The Salesforce CPQ Implementation Handbook: Configure Salesforce CPQ products to close more deals and generate higher revenue for your business

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Salesforce CPQ Implementation Handbook

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To my parents and siblings, who taught me the value of education. To my husband and daughters, for their support and inspiration throughout my writing journey.

Contributors

About the author

Madhu Ramanujan has been extensively using the Salesforce platform for almost a decade now. She finds that her substantial experience and work on multiple implementations has helped her easily transition between various roles in renowned corporations. She is a certified Salesforce Application Architect and System Architect and is an aspiring CTA with 14x certifications. She enjoys giving back to the community through volunteering as a RAD Women coach. She is passionate about designing secure, scalable, reliable, and high-performing solutions using cutting-edge technologies and helping customers in their transformational journeys.

I want to thank the following people from the Packt team, who helped make this book that you are holding in your hands a reality: Alok Dhuri, for having faith in my ability to write this book, as well as Storm Mann, Vaishali Ramkumar, Prajakta Naik, Aaron Lazar, Shweta Bairoliya, Nisha Cleetus, Rosal Colaco, Maran Fernandes, and Deepak Kumar. A big thanks to the reviewers, Brad Gross and Mitch Colyer, for their invaluable suggestions and helpful feedback. I would also like to thank all of my friends and colleagues who helped me in this wonderful process. A virtual high-five and a lot of gratitude from me to all of you!

About the reviewers

Brad Gross has been working in IT since the 20th century. In 2000, he developed one of the first Salesforce organizations and then turned his attention to helping others learn Salesforce. His work in the community led to his induction into the first class of Salesforce MVPs and the first-class Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. For the past decade, he has been a leading industry consultant, working for several firms and even founding his own firm, Information Logistics. Currently working as the principal strategist for revenue cloud at Traction on Demand, his focus is on Sales Cloud and revenue operations.

When he is not developing the next generation of Salesforce leaders, he spends his time biking, skiing, and cooking for his family.

Mitch Colyer is a principal quote-to-cash consultant, specializing in Salesforce CPQ, Salesforce Billing, and other non-Salesforce product implementations. His experience inside and outside of the Salesforce platform lends him a unique perspective on how to best bring a Salesforce CPQ solution to light. Throughout his time working on the Salesforce platform, Mitch has led partner enablement training both domestically and internationally, been a Dreamforce speaker, and assisted in Salesforce CPQ and Billing rollouts in the United States and Europe. He lives with his wife, Brooke, in Montana, where he enjoys being outdoors, fishing, and trail running in his free time.

Table of Contents

Preface

Section 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

The relationship between the sales process and cloud computing

Understanding the quote-to-cash process

Introducing Salesforce CPQ

Configure

Price

Quote

CPQ high-level object flow

Salesforce CPQ advantages

Salesforce CPQ versus Industries CPQ

Installing Salesforce CPQ

Summary

Chapter 2: Configuring Opportunities and Quotes

Salesforce opportunities, quotes, and products

Opportunities

Quotes

Products

Introducing CPQ quotes

Enabling CPQ permission set licenses

Creating a quote

The Quote Line Editor

Field sets

Quote line drawers

Sorting QLE line columns

Default buttons on the QLE

Custom buttons in the QLE

Cloning a quote line

Customizing the QLE column width

CPQ approvals

Standard approvals

Advanced Approvals

AA objects

Advantages of creating orders from a quote

Enabling orders

Summary

Chapter 3: Configuring CPQ Products

Products overview

Types of products

Configuring products

Creating custom actions and search filters

Creating custom actions

Creating a search filter

Verifying custom actions in the QLE

Creating dynamic search filters

Configuring product bundles

Creating a product bundle in a Salesforce instance

Creating a product option in a Salesforce instance

Creating a product feature in a Salesforce instance

Adding a bundle to the QLE

Creating product rules

Creating a validation product rule

Creating a summary variable and an error condition

Associating a product rule with a product bundle

Testing the validation product rule in the QLE

Creating an alert product rule

Creating an alert product rule error condition

Testing the validation product rule in the QLE

Creating a selection product rule

Creating a selection product rule error condition

Creating an alert product rule action

Testing the validation product rule in the QLE

Creating a filter product rule

Creating twin fields 

Summary

Chapter 4: Configuring CPQ Pricing

CPQ pricing

Learning about pricing methods

Setting a list price

Creating the cost price

Creating the block price

Adding a block price product to a quote

Creating a percentage of the total price

Creating Multi-Dimensional Quoting (MDQ)

Understanding the pricing structure

Discounting in CPQ

Discount schedules

Associating the discount schedule with a product

Creating price rules

Enabling the advanced calculator

Creating a sample price rule

Creating a price condition

Creating a price action

Testing a price rule in the QLE

Creating a price rule using a lookup object

Creating a lookup query for the price rule

Creating a price action for the lookup query price rule

Summary

Chapter 5: Generating and Configuring Quote Templates

Generating PDF quotes using quote templates

Generating a quote document

Creating quote templates and template content

Attaching additional documents

Creating template content and linking quote templates

The types of content

Creating HTML content

Linking the HTML content to a quote template

Creating line item content

Linking the line item content to a quote template

Creating quote terms content

Linking quote terms to a template

Integrating DocuSign for eSignatures

Summary

Section 2: The Next Stage of the CPQ Journey

Chapter 6: Configuring Guided Selling

Guided selling and its advantages

Configuring guided selling in Salesforce CPQ

Creating picklist values on the Process Input object

Linking the API values to the Process Input object fields

Creating dynamic process input

Testing guided selling in QLE

Summary

Chapter 7: Creating Contracts, Amendments, and Renewals

Contracts overview

Creating a contract from an opportunity

Creating a contract from an order

Service Cloud for Salesforce CPQ

Creating amendments

When do customers need amendments?

Cancel and replace

Amendment fields on a contract

Creating a sample amendment

Amending MDQ products

Creating renewals

Contract-based renewal process

Asset-based renewal process

Renewal pricing

Renewal fields on a contract

Creating a sample renewal

Early renewals

Contracted pricing

Summary

Chapter 8: Configuring CPQ Package Settings

Configuring the CPQ package

The Documents tab

The Groups tab

The Line Editor tab

The Plugins tab

The Pricing and Calculation tab

The Subscriptions and Renewals tab

Prorate multiplier

The Quote tab

The Order tab

Additional settings

Summary

Section 3: Advancing with Salesforce CPQ

Chapter 9: The CPQ Data Model and Migration Concepts

Understanding the CPQ implementation strategy

Deploying CPQ changes

Understanding the CPQ data model

Exporting a Salesforce object model

Exporting Salesforce objects to Lucidchart

Legacy data migration

Data migration tools

The data migration sequence

CPQ localizations

Summary

Chapter 10: Salesforce Billing

Salesforce Billing overview

Configuring products for Salesforce Billing

Advantages of Salesforce Billing

Installing Salesforce Billing

Creating invoices

Creating a sample invoice

Configuring an Invoice Scheduler

Creating payments

Understanding the revenue recognition process

Creating GL accounts

Summary

Chapter 11: Understanding Industries CPQ

Industries CPQ overview

Comparing Salesforce CPQ and Industries CPQ

Key features of Industries CPQ

Industries CPQ test environment

Enterprise Product Catalog

Creating products

Industries CPQ's UI

Industries CPQ's cart

Industries OM

Industries CPQ OmniScripts

Digital commerce

Summary

Chapter 12: CPQ Implementation Best Practices

The best practices for improving CPQ performance

The best practices for CPQ implementation

Summary

Further reading

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Preface

Now more than ever before, customers have become the focal point of businesses around the world. Not to be left out, companies both big and small want to invest in digital transformations that can drive growth and improve operational efficiencies. These in turn help businesses accelerate their sales and see revenue growth. The sales teams need technology that can help them with responsive and flexible customer needs and automate the quote-to-cash process. Salesforce CPQ helps reshape the business relationship between sales organizations and customers.

Salesforce CPQ is a configure, price, quote tool that helps businesses automate the quote-to-cash process in a unified platform. Using the CPQ application allows sales organizations to focus on selling, while the tool can help with complex product configurations, accurate pricing, and helping sales reps generate precise quotes in minutes. CPQ is a native app built on Salesforce, the world's number-one cloud-based Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software for managing customer relationships and integration with other systems.

This book will start with an outline of the quote-to-cash process, present an overview of CPQ, and provide the details of when a business needs to implement CPQ. We will explore how CPQ helps configure complex products and bundles and helps apply accurate pricing and discounts. Then, we will learn how to automate the approval process and generate a professional quote and send it to customers.

After the initial sales have been closed, you will learn how a contract can be generated. The customer relationship gets stronger as the sales process progresses further and amendments can help make any changes to existing contracts. You will understand the renewal process that will generate revenue for your business for both subscription-based and non-subscription-based products and services. You will also learn how package configurations help in controlling the configurations and automation at the Salesforce org level.

Then, you will explore Industries CPQ and the types of businesses that need to implement this. This book provides insights into how Salesforce Billing replaces the multiple systems typically used by finance to create orders, send invoices, and collect payments. By the end of the book, you'll have gained CPQ knowledge that can be utilized to configure and customize various kinds of use cases for CPQ implementation in any type of industry.

Who this book is for

This book is intended for Salesforce professionals who have standard Salesforce platform knowledge and readers who are interested in learning about CPQ. This book helps administrators, business analysts, functional consultants, sales managers, and Salesforce architects understand CPQ configurations and customizations. This book also provides the foundational knowledge needed for any CPQ implementation project. Most of the CPQ concepts are explained using simple use cases.

This can become your go-to reference material that can be applied to any implementation as needed. Reading these chapters will also help those aspiring to gain Salesforce CPQ certifications. Working knowledge of the Salesforce ecosystem is recommended to get the most out of the book. It is recommended to create a Salesforce CPQ test instance and follow along with the examples provided in this book.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation, provides a high-level overview of the quote-to-cash process for any business. This chapter describes the basic concepts of what CPQ is in Salesforce. Each Salesforce object concept (opportunities, quotes, products, price books, and quote templates) will be explained clearly and the high-level CPQ data model will be discussed. The details of how to configure these in Salesforce will also be covered. The decision as to when a Salesforce CPQ is needed will be explained. The different types of CPQs present in the market today will be briefly touched upon. The advantages of using Salesforce CPQ from a business perspective will be discussed. You can practice all these concepts using a free Salesforce developer org. Instructions for creating a free developer organization and CPQ installation will be provided.

Chapter 2, Configuring Opportunities and Quotes, walks you through, having understood what Salesforce CRM is and what you gain by implementing Salesforce CPQ in your organization, what Salesforce opportunities, quotes, and orders are. Using an example, you will understand the relationship between opportunities/quotes and products. Then, you will be guided with an overview to configure the opportunity and quote objects in Salesforce. You will explore the Quote Line Editor (QLE) in detail and understand several out-of-the-box features of QLE, including QLE customizations for different use cases. This chapter also provides the knowledge to implement advanced approvals and their advantages. Configuring advanced approvals for CPQ quotes will be explained in detail.

Chapter 3, Configuring CPQ Products, having understood creating and configuring Salesforce CPQ opportunities, creating quotes, and creating orders, will take you to the next step, which is understanding how to configure products. Product configuration is the bedrock upon which many CPQ configurations and automations can be built. Whatever the type of the business, either B2B or B2C, defining a product structure is very important. This chapter will help you understand what product options, features, and bundles are. You will also understand the power of CPQ product rules to automate business processes. All of these can be achieved with configurations and no Apex coding is required. As a power user, you are now ready to create custom CPQ actions and use custom filters for automating different business requirements. This chapter also provides the concept of the twin field feature in CPQ.

Chapter 4, Configuring CPQ Pricing, helps you to automate pricing and discounting. You will understand the CPQ pricing methods and the configuration. By the end of this chapter, you will understand how to define pricing, price structure, how multi-currency use cases can be handled, configuring price rules, discounts, and multi-dimensional quoting, and will be able to set up all these configurations in Salesforce using different use cases. Each concept will be explained by providing the Salesforce navigation path so that you can practice these in the test environment.

Chapter 5, Generating and Configuring Quote Templates, walks you through how Salesforce CPQ generates PDF quotes to send to customers. You will understand how dynamic templates can be used for quote generation. You will also learn the advantages of using quote templates. For sending quotes to the customer, you will learn how DocuSign, or any other third-party integration tool, can be used for the automation of quote signing by customers.

Chapter 6, Configuring Guided Selling, helps you understand how to use guided selling and its advantages. You will explore a guided selling use case and configuration details.

Chapter 7, Creating Contracts, Amendments, and Renewals, helps you understand why we need amendments and how to create amendments, amendment opportunities, and amendment quotes. You will also understand what Salesforce assets are. You will learn how to configure CPQ renewal opportunities and quotes automatically and be able to customize them for business-specific needs. You will also understand how evergreen contracts and autorenewals work.

Chapter 8, Configuring CPQ Package Settings, helps you understand what CPQ package configurations are and how some of these settings control the other configurations. This chapter also provides details on the prorate multiplier and how CPQ provides different options to configure the prorated pricing for subscription products.

Chapter 9, The CPQ Data Model and Migration Concepts, helps you understand how Salesforce CPQ objects are related to each other and how you can perform a data migration from a legacy system into Salesforce, as well as the order in which the objects need to be migrated. You will understand the CPQ Data Model and use Salesforce Schema Builder to view and configure object relationships. You will also be advised on CPQ deployment from one Salesforce org to another.

Chapter 10, Salesforce Billing, provides an overview of Billing, installation details, and the advantages. You will understand how Billing enhances CPQ capabilities with invoice generation, payment, and revenue recognition functionalities. You will learn how Billing implementation provides the ability to create quotes, orders, and invoices all on a single platform.

Chapter 11, Understanding Industries CPQ, provides an overview of Industry Cloud and where Industry CPQ falls within Industry Cloud. This chapter outlines high-level differences between standard Salesforce CPQ and Industries CPQ. You will learn the key features of Industries CPQ. You can create an Industry CPQ training org to further explore the features.

Chapter 12, CPQ Implementation Best Practices, provides you with some of the best practices recommended by Salesforce for getting optimal CPQ performance. Also, you will learn some of the standard implementation guidelines. Any tool that you use should be used efficiently. Salesforce CPQ is no exception; with proper implementation, you will reap the benefits. Otherwise, you will hit performance bottlenecks.

To get the most out of this book

You will get the most out of this book by practicing the examples and CPQ configurations in a Salesforce test instance or training instance.

Salesforce provides a pre-installed CPQ developer org for 90 days. You can get a free training org here: https://developer.salesforce.com/promotions/orgs/cpqtrails.

Alternatively, you can install the CPQ package in any Salesforce developer org. To create a developer org, sign up here: https://developer.salesforce.com/signup. Follow the instructions provided in Chapter 1, Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation, for installing CPQ.

For advanced approvals, install the package from this link: https://install.steelbrick.com. Follow the instructions provided in Chapter 2, Configuring Opportunities and Quotes, for installing CPQ.

You can create a test environment for configuring sample use cases and examples using Industries CPQ; refer to the Industry Cloud documentation on Vlocity University: https://help.salesforce.com/s/articleView?id=000357469&type=1. You can request a training environment by filling in the form at https://vlocitytrial-prod.herokuapp.com/?templateid=SFI_IPQ. This is a free instance that is available for a limited amount of time.

Download the color images

We also provide a PDF file that has color images of the screenshots and diagrams used in this book. You can download it here: https://static.packt-cdn.com/downloads/9781801077422_ColorImages.pdf.

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

Code in text: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: Similarly, add the other product picklist API names (in this example, Hardware type and Laptop type) that you created in the product object.

A block of code is set as follows:

SBQQ__Quote__c

extensions=QuoteExtController action={!onRecall}>

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For instance, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in bold. Here is an example: To configure contracted pricing, navigate to App Launcher → Account → Related → Contracted Prices → New.

Tips or Important Notes

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Section 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

This section focuses on providing Salesforce CPQ foundational knowledge. You will understand the quote-to-cash process and get an overview of CPQ Using simple examples, you will learn how to create CPQ quotes from opportunities and understand the relationship between opportunities, quotes, and products. You will focus on how products can be configured and customized, how complex pricing can be automated with applicable discounts, and how to create quotes accurately. You will understand how product rules, price rules, and quote templates can be customized for any business easily.

This section comprises the following chapters:

Chapter 1, Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

Chapter 2, Configuring Opportunities and Quotes

Chapter 3, Configuring CPQ Products

Chapter 4, Configuring CPQ Pricing

Chapter 5, Generating and Configuring Quote Templates

Chapter 1: Getting Started with Salesforce CPQ Implementation

In this chapter, we will learn what Salesforce CPQ is, as well as begin to identify situations and business needs that can be aided by Salesforce CPQ. Typically, sales personnel spend a lot of time creating quotes, calculating prices, seeking approvals, and working through multiple legacy systems. These legacy tools may not be up to date and so are inaccurate, leading to delays in