Recommendations for Mobileforce Rules

Mobileforce rules are created and used by an organization to match or mimic its business needs within the structure of Mobileforce CPQ and your source CRM.

In a typical organization, admins define rules (product, pricing, and approval) that are triggered when sellers are creating quotes, typically capturing the products and services that the customer is looking to purchase.

Note:

Product rules are primarily used in these examples; however, your organization can use pricing and approval rules in conjunction.

Sellers will experience these rules as recommended products, line items automatically added to the quote, and as informational messages.

Best Practice:

Mobileforce recommends that Admins design their library of rules as guidelines, where Sellers always have the ability to bypass the rules, if the situation demands.

If the business model for your organization requires additional safeguards, you can configure additional approval rules, so that any quote that bypasses the rules must be approved by a designated approver.

When planning the rules for your organization, they can be grouped into three categories:

• Product-focused rules
• Customer context rules
• Collaborative rules.

Understanding these groups can help you design and determine how they impact the user experience, for your sellers and approvers when creating and approving quotes.

Product focused rules

Organizations that want to associate and group complimentary and ancillary products with each other will create product-focused rules.

Typically, a CPQ Admin will design rules that automatically adds, or recommends to add, one or more complimentary product(s) to the quote based on the line items added by the seller to the quote (for example, automatically adding or recommending jelly to someone who ordered peanut butter).

Note:

Additionally, admins can create product bundles for products that are frequently grouped together, like a suite of software products that can be purchased as a suite or individually. For more information see Creating Bundled Product Listings

Sellers will typically experience product-focused rules in the following scenarios:

• Mobileforce CPQ automatically adds the complimentary product to the quote when the seller adds a line item.
• Mobileforce CPQ generates an informational message when the quote is saved, validated, or sent for approval, suggesting that the seller add the complimentary product to the quote.
• Mobileforce CPQ automatically replaces one product with a complimentary product when the quote is saved, validated, or sent for approval. (For example, removing a paid service plan for a complimentary service plan).

Example:

An admin for a computer hardware organization creates business rules to automatically:

• When a seller adds a printer to a quote, Mobileforce CPQ automatically adds the appropriate printer ink as a line item.
• When a seller adds a new server to the quote, Mobileforce generates an information message for the seller to suggest a battery backup device.
• When a seller adds a premium maintenance contract for an order of 100 or more laptops, Mobileforce CPQ automatically replaces the contract with the complementary premium contract.

These types of rules are most effective for customers with detailed product catalogs with interdependent products and services. These rules can generate instant results for an organization.

Customer context rules

Organizations that have deep knowledge of their customers’ needs may create customer-focused rules. Typical customers may want similar products, so admins can create rules to make it easier for sellers to add these products to the quote (for example, a restaurant supply company may have multiple coffee shop customers who all commonly purchase bulk sugar packets, coffee creamers, and coffee stirrers at the same time.

For this strategy, the intelligence comes from the rules themselves. This approach is recommended for clients who have a clear understanding of their customers' needs. Admins can easily implement these rules, scaling them based on need and customer base.

These rules can be visualized into the following sub-groups:

Industry Rules

Admins design industry rules to ensure that sellers only add products for the correct industry to the quote.

Example:

Admins for a kitchen supply company create rules requiring manager approval if a seller added industrial/commercial equipment to a private residence.

Location Rules

Admins design location rules to ensure that sellers are adding the appropriate products for the region to the quote.

Example:

Admins for an international hardware supply company create rules where 110V electric outlets are replaced with 220V when a seller adds them to a quote for European-based customers.

Size-Based Rules

Admins design size-based rules so that sellers add products to the quote that are applicable for the size of the client.

Example:

During a supply shortage, admins for a medical supply company creates rules limiting the number of N95 masks that can be added, based on the size of the company, so that a seller can only sell a maximum of 25 masks to a company with fewer than 100 employees, and can only sell a maximum of 100 to a company with under 500.

Timing-Based Rules

Admin design timing-based rules so that sellers can add products that are applicable to the time or year, or remind sellers of limited-time promotions/clearances.

Example:

Admins for a commercial janitorial services company create a rule to automatically add items needed for clean-up during a natural disaster, once sellers add a triggering item, such as a respirator, to the quote.

Collaborative Rules

Some organizations want to take full advantage of Mobileforce CPQ’s capabilities by combining product, customer, and industry rules. Typically, these are companies that can leverage some of their customer base that have similar purchasing patterns.

Note:

These rules are best used by organizations with a fair amount of data regarding their customer base, so the rules can be tailored to the situation. Additionally, when configured, Mobileforce has the ability to improve product recommendations over time, gaining information from sellers' usage patterns.

Example

Admins for a recreation vehicle company, that sells vehicles and other products to resellers where those resellers typically have the same buying cycle, could create the following rules:

• Mobileforce CPQ generates an information message for all ATV resellers, recommending the latest models to be added to the quote at the beginning of the model year.
• Mobileforce CPQ automatically removes all discontinued vehicles in the quote, replacing them with an equivalent model.
• Mobileforce CPQ generate a warning message, recommending adding snowmobile orders to customers who purchase dirt bikes when the winter months are approaching.
• Mobileforce CPQ provides recommendations for watercraft vehicles in spring, so that sellers can recommend them to their customers, so they can ensure delivery by the summer months.

Specifying Rules in Quote Templates

Product rules are specified in the Configuration tab of quote templates, pricing rules are specified in the Pricing tab of quote templates, and Approval rules are specified in the Approval tab of quote templates. Product (configuration) rules are intended for quote validation, line-item table validation, or automatically adding/deleting/updating line-items. Pricing rules are intended for determining prices and discounts in line-item tables. And approval rules are intended for determining when a quote needs approval and who should approve them.

The actions allowed vary for each kind of rule vary: