Describing the Advanced Variant Configuration (AVC Product Configuration)

A material, in general, is often used for goods and products that are the subject of a business activity. A configurable material is a material, which has several variants, for example, Service Level Agreements, Service Combinations, Speed, and Free Volume.

You've recently started in your company and want to make yourself familiar with the product model for Cloud Selection Services. Therefore, you check the master data and the configuration model of the product, BSU_CLOUD_SEL_SERV. Depending on the configuration of the product, a surcharge for the service level agreement is set.

In our Business Example Table, SLA_INC_FREE_VOL is read to set the Free Volume for CPU, RAM, and Bandwidth depending on the selected service level agreement.

Advanced Variant Configurator Solution Component:

• You can use the SAP S4HANA Variant Configuration to create your Product Models. Variant Configuration via IPC using the Product Modeling Environment (PME) is no longer supported.
• Product Modeling and Advanced Variant Configuration are not specific components to Subscription Order Management, but general SAP S/4HANA features.
• The following slides demonstrate a basic product modeling setup. For more details, check help.sap.com -＞ S/4HANA Product Life Cycle Management (PLM).
• SAP S/4HANA Service uses Advanced Variant Configuration (AVC).

The Variant Configuration app is used to configure your products. Features of Product and Cross Catalog Mapping:

• Charge plan activation and external objects based on characteristics
• Charge Plan Parameter based on characteristics
• Discount/charge activation based on characteristics 

Features of Subscription Order / Solution Quotation / Subscription Contract:

• Configure subscription items with Advanced Variant Configurator (AVC) via UI, and calculate variant surcharges (using SD pricing).  
• Hand over configuration information to Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA) provider contract.
• Hand over configuration information to CC.
• Change process change of configuration.
• Display configuration change in contract history.

The steps to create a configuration model:

1. In the first step, the product needs to be checked as a configurable product in the Manage Product Master Data app.
2. In the second step, a class of the type 300 needs to be created with the Create Classes app.
3. The definition of characteristics and values is also done using the Created Classes app.
4. In the last step, the product needs to be assigned to the created class via the VC Modeling Environment app.

Complete the following steps:

1. Create a Configuration Profile.
2. Configure the Product in Subscription order.
3. Distribute the Configuration to Subscription Contract.
4. Distribute the Configuration to Provider Contract in Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA).
5. Distribute the Configuration to Provider Contract in Convergent Charging.

Product modeling steps for creation configurable product, BSU_CLOUD_SEL_SERV:

1. Create Configurable Material:

   A material, in general, is often used for goods and products that are the subject of a business activity. A configurable material BSU_CLOUD_SEL_SERV is a material that has several variants, such as Service Level Agreement, Free Volume, or Surcharges.

   In Material Master the setting, BSU_CLOUD_SEL_SERV product is configurable, must be set to yes (X = active). 

2. Create Configuration Profile:
   • Define the class type (default 300)
   • Assign a class that's valid for the respective class type

   • Set Configuration Parameters:

     • Processing Mode "Advanced variant Configuration". Only AVC is supported with SAP S/4HANA Service
     • BOM Explosion NONE
     • Process Plnd / Prod.Order
3. Create Class:

   Classes allow you to group objects together according to criteria that you define. You can consider classes as a pool, for example, the class Cloud Service may consist of the characteristics:

   • Service Level
   • Number of FREE RAM
   • Number of FREE Bandwidth
4. Create Characteristics:

   Characteristics describe the properties of objects. The values of a characteristic specify these properties, for example, the characteristic SLA has the values PAY_AS_YOU_GO, SILVER, and GOLD. The Provisioning Parameter can be Speed.

5. Create Variant Tables:

   In variant tables, you can formulate dependencies between characteristics by listing value combinations row by row. In our business example, a surcharge is calculated depending on the service level agreement.

6. Create Dependencies:

   Describe the inter-dependencies between characteristics and characteristic values. Control which components are selected from a bill of material and which operations are selected from a task list.

Dependency – Precondition and Selection Condition

Preconditions are used to hide characteristics and characteristic values that are not allowed and thereby ensure that the configuration of an object is consistent. Selection conditions are used to ensure that all the objects relevant to a variant are selected.

Dependency – Procedure

Procedures can overwrite default values that are set by other procedures. Procedures can set default values for a characteristic, which can be overwritten by the user.

Dependency – Constraint and constraint net

Constraint and constraint net are used for declarative formulation of configuration rules, whose processing sequence is determined automatically. This dependency type is mainly for intensively interactive configuration tasks and for configuration tasks in which you need to take into account the dependencies between the characteristics of several objects. The main purpose of a constraint is to monitor the consistency of a configuration.

Constraints have the following distinguishing features:

• You can use constraints to describe the dependencies between completely different objects and their characteristics.
• Constraints are used to store information on which conditions must be fulfilled if the configuration is to be consistent.
• Constraints are not directly allocated to individual objects. They are grouped together to form dependency nets and allocated to a configurable material in the configuration profile.
• Constraints are declarative dependencies. The processing sequence of constraints and the point in time when constraints are processed are not relevant.
• Constraints are not processed in a specific order. You cannot determine when a specific constraint is used.
• In our business example table, SLA_INC_FREE_VOL, is read to set the Free Volume for CPU, RAM, and Bandwidth depending on the selected service level agreement.

Saving a subscription item in an order or a quote, or saving a subscription contract, the system persists configuration data and assigns the configuration key to the subscription item.

During Contract Distribution to CC, the configuration data is read and the respective charge plan parameters are supplied with the values read from the configuration of the subscription item

During Contract Distribution to FI-CA the configuration key is passed to FI-CA provider contract item. The FI-CA provider contract can access the configuration data using this key.

You can use variant conditions to influence the price of a configurable material depending on the characteristic values assigned. You can define variant conditions during product modeling.

Prices, surcharge or discount, can be defined based on a variant condition. Such variant conditions are linked to characteristics and values. The Variant Condition Key is part of the key of a Condition Record.

During configuration these variant conditions are derived, and the respective variant prices are determined and passed to the item. You can assign reference characteristics referring to SDCOM-VKOND using procedures and constraints.

The Variant Conditions Keys are collected in a reference characteristic. Typical names for this characteristic are, VARCOND, VKOND, or similar. In the procedure, you enter the characteristic with the table reference and the variant key as a value. In such a procedure, you can do the following:

• Set the characteristic with the table reference and the variant key as a value.
• Set pricing factors for surcharges or discounts, which can depend partly on a specific characteristic value and partly on other factors, such as size.