After you have uploaded your customer's RFQ into CPQ, you can quickly scrub the line items in the list so it has good and reliable data. Part scrubbing involves ensuring that the customer's requested part numbers you've uploaded into CPQ are matched to the correct and intended part in your catalog.
CPQ helps you do this by identifying what part numbers should be cleaned, and enables you to replace those parts by making suggestions for you so you can choose the correct part number.
Examples of invalid part numbers:
- Partial part numbers
- Part numbers with additional or missing symbols (+, -, spaces)
No Match Filter
Quickly find line items where the customer's requested part number(s) did not match to a valid part by clicking on the [X] Parts No Match button below the Quote Info section of the page:
This No Match button will filter your list by line items that resulted in one of two options:
- No Exact Match: This means that CPQ was unable to find an exact Catalog match for the provided part, but there are suggestions the user can review.
- No Match Found: This means that CPQ was unable to find an exact Catalog match for the provided part, and there are no suggestions available for users to review.
Suggestions
Types Of Suggestions
To help with the part cleansing process, CPQ provides suggestions that users can reference to find the part their customer is looking for.
CPQ supports five different types of suggestions:
- Catalog Suggestions: CPQ takes the requested MPN, compares them against the MPNs in your part Catalog, and returns similar parts.
- XRefs: Internal cross references that your company has provided to Supplyframe.
- External Suggestions: CPQ looks up the requested MPN against Supplyframe's database of over 600 million electronics components and returns similar parts.
- External XRef, Form Fit Function: The requested MPN and requested manufacturer are used to look up form, fit, function cross references in Supplyframe's electronics component database.
- Functional Equivalents: The requested MPN and requested manufacturer are used to look up functional equivalent cross references in Supplyframe's electronics component database.
You can see which line items have suggestions available for review by looking at the Quoted column. CPQ will display the type and count of suggestions that exist for your line.
Click on the Quoted cell for the line item you're working on to view suggestions and additional details.
Part ID Links
The Catalog Suggestions and XRef tabs will show a Part ID column because these are internal suggestions that have corresponding internal part numbers.
Click on the Part ID links to open the part details page for more information about a particular suggestion you may be evaluating.
Part Intelligence Cube
CPQ also shows Part Intelligence cubes next to MPNs in the Suggestions modal. These Part Intelligence cubes are available for all five suggestions types.
The Part Intelligence cube will show important part information, including:
- Datasheets
- CAD Model Information (Part Symbol, Footprint, 3D Model)
- XRefs
- Details
Click the Open New Page button to see additional information about the part you are reviewing.
CPQ will open up a new tab in your browser and will display the Part Intelligence page.
Advanced Search
Another tool that users can utilize when fixing part numbers in the quoting process is Advanced Search. This feature helps users find parts in Catalog without having to leave the line item they're working.
You can search by either Part Number or Manufacturer, or can enter search values into both fields for combined results. Note that the Part Number and Manufacturer fields require users to enter at least three characters.
Search strings entered into the Part Number field will search across values in the Part ID and Manufacturer Part Number columns in Catalog, and search strings entered into the Manufacturer field will search across values in the Manufacturer column in Catalog.
One common way to use Advanced Search to fix part numbers is to search for small portions of the customer's requested MPN at a time.
For example if a customer requested the following MPN:
Try searching for the first few characters of the requested part at time.
Then review the Advanced Search results that come up.
Replace
Once you've found the part you're looking for click on the Replace button.
Then the part will be loaded into your line item.
Replace Part Number
If you happen to already know what part you'd like to load into your line item, another option is to use the Replace Part Number feature. This feature is available on the bottom of every tab of the Suggestions modal.
Enter the part number you want to load into your line and click Save. CPQ will then load that part number into your line item.
Last Pick
The Last Pick feature tracks part corrections that you or your teammates have made in your instance of CPQ. The next time a part that has been previously fixed is uploaded into the application, CPQ will suggest the last picked part replacement to you, so you don't have to use suggestions to fix the part all over again.
How the feature works is that whenever you have a part that didn't match to a valid part in your Catalog ('No Exact Match' or 'No Match Found' is shown in Manufacturer column).
If you fix the incorrect part by replacing it with a suggestion, advanced search result, or some different part - in this case with the Texas Instruments Advanced Search result below:
Whenever you or any one of your teammates uploads the same incorrect requested MPN into CPQ (DS9098P-TRL+/BKN), CPQ will recommend the part that was last used to correct this requested MPN.
Click the Use Last Pick button to load the Last Pick into your line item:
As a note, Last Picks will dynamically update as you and your teammates correct parts in CPQ.
For example, if you've previously corrected a requested MPN (eg. to DS90CF364AMTD/NOPB like in the screenshot above), and the next time you upload the incorrect requested MPN into a quote and fix it with a different part than the one you chose last time:
The next time you upload the same requested MPN into a quote, the Last Pick suggestion will show the most recent part correction:
Lastly, in the Settings step of the "Create New Quote" process, we show a feature called Last Pick Settings.
This feature is turned off by default, but if it is turned on, CPQ will load any available Last Picks into your line items automatically, so you don't have to fix previously corrected parts manually.