ID, Product Name, and Description for the new product.

   Attention:

   Do not use the characters "*", "<", and ">" in product IDs.

4. Select a component type.

   TABLE 20. Valid Component Types

   Component Type	Description
   Normal	Most products belong to this type.
   Configurable1	A product is configurable if you have implemented C3 Configurator or support the ability for a customer to punch out to a configuration application to configure this product. If you select this type, then the Model field appears. You must associate the product with a model (created with Visual Modeler), selected from the drop-down list. Note that you can only select models that have been compiled. See Compiling a Model for more information.
   Assembly	A product is an Assembly if it is made up of a number of sub-assembly items each of which is a product or a plain text item (an item that can only be ordered as part of the assembly). If you select the Assembly option, then you can use the Assembly tab to specify the sub-assembly structure. See Managing Assemblies for more information.
   Aggregated	See Aggregated Products for an explanation of this product type. See To Assign Products as Children to an Aggregated Product for information on managing aggregated products.

   1 Partner administrators cannot create models, but they can associate products they create with models created by enterprise administrators.

5. Set the status for the product. See Product Statuses for more information about product statuses.
6. Select a start and end date for the product.
7. Click Save Changes.

Once you have saved the product, you can add and modify product information as appropriate. See To Modify a Product for more information.

If you created the product as assigned to a parent category, then the new product appears among the list of child products for that category in the lower left Navigation Panel. If you created the product unassigned, then the product appears among the unassigned products.

If you selected "Assembly" as the component type, then the new product is preceded by an icon. For Assemblies, you must define the parts that comprise the assembly. See Managing Assemblies.

If you selected "Configurable" as the component type, then you can either leave the product as a generic configured product (no pre-configured items) or you can pre-select the items to be configured with the product. See Managing Pre-Configured Products.

If the product is an aggregated product, then you can assign child products. See To Assign Products as Children to an Aggregated Product.

See To Modify a Product to:

• Designate a supplier for the product.
• Assign classification codes to the product.
• Assign features and resources.
• Define products that will supersede this product when it reaches its expiration date.
• Define parts that are part of the product, if the product is an assembly.

To Create A Product As a Child of an Aggregated Product

See Aggregated Products for an overview of aggregated products. Once you have created the aggregated product ( To Create a Product), there are two ways to assign products to the aggregated product.

• Use the procedures in To Assign Products as Children to an Aggregated Product.
• Create the product as part of the aggregated product.

The steps in this task describe how to create a product as child of the aggregated product:

1. Click Product Master in the Product and Catalog Administration panel on the Comergent eBusiness System home page.

   This displays the Product Management tab of the C3 Product Manager page.

2. Navigate to and select the parent category of the aggregated product. If the aggregated product is not assigned to any category, then click the Unassigned tab to select from a list of unassigned products.

   Once you select the parent category, the products assigned to that category appear in the product frame (lower left) of the navigation panel.

3. Select the aggregated product.

   Find and click the product from the list in the product frame. The right-hand frame displays the tabs containing information about the product.

4. Click the Child tab.

5. Click Create Child Product.

6. Enter a Product ID, Product Name, and Description for the new child product.
7. Select a component type.

   TABLE 21. Valid Component Types

   Component Type	Description
   Normal	Most products belong to this type.
   Configurable1	A product is configurable if you support the ability for a customer to punch out to a configuration application to configure this product. If you select this type, then the Model field appears. You must associate the product with a model (created with Visual Modeler), selected from the drop-down list. Note that you can only select models that have been compiled. See Compiling a Model for more information.
   Assembly	A product is an Assembly if it is made up of a number of sub-assembly items each of which is a product or a plain text item (an item that can only be ordered as part of the assembly). If you select the Assembly option, then you can use the Assembly tab to specify the sub-assembly structure. See Managing Assemblies for more information.
   Aggregated	A product is an aggregated product if it is used to represent a set of similar products all of which share a common set of features.

   1 Partner administrators cannot create models, but they can associate products they create with models created by the enterprise administrator.

8. Set the status for the product. See Product Statuses for more information about product statuses.
9. Select a start and end date for the product.
10. Click Save Changes.

The new product appears indented below its parent product in the lower left Navigation Panel.

For Assemblies, you can define products and text items that comprise the assembly. See Managing Assemblies. For Configurable products, you can either leave the product as a generic configured product (no pre-configured items) or you can pre-select the items to be configured with the product. See Managing Pre-Configured Products.

Now that you have created the product, you can modify the product to:

• Assign domain codes to the product.
• Assign features and resources.

See To Modify a Product.

To Copy a Product

One way to create a product is simply to copy an existing product. When you copy a product, you copy its name and description and its other attributes, so having created the new product, you must go back to modify any attributes that are different.

1. Navigate to the product category of the product that you wish to copy.
2. Click the Product tab.
3. In the list of products, select the product you wish to copy.
4. Click Copy.... The Copy Products window is displayed.

5. Click Browse... to specify the product category in which you want to create the copy.
6. Enter a new product ID for the copied product. As usual, this must be a unique product ID and so must not be the same as an existing product.
7. Click Copy. A message is displayed to let you know that the copy operation has been successful and then you can close the window.
8. Navigate to the new product to complete updating its information.

To Modify a Product

1. Click Product Master in the Product and Catalog Administration panel on the Comergent eBusiness System home page.

   This displays the Product Management tab of the C3 Product Manager page.

2. Navigate to and select the product.

   See To Find and Select a Product in the Navigation Panel.

3. Select the product that you want to modify.

Once you selected the product, you can modify the information in one or more of the tabs described in the remaining steps.

Note:

Make sure you click Save Changes before you move to another tab.

4. In the General tab, change general information about the product and click Save Changes.
5. Click the Sales tab.

1. If you want to denote that a product is not sellable as a separate item, then click the Cannot Be Sold Separately check box.

   See Products Sold Separately for an explanation of this check box.

2. If you want to denote that a product is a service product, then click the Service Type check box.

   When a product detail page is displayed, related products that are marked as service products are listed separately from the other related products.

3. Specify a quantity per unit (the default is one) and a unit of measure.
4. Specify a minimum order quantity and the lead time (in days).
5. In the Image URL field, enter the URL to an image that can be displayed with the product.

   Attention:

   Do not include any spaces in the image name. For example, you can enter images/300series.gif or images/300_series.gif, but not images/300 series.gif.

6. In the Data Sheet URL field, enter the path to a data sheet file that can be displayed with the product.
7. If you want to designate that one of your partners is the supplier of the product, then click Assign.... A popup window prompts you to select the supplier partner.

The default value is "Enterprise": this denotes that the product is supplied by the enterprise.

6. Click the Domains tab.

   You can assign classification codes to or remove a classification code from a product.

   1. Select the appropriate domain from the drop-down list.
   2. Assign or remove a code
      • To assign a code, enter a classification code for the product and click Assign. The classification code is added to the list of assigned classifications for the product in that domain.
      • To remove a code, select the classification from the list of classification codes for the domain and click Delete Selected.
   3. Click Save Changes.
7. Click the Features tab.

• To assign features, select a feature type from the drop-down list, and then select the features from the Unassigned Features list box. Click Add.

  Note:

  If the product belongs to multiple categories, then the Feature tab includes an extra field called Product Category Paths. This drop-down list displays all the category paths to which the product belongs. If you select a path, then the feature type drop-down list contains the feature types for this path.

• To unassign features, select the features in the Assigned Features list box and click Remove.

  Note:

  Users cannot unassign features belonging a category to which the user does not have access.

  Make sure you click Save All Changes before moving to another tab.

8. Click the Resource tab.
   • To assign resources, select the appropriate resource type from the drop-down list, and then enter the appropriate details (see Table 22). Click Assign.

     TABLE 22. Resource Fields 

     Field	Description
     Type	Resource type.
     Value	Location of the resource. For example, the URL address or the path to a resource.
     Label	Optional. For example, the image caption, the title of a data sheet or white paper, and so on.
     Description	Your comments about this resource.

   • To unassign resources, select them in the Assigned Resources list box then click Unassign.
9. Click the Related Products tab.

   See Related Products for the more information about related products.

10. Click the Supersessions tab.

    See Superseding a Product for the tasks involved in supersession.

    Click Save All Changes.

To Delete a Product

You can delete products when you no longer wish to manage them: typically, this is when the products have reached the end of their useful life. Products can only be deleted when their status is either "In Creation" or "Blocked".

1. Navigate to the product that you wish to delete.
2. On the product detail page, verify that the product has either the In Creation or Blocked status.
3. Click Delete.
4. A confirmation dialog box is displayed. If you click OK, then the Comergent eBusiness System checks that the product is not currently in use. If the product is in use (as described below), then an error message is displayed to say that the product cannot be deleted. If you want to delete the product, then you must correct the conditions preventing its deletion.

   Once the product is deleted, then it is no longer visible to enterprise users or end-users.

TABLE 23. Conditions that Prevent Deletion

Condition	Comments
Pricing	If the product is on any price list, then it cannot be deleted.
Configurator	If the product is attached to any item in a model, then it cannot be deleted.

To Assign Products as Children to an Aggregated Product

You can create a product as a child to a parent product ( To Create A Product As a Child of an Aggregated Product), or you can create a product ( To Create a Product), then assign the product to the parent. This task describes how to assign a product to a parent.

1. Click Product Master in the Product and Catalog Administration panel on the Comergent eBusiness System home page.

   This displays the Product Management tab of the C3 Product Manager page.

2. Navigate to and select the parent category of the aggregated product.

   If the aggregated product is not assigned to any category, then click the Unassigned tab to select from a list of unassigned products.

   Once you select the parent category, the products assigned to that category appear in the product frame (lower left) of the navigation panel.

3. Select the aggregated product.

   If the product is assigned to a category, then find and click the product from the list in the product frame. The right-hand frame displays the tabs containing information about the product.

4. Click the Child tab.

5. Assign the product.
   1. In the Enter or select a child product ID field, enter a product ID.

      You can click Browse... to display the Hierarchical Entity Chooser to browse or search for the product. See Using the Hierarchical Entity Chooser.

   2. Click Assign.
6. Repeat the last step for each product ID you want to assign.
7. Click Save Changes.
8. If there are features associated with the products, then a frame appears to select the feature types:
   1. Select feature types.
   2. Click Save All Changes in the Feature Type Selection frame.
   3. The Child tab is re-displayed.
   4. Click Save Changes in the Child tab.

The newly-assigned products appear indented below the parent product in the lower left frame. If the product that is assigned to the aggregated product belonged to a category, then after assignment the product will belong to no category.

To Unassign Child Products from an Aggregated Product

1. Click Product Master in the Product and Catalog Administration panel on the Comergent eBusiness System home page.

   This displays the Product Management tab of the C3 Product Manager page.

2. Navigate to and select the parent category of the aggregated product.

   If the aggregated product is not assigned to any category, then click the Unassigned tab to select from a list of unassigned products.

   Once you select the parent category, the products assigned to that category appear in the product frame (lower left) of the navigation panel.

3. Select the aggregated product.

   If the product is assigned to a category, then find and click the product from the list in the product frame. The right-hand frame displays the tabs containing information about the product.

4. Click the Child tab.

5. In the list box, find and select the product IDs you want to unassign.
6. Click Unassign.
7. Click Save Changes.

To Find and Select a Product in the Navigation Panel

There are three ways to find products in the navigation panel: browse the unassigned products, browse products that are assigned to a category, and searching for the product.

To browse unassigned products, click the Unassigned tab in the navigation panel, then find and select the assembly from the list.

To browse products assigned to a category:

1. Navigate to the parent category for the product and select the parent category. The product frame displays the products associated with the parent category.
2. In the product frame of the navigation panel, select the assembly.

To search for the product, click the Search tab. This enables you to search the product catalog according to product ID, product name, product description, assigned feature, or assigned resource.

Note:

An assembly icon next to the product designates the product as an assembly.

Comergent Technologies http://www.comergent.com Voice: (650) 232 6000 Fax: (650) 232 6010 support@comergent.com sales@comergent.com