Is ChatGPT Salesforce CPQ Ready?
Following all the recent posts (including from Marc Benioff) regarding ChatGPT, I thought it was time to take a closer look with a specific Salesforce CPQ lens. This was interesting and I would recommend taking a look at the tool however, I would say that it should be used with caution as I mention below.
For those of you who have not heard about ChatGPT, it is an open-source AI tool designed to give answers to questions which are normally found by searching in Google and reading a number of articles. It will also build formulas and code for you. I don’t know how it does this, especially how it does it so quickly, however, the answers are good to a certain technical level. From a CPQ perspective, I decided that a fun and fair(ish) way to analyse the tool would be to ask it 5 basic CPQ interview questions and see how it got one. In this article, I analyse the answers it gave me.
Question 1: When would you suggest a company uses Salesforce CPQ?
Answer: A company should consider using Salesforce CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) when they need to streamline their sales quoting and ordering processes. This could include scenarios such as:
When the company has a complex product or service offering that requires custom configurations
When the company needs to automatically calculate pricing based on a customer's specific requirements
When the company needs to provide accurate and professional-looking quotes to customers quickly
When the company wants to automate the process of creating quotes, contracts and orders.
Analysis: Generally the answer was good, it provided 4 good things to look out for and I liked that the breakdown of the acronym was included. From a person, I would have liked to have seen examples of experience but that is not something I expected from a bot. There is no mention of subscription management here though which I would find concerning as the Subscription/Renewals mechanisms are used in 90% of CPQ projects.
Score: 4/5
Question 2: What is the difference between a Price Rule and a Product Rule?
Answer: In Salesforce CPQ, a Price Rule is used to calculate the price of a specific product based on certain criteria, such as the quantity of the product being purchased or the specific options selected by the customer. Price Rules can also be used to apply discounts or surcharges to a product based on certain conditions.
A Product Rule, on the other hand, is used to control the availability and configuration of products in a quote. This can include things like:
Determining whether a product is available for purchase
Specifying which options and add-ons are available for a product
Restricting the selection of certain products based on the selection of other products
Automatically adding products to a quote based on the selection of certain options.
In summary, Price Rule is used to calculate the price of a product, while Product Rule is used to control the availability and configuration of products in a quote.
Analysis: This answer is generally good but misses a number of other uses for the tools and would prompt me to question further, for instance, a Price Rule can control any field even if it is nothing to do with prices. Examples of this are text or picklist fields like description or Introduction. A Product Rule is also used a lot for alerts and validations which often make up 30% of the utilisation in any single implementation in my experience. As such, I feel that the answer is missing some vital aspects.
Score: 3/5
Question 3: How do you build a Price rule in Salesforce CPQ to pull values from a data table?
Answer: To build a price rule in Salesforce CPQ that pulls values from a data table, you'll need to do the following:
Create a custom object or use an existing object in Salesforce to store the data table that you want to pull values from.
Create a relationship between the custom object and the Salesforce CPQ opportunity or quote object.
In Salesforce CPQ, navigate to the "Price Rules" section and create a new price rule.
In the rule criteria, specify the conditions under which the price rule should be applied. For example, you might specify that the rule should only be applied when a certain product is selected.
In the rule actions, use a formula to reference the data table and pull the appropriate values. For example, you might use a formula to retrieve the price of a product from the data table based on the product's SKU.
Save the price rule and test it to ensure that it is pulling the correct values from the data table and applying them correctly.
It is important to note that Salesforce CPQ is a complex product, and that building a Price Rule may require advanced knowledge of Salesforce CPQ and its capabilities, as well as advanced knowledge of Salesforce platform in general.
Analysis: I have to say that I’m not sure if the question has been answered correctly but the details are missing. The best practice way of doing this is via Lookup Data which is indeed often a new custom object and pulled in via a Price Rule. However, there is no relationship needed between the Objects in the data structure. As such, I think this advice is misleading and could easily send someone down the wrong track. In an interview, I would ask for clarification and I would become very concerned at this point.
Score: 0/5
Question 4: If a Quote document is not generating, how should you investigate?
Answer: If a Quote document is not generating in Salesforce CPQ, there are several steps that can be taken to investigate the issue:
Check the Quote Template: Make sure the Quote template being used is properly set up and configured, and that all necessary fields and merge tags are included.
Check the Quote record: Verify that the Quote record has all of the necessary information, such as the products and pricing, and that the Quote is in an appropriate status (e.g. "Draft" or "Activated") for generating a document.
Check the Quote calculation: Verify that the Quote calculation is properly configured and that the pricing is being calculated correctly.
Check the log files: Review the Salesforce CPQ log files to see if there are any error messages or other details that may indicate the cause of the issue.
Contact the support: If the issue persists, you can contact the Salesforce CPQ support for assistance. They will be able to provide guidance and troubleshoot the issue further.
It is also important to check if any recent updates or changes have been made to the Salesforce environment, such as custom fields, validation rules, process builder, flow, or custom settings which might be causing the issue.
Analysis: This is a good answer with good options, there are other things I would also do including a replication of the Quote Template and systematic removal of sections to see what has caused the issue. There is also no mention of replicating the issue, if you can’t replicate you can’t mend. Overall though this is a good answer.
Score: 4/5
Question 5: Write me a Salesforce validation rule to ensure a field is populated if probability is over 41%
Answer: Here is an example of a Salesforce validation rule that will ensure that field "a" is populated if the probability field is over 41%:
AND( ISPICKVAL(Probability__c, "41% or higher"), ISBLANK(Field_A__c) )
This validation rule uses the AND function to check if two conditions are true. The first condition is that the Probability__c field is equal to "41% or higher" using the ISPICKVAL function. The second condition is that the Field_A__c is blank using the ISBLANK function.
If both conditions are true, then the validation rule will trigger and the user will see an error message.
You can customize the error message to be displayed to the user by adding a third parameter to the AND function:
AND( ISPICKVAL(Probability__c, "41% or higher"), ISBLANK(Field_A__c), "Please fill in Field A if Probability is over 41%" )
This validation rule can be added to the object that has the fields Probability__c and Field_A__c.
It's important to note that the validation rule will only run when the user is saving or editing the record, it will not run when the record is created via Apex or any other automation process.
Please make sure to test the validation rule before deploying it to your production environment.
Analysis: I have been known to throw this one in as you always end up working on Opportunities when working on CPQ. I have seen a number of answers to this and overall I like that ChatGPT created a working formula, is it how I would do it? No, I would not use a picklist for Probability but it would work in itself and there is good advice in there regarding certain best practice. That said, Probability is a Standard field that should be used in this occasion rather than a custom field. This basic understanding is missing and ends up leading the tool down the wrong track which is a shame.
Score: 2/5
So, would I hire ChatGPT? Well no, the overall score was 13 out of 25 (52%). There are too many areas that lack vital information or are wrong. However, ChatGPT is not a person and full fills a different part of the work process. I like that this is acknowledged in the answer by ChatGPT to question 3 and I can certainly see use cases for the tool. Having said that, I wouldn’t trust it to create formulas or APEX just yet.
Please get in touch if you would like to discuss ChatGPT or Salesforce CPQ further via cpq@drivechain.co.uk
