Documentation

Integrate CPQ

In the digital age, the integration of complex systems like SAP Configure, price, quote (CPQ) with advanced commerce platforms such as commercetools is not just a technical enhancement; it's a strategic necessity. This integration bridges the gap between traditional back-office operations and modern digital commerce, offering a cohesive, efficient, and customer-centric business model.

In this guide, we'll explore the key aspects and benefits of integrating CPQ with commercetools. We'll focus on two main components of the integration: synchronizing products and quotes. By following along with this guide, you'll also gain insights into how such an integration can lead to more streamlined operations, improved customer satisfaction, and increased competitiveness in the digital marketplace.

Benefits of integration

The integration of CPQ and commercetools brings a multitude of benefits that can transform how you operate and interact with your customers. The integration not only ensures a streamlined flow of information but also enhances various aspects of business operations, from internal processes to customer engagement. Synchronizing products and quotes between CPQ and commercetools includes benefits, such as:

  • Enhanced customer experience: a seamless and consistent experience across different channels contributes to a positive customer experience. Customers can confidently browse products, configure quotes, and make purchases, knowing that the information is accurate and up-to-date.
  • Efficiency and automation: streamlined processes that allow you to operate more efficiently. Automating and synchronizing quote generation and order processing saves time and resources, enabling teams to focus on more strategic aspects of the business.
  • Better data visibility: better visibility into customer interactions and transactions allowing for informed decision-making and strategic planning.
  • Improved accuracy: a reduced risk of errors and discrepancies in customer transactions.

Integration process

The process of integrating CPQ with commercetools involves connecting the data and functionalities of both systems, allowing for real-time updates and accurate information sharing. The backbone of the integration is focused on two key processes, synchronizing products and quotes. Let's explore both processes in detail.

Synchronizing products

One of the main components of the integration is product catalog synchronization between CPQ and commercetools. This ensures that product information is consistent across all channels, preventing discrepancies that can lead to customer confusion or order errors. The integration should enable the automatic replication of product data from CPQ to commercetools, including product descriptions, specifications, and pricing.

In a typical architecture, commercetools would act as the system to serve all product information (including product configuration and pricing) to all channels. Because of the robust, flexible, and fast commercetools APIs, this data can be easily consumed by clients like commercetools Frontend or other various applications.

Real-time product data updates

The integration should support real-time product data updates, ensuring that any changes made in the CPQ system, such as new product configurations or pricing adjustments, are immediately reflected in your Composable Commerce product catalog.

Product attribute mapping

Effective integration requires careful mapping of product attributes between the two systems. This ensures that data is accurately transferred to commercetools, maintaining a seamless customer experience.

One of the key benefits of Composable Commerce is the extremely flexible data model that allows you to create product types, attribute sets, and categories that can be customized to meet any business requirements. This allows you to enrich the core product data with additional information, such as marketing-related content, seamlessly. Data modeling can be handled with the APIs alone, allowing for immediate updates without the need for complex release processes. This also makes the replication of product data between different systems smooth and flexible.

Quote replication

In addition to product replication, the integration between CPQ and commercetools should also extend to quote management. This enables businesses to provide a consistent quoting experience, whether a customer is interacting with the CPQ system or purchasing through other digital commerce channels. Like product replication, the API-first design of commercetools enables the full quoting process to be conducted through its APIs.

Automated quote generation

The integration should allow for the automated generation of quotes based on customer interactions, whether through the CPQ system or using the Composable Commerce APIs. This streamlines the quoting process, reducing manual effort and minimizing the risk of errors.

To create and manage quotes, we recommend using the native B2B functionalities of Composable Commerce. In addition, you can use Subscriptions to trigger an asynchronous process that facilitates the transfer of the quote into the CPQ system for further processing. The sales representatives can then amend the quote in CPQ, for example, provide discounts, or modify the product and pricing information. The updated quote is then sent back to Composable Commerce, incorporating all the changes, and the B2B customer is informed about the revisions to their quote.

Once the sales representative finalizes the quote in CPQ, the integration should update the quote in Composable Commerce to reflect all the price and product changes. This ensures that the B2B customer can get notified of those changes and accept or reject the quote.

Composable Commerce quotes use States that facilitate customizing the quoting process to align with specific business needs. Once a customer accepts a quote, it is then converted into an order.

Quote to order processing

Once an order is created from a quote, the integration should transfer the order information from Composable Commerce to CPQ for further processing. This ensures a smooth transition from the online quoting and ordering process to the backend systems responsible for fulfillment. This part of the integration can also use an asynchronous approach with Subscriptions and API calls.

Simplify an integration with Connect

You can use commercetools Connect for running the building blocks of an integration, such as API Extensions, jobs, and event listeners. With Connect, you do not need to deploy the integration components directly on AWS or GCP. Connect takes care of the build, deployment, and hosting of the application or service. Developers can focus on the integration logic, data mapping, and business processes without the need to provision infrastructure and maintain CI/CD processes.

commercetools Connect provides ready-made integrations which can be easily managed and deployed on infrastructure provided by commercetools. Alternatively, you can create and deploy your own custom integrations. Our development templates provide examples for subscribing to Messages. Learn more in our Connect guides.