Configurator: What is CZGOLD instance?

In Oracle Configurator world, CZGOLD terminology is coined very frequently by Oracle or experienced Configurator implementors and new guys are usually confused by this term.

CZGOLD is an instance strategy which many implementors may already be following in their implemention. CZGOLD is an instance where you import models from one BOM instance, do Configuration model development and publish to multiple different instances.

Not a picture perfect, but something similar to --

         <---------- IMPORT BOM -----<------------BOM INSTANCE
        /                                           ^
       /                                            |
CZGOLD/------->----PUBLISH BOM MODEL(Optional)--->-->
      \
       \
        \----->----PUBLISH BOM MODEL--->--ANOTHER BOM INSTANCE1
         \
          \---->----PUBLISH BOM MODEL-->--ANOTHER BOM INSTANCE2
           \
            \-->----PUBLISH BOM MODEL-->--ANOTHER BOM INSTANCE3


Benefit of having a dedicated CZ instance (CZGOLD) verses maintaining BOM/CZ along with your transactional data (Quote/OM) within a single instance:

Its always good to have a separate dedicated instance for CZ, usually referred as CZGOLD.

Configurator model development is different and standalone process. It does not have any need of transactional environment when BOM is already imported to CZ and until testing of the functionality is required in order line.
Configurator development environment will require exposure to testing of Java CX - which has killer ability to do server crash when its not fully tested or due to malfunction of code or inappropriate model setup. Definitely you would not prefer your transactional processing to be affected by model development/testing.

For Configurator development, you may need to expose unix box access, database access to Configurator model/CX developer.

When you have SR/issue in Configurator and Oracle gives fix for it, you may want to test it first in CZ test env, and not directly on the instance where transaction data is getting processed to ensure fix will work for you, and if any problem, you can report back to Oracle.

You will not prefer to affect transaction data processing performance with model development process. Keeping both of them on separate instance will be better utilization of resource and will avoid performance issues due to hardware bottleneck (agree that you need additional CZ instance but its worth doing it).

Usually companies maintain CZGOLD PROD and CZGOLD TEST instance. First do changes on Test instance and then migrate change on Prod. Now R12 Configurator has functionality called model migration, which makes it very easy to migrate model from one instance to another instance. Multiple divisions can work on their own CZGOLD Test instance and then finally migrate the model on CZGOLD Prod instance for model release.

CZ: Understanding Valid and Complete Configuration

This is very common question among Configurator Developers: What is Valid Configurator and What is Complete Configuration? What is the difference between the two?
Order can be booked with only valid and complete configuration.

COMPLETE:
Configuration is said to be complete if all mandatory inputs have been provided. Alternatively, Incomplete is referred as Unsatisfied as well. Configuration can be incomplete/unsatisfied because of node definition (Structure) or because of Rules.
For example, if there is an option feature with min/max as 1/1, then atleast 1 option selection has to made for it. If user did not make any selection, then configuration will remain incomplete. For some features, you can specify if they need user input while creating the feature. Those can make Configuration incomplete if value has not been provided.
Configuration can be incomplete due to rules as well. For example, if there is a rule like
A Implies AnyTrue(B, C)
then if A is selected in Configuration, either B or C must be selected (Configurator Original Engine cannot select any option on its own). If none of B or C is selected, configuration will remain incomplete. The rule will be said as Unsatisfied Rules, and you can chose to display your own message for it in the rule definition.

VALID:
Configurator is said to be valid if none of the rules are violated or none of the Resource is over consumed.
If there is a violation in the configuration, its status will be marked as invalid. If any integer feature has maximum defined value as 100, and if user tries to enter 200, Configurator will accept input but it will make the configuration invalid.
Usually in rule case like BomModel Requires (IntFeature <= 100) will throw immediate violation when IntFeature value entered is more than 100, Configurator does not accept value in such case - Configurator will not prevent user from creating invalid configuration.

Oracle Configurator

Oracle Configurator is

• an SCM (Supply Chain Management) family product in Oracle Applications
  
• integrates with Order Management, Quoting, iStore and other custom applications allowing them to configure its product.
• helps in building a Guide Selling flow
  
• allows the product to be configured according to custom defined rules and User Interfaces (UIs).
  
• manages the set of UIs (publications) for different application for different effectivity dates.
• has CZ as code name in Oracle Applications
• webbased product
  

From Oracle's website
Oracle Configurator application integrates with Oracle CRM and Supply Chain Management so you can offer guided selling to your customers. It actively gathers customer requirements and then maps them to a set of product or service options. Oracle Configurator supports Internet sales and telesales as well as other channels.

What to expect from this product:

To easily understand the end result CZ product, visit Dell website and configure any laptop.
While configuring the laptop, you will find that some items in the laptop product (like RAM and OS, Port and respective Accessories) may not be compatible with each other. Like, Windows Vista is not compatible with less than 1GB RAM. You may see some items selected/deselected automatically when you select certain items. You will also see some items appearing and disappearing in webpage UI based on certain selections.

Such compatibility and incompatibility of the items in product are created and managed by product developer. These are called Rules in CZ. CZ Rules can select/deselect certain items based on defined criteria.
The display layout of certain items, and their visibility/invisibility is defined in CZ UIs.
Once, you have the UIs, you can create a copy (although copy not an appropriate term, but gives good understanding about model publications) of UIs and send it to various applications registered in Oracle Applications. Process of creating this backup copy is called Publications.

Well, above example talked only about Laptop product model. You can create Rules and UIs for any product (having however complex its structure may be, usually a BOM-Bill of Materials model).
In addition to product's defined structure items, you can create additional nodes/items (in CZ, they are called non-BOM nodes) in the product model which help to create guided selling flow for the product. Like in above laptop example, first you may select the use of the laptop (like Home-use or Office-use) and certain selections will be made automatically (through CZ rules) for you to create laptop configuration according to selected requirement.