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.
