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Oracle Configurator
Introduction:
Configurator is a tool for configuring products and services. The configuration process can include assessing
customer needs, selecting product and service components, and viewing configurations.
Configurator enables end users to access the parts that make up the product and the rules that govern how those
parts fit together. With a configurator, end users can generate any custom product configuration that the rules
allow. A Configurator brings the expertise of enterprise to the point of sale, dramatically changing and improving
the way you sell products and services.
Oracle Configurator Developer (OCD) is the development tool in the Oracle Configurator family of products. It
provides a convenient drag-and-drop interface that enables you to rapidly develop a configurator.
Configuration model development using OCD is iterative process, which has four distinct steps
Model structure is built using Model window component. It in turn uses Item master, properties and imported data
to create model structure. Item master is a subschema in CZ schema for storing product data. OCD uses data in
Item Master to create configuration models. The items in Item Master are either created from scratch in
Configurator Developer or are imported from legacy product data (e.g.: Bills of Material or Pricing information).
Model Structure is a hierarchical tree representation of the Model. Model Structure consists of nodes of different
types at different level. Following is the list of different node types.
One of the most critical activities in constructing configuration model is to design and construct the rules that
govern what the end user can select to make a valid configuration.
Rules express relations among the Components, Features, Options, BOM Option Classes, and BOM Standard Items
of your Model.
At runtime, the Configurator accesses your rules to determine the state of each option before and after the end
user makes a selection. The rules alert the end user when an invalid selection is made and selects or deselects
other options to ensure a valid configuration is created.
OCD allows to create 8 different types of rules which are as listed below
User Interface is basically used for testing the Model or part of Model and is also provides interface to end users
while configuration using the Active Model. OCD can automatically generate a User Interface derived directly from
the Model. This generated UI reflects the structure of Model and provides all the UI elements for implementing a
runtime Oracle Configurator.
OCD takes advantage of the Oracle Configurator architecture by storing the complete definition of the User
interface in the CZ schema, where it is available to the Oracle Configurator Developer and the Active Model in a
runtime Oracle Configurator.
A User Interface is based on a single Model, which can contain sub-Models. Sub-Models can have their own UI or
be included in a UI based on their parent Model (for example, if a Model is referenced by another Model). Models,
sub-Models, BOM Models, BOM Option Classes, and Component nodes are represented by individual screens in
the runtime UI, and OCD creates a separate node for each in the UI tree. Each Feature of a Component or Model
node appears as a separate control within its parent UI screen. The same is true for BOM Standard Items, which
appear within the same UI screen as their parent BOM Option Class. One can modify the type of Feature control
created for Feature nodes (Dropdown List or Selection List), but BOM Option Classes generate selection lists and
the control type is read-only.
Publishing:
Publishing is a process that creates a copy of a configuration model’s structure, rules, and UI on a specific database
to make it available for testing or production use from different hosting applications. Publishing is typically the
final phase of the configuration model development process. When a configuration model is created in OCD, it
must under go unit testing, modification if any, and retest it before making it available to users in either a system
testing or production environment.
A publication is a unique deployment of a configuration model that enables to control its availability when invoked
by a hosting application and the UI that is displayed to the end user. A configuration model can have multiple User
Interfaces and you can create many publications for the same Model. However, a publication corresponds to only
one configuration model and User Interface.
Click on the Lock icon beside the Models appearing in the Repository, so that further changes can be made to the
Models.
Now the edit icons will be enabled besides the models. Click on Edit to enter the model workbench.
In the workbench tab there are 4 sub tabs: General, Structure, Rules & User Interface.
We can create the Non-BOM items in the Model as per our design in the Structure tab. Non-BOM items can be as
follows: Option Feature, Boolean feature, Text Feature, Integer Feature, Decimal Feature, Total, Resource,
Component sets, etc.
In the Rules tab we can create the Rules required to achieve the business scenarios.
In the User Interface tab we create the User Interface and align it as per it needs to be visible when we launch the
Oracle Configurator Runtime.
We need to Publish the Model to be visible in the Run-time. This is done in the Publication sub tab inside the
Repository Tab of OCD.
After doing this we have to Run a Concurrent Program named “Publish a Single Publication“.
To Be Continued…….