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Understand the Reference Product Model in Customer Acquisition Management
The Customer Acquisition Management application comes preconfigured with a sample product model. This model follows the best practice guidelines for implementing products within the Energy & Utilities Cloud.
The reference product model is not the only way to configure products. You can choose to implement your products according to your business requirements. Consider working with a Salesforce Implementation Partner when planning your product catalog.
You can use this product model to:
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Understand the working of the Customer Acquisition Management application.
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Extend and configure the reference model structure used by the Energy & Utilities Cloud, and set up your own product catalog.
You can modify and configure the reference product model to suit your business requirements.
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Understand the product model creation process if you want to define your own product model.
Use the reference product model as a template and start building your own from there.
Object and Object Type Hierarchy in Customer Acquisition Management
An object type is a reusable entity that defines properties, such as fields and attributes, and layouts for all product instances. Object types are like Salesforce record-types but with enhanced capabilities. You can use object types to group products with similar characteristics and ensure consistent behavior and application of rules.
The reference product model structure is derived from the standard Product2 object and has the following hierarchical object types.
Objects |
Object Description |
Attributes |
Attribute Description |
|---|---|---|---|
Product2 Object |
All product sub-objects are derived from the root Product2 object. The new product attributes defined for the reference product catalog and added to the Product2 Object are listed in the Attributes column. |
Distributed Region |
Defines the distributed region where the Energy & Utilities company provides services. This attribute is used to filter the product offers based on customer location. |
Meter Type |
Lists the meter types supported by the Energy & Utilities company. This attribute filters the product offers based on the meter type supported by the customer. |
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Usage Attribute |
Monthly user consumption of a product. This attribute filters the product offers based on the customer's consumption |
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Base Generic Object Type |
A prime object from which all the other objects descend. |
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Commodity Commercial Object Type |
Parent object type of all the Commodity product specifications. The commodity attributes section in Layout Management includes all three inherited attributes: distributed region, meter type, and usage attribute. |
Usage Attribute |
The Usage Attribute is a read-only attribute with the default value set to 1. |
Cost Component Object Type |
Parent object type of all the cost-related product specifications. This object consists of two sub-types: |
Standing Charges Object Type |
Represents the standing charge cost component of a commodity product. It is also known as access charge, daily fee, or network charge in different parts of the world. The Object layout contains two commodity attributes- Usage Attribute and Distribution Region. The Usage Attribute is a read-only attribute with the default value set to 30. Standing Charges are generally calculated for one month, therefore, the value of Usage Attribute is set to 30 days. In the case of yearly Standing Charges, change the value of Usage Attribute to 365. |
Unit Rate Object Type |
Represents the unit rate cost component for a commodity product. It determines how much will be charged per unit of the commodity consumed. The Object layout contains two commodity attributes - Usage Attribute and Distribution Region. The Usage Attribute is a run-time configurable attribute with a default value set to 2000. The 2000 kWh is assumed as the default average monthly consumption value for pricing calculations. Users can enter the consumption value in the UI at run-time. The pricing is then calculated based on user-entered value. |
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Non-Commodity Commercial Object Type |
Parent Object Type of all add-on product specifications. |
Each of the sub-objects derives these attributes from the parent Product2 object through dynamic inheritance. These attributes are then individually added to the layouts of each sub-object type. To learn more about creating objects and layouts, see Create Object Types in the Product Designer.
Electricity Product Catalog in Customer Acquisition Management
The reference product model comes preloaded with a set of sample electricity products which represents commonly available products in the Energy & Utilities Industry.
Here is a detailed structure of the Green Energy Product. All the other electricity products are modeled similarly.
Gas Product Catalog in Customer Acquisition Management
The reference product model comes preloaded with a set of sample gas products.
Dual Fuel Product Catalog in Customer Acquisition Management
The reference product model comes preloaded with a set of sample dual fuel products.
Product Pricing in Customer Acquisition Management
Each of the commodity products in the reference model is priced using a combination of Attribute-Based Pricing and Enable Usage Pricing for Industries CPQ. The products are priced at the individual child product level. Prices for each combination of product and distribution region are stored in the calculation matrix VEEDCSalesPricingMatrix, and are processed by its associated calculation procedure VEEDCSalesPricingProcedure.
