Introduction

This article provides a structured approach for auditing Salesforce CPQ price rules and automation processes. It serves as a practical guide to ensure accuracy, consistency, and efficiency in your CPQ setup. The focus is on:

1. Price Rule Audit: Detailed review of price rules for accuracy, relevance, and optimization to align with current business practices and pricing strategies.

2. Automation Audit: Examination of automated processes, specifically Flow, for streamlined operations in CPQ, ensuring they complement price rules effectively.

The goal is to identify areas for improvement, streamline processes, and maintain system integrity, ultimately leading to a more effective and reliable CPQ system.

General Assumptions

• This is an audit from the “CPQ Best Practices” perspective.
• This is NOT an audit evaluating automation against business requirements.
• There are no in-flight automations being built.
• The sandbox has been refreshed to reflect the latest set of automations.

Deliverables

• A document containing audit findings.
• A document containing a bank of recommended modifications based upon findings uncovered.

Price Rule Audit

As time goes by, your business evolves, and so do your pricing strategies. Regular auditing of these rules is crucial. This process helps in identifying any outdated or conflicting rules that might lead to pricing inaccuracies or inefficiencies. By streamlining price rules, you’re not only maintaining the integrity of your pricing strategy but also enhancing the overall user experience. This leads to quicker quote generation, fewer errors, and ultimately, happier customers and a smoother sales process.

Rules

1. Organization
   • Has one Evaluation Event.
   • Has Coordinated Evaluation Order.
     1. 100-199: Initialization
     2. 200-299: Before Calculate
     3. 300-399: On Calculate
     4. 400-499: After Calculate
   • Conditions should always have correct values in the Index field.
   • Actions should always have correct values in the Order field.  (ie. Could be cause of double calculate.)
2. Consolidation
   • Lookup pricing should be consolidated to one lookup table, if possible.
   • Rules that fire on the same event with the same conditions should be consolidated to one rule.
   • Rules that fire on different events with the same conditions should be consolidated to one rule with smart ordering of Price Actions.
   • Evaluate Price Actions for redundancies and consolidation.
3. Best Practice
   • Evaluation Events should be correct for the Evaluation Scope. (ie. Calculator rules should not have a Configurator Evaluation Event.)
   • References to formula fields in conditions and actions should be replaced with the formula within the referenced formula field.  (ie. Could be cause of double calculate.)
   • Custom formula fields on Quote and Quote Line should be converted to Price Rules.
   • Rules have a description field with documentation on what the rule does, including conditions, lookup queries and actions.  This field should be updated with any changes to the rule.
   • Ask users for feedback regarding pain points.
4. Tech Debt
   • Rules that have no conditions, lookup queries, or actions should be removed.
   • Inactive rules should be removed.

Automation Audit: WF Rule, Process Builder, Flow

Automation in Salesforce CPQ is not just about setting prices right; it’s about orchestrating an entire symphony of processes that make your quoting and sales cycle as smooth and efficient as possible.

Rules

1. Only Flow should be used.  Convert all other automation to Flow.
2. Automation on Quote and Quote Line should be converted to Price Rules.
3. Automation on Opportunity Product should be converted to Twin Fields and Price Rules. (ie. Values are calculated on Quote Line first, then twinned over to Opportunity Product.)
4. Flows that fire on the same object and event with the same conditions should be consolidated to one rule. 
5. Flows that fire on the same object that have no conditions or content should be removed.
6. Flows that fire on the same object but different events, and have no conditions, should be consolidated to one flow with smart ordering of elements.
7. All flows should have robust error handling.
8. All flows should adhere to a strict naming convention.
9. All flow components should adhere to a strict naming convention.
10. DML operations should be reviewed to ensure they adhere to best practices. (ie. no DML in loops.)
11. Any scheduled flows should be reviewed to ensure the timing is still relevant and are optimized to run during off-peak hours.
12. Any unused flows should be removed.
13. All flows should adhere to the organization’s security protocols to ensure data access and manipulation are in line with user roles and permissions.
14. Any rollup summary definitions against the quote/quote line that exist within 3rd party rollup summary packages should be converted to Price Rules.

Performing the Audit

This audit will happen in two phases.

1. Perform the audit, using the above rules. The output from this will be a “Suggested Modifications” document, outlining a bank of changes to the system, in an effort to streamline the implementation.
2. Make the changes.

Schedule (Template)

Phase 1 – CPQ Price Rules

Effort Estimate: ___ Hours

Assumptions

• There are no more than __ Price Rules.

Phase 2 – Setup Automation

Effort Estimate: ___ Hours

Assumptions

• There are no more than __ CPQ-related Automation points.