Quotes, like shopping carts, help gather up the products you want to buy. To purchase any product – custom or standard – you must place it into a quote or "shopping cart". Place other items you want to purchase at the same time into that same quote: a quote can have many products inside it. When you're happy with the items and quantities in your quote, you then submit the quote for processing.
Creating new quotes
You can add one or more products to a quote.
Before a quote is submitted, you have free access to edit the quote (such as specifying a delivery address) and any items within it (such as changing their quantities, or removing them). You click "submit" to specify you're happy with the quote and its contents. Once a quote is submitted, it enters a workflow as defined by your company. Depending on the workflow that has been built for this quote, you usually have limited access to edit the quote after it has been submitted. Eventually, that workflow completes and you're usually notified via email that work has been done. The quote becomes a historical record of your purchase.
Finding old quotes
On the quotes page, you can search for quotes that have already been submitted, or for configured products within those submitted quotes. For example, if you know you submitted a quote for a configured product that had the color "red", and your administrator made the color field searchable when they designed the configurator, then you can find it easily.
You can also access advanced search tools by clicking the "Search Tools" button. For example, if you wanted to find all the "large", "red" configurations that were submitted in the last 2 months, and your administrator made the "size" and "color" fields searchable, then you can create this search. You can also save searches, so you can easily find the same group of quotes or configured products in the future.
Viewing and editing a quote
Depending on your permissions, you may also be able to add, clone, or delete a quote using the buttons at the bottom of the screen.
Regardless of how you found the old quote, once it appears in a list on-screen, click on its name to open the quote. Depending on your permissions, you may be able to view/add comments and approve or reject a quote, along with other actions.
Quotes contain the following properties. (Depending on customization from your administrators, you may see different properties than those listed here.)
Quote Properties
| Basic Properties | |
|---|---|
| Name | A descriptive name for this quote, such as "Spare Parts for Cleveland Factory". This is a mandatory field. |
| Customer | Specify a customer this quote will be provided for. This field may not appear, depending on your company's settings. |
| Currency | If your adminstrator has activated multiple currencies, this specifies the currency the sale will be made in. This field may not appear, depending on your company's settings. |
| Description | An optional freeform field to provide any additional data for the quote. Descriptions are viewable by anyone who has access to the quote. |
| Comments | Optionally, one or more comments can be added to the quote as it proceeds through the workflow. |
| State | All new quotes have the state of "Unsubmitted." After clicking "Submit" at the bottom of the quote, the state will change as they proceed through the workflow. |
| Attachments | Quotes can have files attached to them. Permitted users may upload their own file attachments, plus after a quote is submitted, automatic processes may generate files to be attached to the quote. Attachments can consist of documentation such as manuals, diagrams, blueprints, bill-of-materials, and other literature pertaining to the quote or products within a quote |
| Cost | A simple summary of the pricing. If available, one can provide a discount to modify the total for the quote. Depending on an end-user's permissions, they may not have access to see the price at all times. |
| Products | A list of one or more products, including the quantity and buttons to modify. Products may or may not display pricing information depending on end-user permissions and the quotes current position in the workflow. |
Goal-seeking price adjustments
Depending on your role, you may see different information on the quote. For example, as someone buying directly through a web site, you may simply see the quantity and price; as a sales manager, maybe you can see the margin and discounts.
One of the features that may be available to your role is the ability to adjust prices. If that's true, you'll see a small gear icon shown next to prices at both the item level and at the quote level. When clicked, this gear makes it easy for you to adjust the discount of the quote to meet a price goal.
- If you want to ensure your entire quote's value does not exceed a certain amount, click the gear next to the total price, and specify the price you want. The quote's discount will be adjusted to meet this new price.
- If you need only a single item's value to be set to a certain amount, click the gear next to that line item's discount. Specify the amount, and this item's discount will be adjusted to match that amount.
Workflows
When a quote has been submitted, it enters a Workflow, where the necessary steps to fulfill the quote are done in order, by people or automated processes.