Prerequisite for using Oracle Configurator is knowledge of Oracle Inventory and Oracle Bills of Material modules.After going through this white paper reader should understand following things: Oracle Configurator Components Important Profiles and Concurrent Programs Relationship of Oracle Configurator with Oracle Inventory/Bills of Material Overview of Most Importance component Oracle Configurator DeveloperI will be using Oracle E-Business Suite R12 for screen shots but I will be discussing features which are present in Oracle EBS 11.5.10.2.Overview:Oracle Configurator Module can be treated of as a selling machine if there is a model bill against which to configure by selecting options. It can also be thought of as an engineering machine if there is no model bill. An engineering machine could generate a bill. Configurations created with Oracle Configurator are standard bills based on an already existing model bill. Configurator does not have to be based on bills of material, although that is currently necessary for ordering and downstream ERP. Oracle Configurator is an application or part of an application that lets a user configure products and services. The configuration model, which is typically based on a BOM model, consists of structure, rules, and UI definition.Oracle Configurator ComponentsOracle Configurator consists of the following main elements: Runtime Oracle Configurator Oracle Configurator Servlet (OC Servlet) UI Server Configuration Interface Object (CIO) The Oracle Configurator Schema within an Oracle Applications database Oracle Configurator Developer With Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10.2 all above components come as integral part Oracle EBS installations. In Previous version, Oracle Configurator Developer used to be a separate desktop application. Runtime Oracle ConfiguratorThe runtime Configurator provides a means of selecting options to create a configuration. It is presented to end users by the OC Servlet as an Oracle Configurator window. Although Configurator can be deployed as a standalone application, the Oracle Configurator window is usually launched from within a host application. From Oracle Order Management runtime Configurator can be invoked if ATO/PTO model is entered on Order Line and Configure button is clicked. Oracle Configurator ServletThis consists of UI Server and Configuration Interface Object. The OC Servlet runs on Oracle Internet Application Server (iAS), which includes the Apache Web Server. The behavior of the OC Servlet can be customized by setting Servlet properties.Oracle Configurator Schema The Oracle Configurator schema consists of Configurator (CZ) tables in the Oracle EBS 11i database that is accessed by both the runtime Oracle Configurator and Oracle Configurator Developer.Oracle Configurator DeveloperWith Release 11.5.10 this comes as integral part of EBS. This is used to develop various configuration rules, user interface, add non-BOM items which are necessary for guided selling. The user interface (UI) can later be published to various hosting applications like Order Management, iStore etc.Important Responsibilities Oracle Configurator Administrator Oracle Configurator Developer Inventory (For defining MODEL, Catalogs) Bills Of Material (for defining MODEL BOM)

Both Oracle Configurator responsibilities see the same user interface except using Administrator responsibility one can edit/change MODELs created by other users while Developer responsibility can edit MODELs created by same user. So we will be using Oracle Configurator Administrator only.

Important Profiles

Profile Name Value Description

CZ: Generic Configurator UI TypeHTML Hierarchical TableThis displays DHTML user interface created in Oracle Configurator Module

CZ: Use Generic Configurator UIYes

BOM:Configurator URL of UI Managerhttp://:/OA_HTML/configurator/UiServletThis will launch Configurator UI

Item Related Setups in Oracle Inventory

Oracle Configurator is driven by the MODEL (ATO or PTO) type of items. Generally Oracle Configurator is used for guided selling i.e. user is presented with various questions and based on user inputs respective components are selected. So user should be allowed to select various product properties. These properties are stored as Item Catalog values in Oracle Inventory.

Item Properties are grouped into Catalog Groups. Each Catalog group can have multiple catalog elements (properties). At the most one catalog group can be assigned to a given item. While defining product structure for ATO Model and related Option classes one must design option class and its properties in such a way that end user should be able choose various property value in Configurator. In Configurator, these catalog groups are termed as Item Types. We can define property based rules to choose components for various option classes.

There are multiple ways of defining or designing catalog groups. We can have separate catalog groups defined for each option class/component items. Lets discuss this with example of Model Sentinel Custom Desktop Item Code CN-92777. This model has various components viz. Software, Memory, Hard Disk etc. Each option class and its related item can have related catalog group attached to it. E.g. Hard Disk Catalog Group can have properties (elements) like Manufacturer, Size, type etc. All items which come under hard disk options can have this catalog group assigned to it. Finally the MODEL item can have a new catalog group e.g. CTO Sentinal or Laptop which will contain all the catalog elements of individual option classes.

Second type of Product design can be MODEL and all its option classes/components can have the same catalog group assigned to them e.g. Desktop Catalog and individual components have values only for related properties/catalog elements.

A product can be configured (by calling Configurator) from Oracle Order Management, Order Entry screen. This order can be progressed to create a new configured item (typically called STAR item because the new item code is Model item code and a sequence number separate by *). Newly created item is standard item with standard bill of material containing actual components (as against the option classes for MODEL item). The new star item also get the catalog group assigned to Model and the catalog element values come from individual components catalog element values. For example, newly configured star item CN92777*12245 has CTO Sentinal or Laptop group of which is same as base MODEL and individual value like Memory, Hard Disk Size etc will get values from individual components.

While designing catalog element one has to take care that all option class catalog elements names are unique. E.g. Manufacturer property will be present for all option class catalog groups, to make it unique we should name it like HD. Manufacturer for Hard Disk, FD. Manufacturer for floppy disk, RM. Manufacturer for RAM etc. So when final star item gets created all catalog elements for individual components get clubbed to gather automatically.