Introduction
With the help of custom columns, you can map additional content for your products in a structured way in the quote document. These so-called custom columns do not have a calculatory function, but they expand the content spectrum of your quote design. Since they are written separately in custom fields of the Quote Line Item, the quote design in your company always remains transparent and can be easily evaluated via Salesforce reports.
Custom Columns vs. Product Properties
Some of the information you map via Custom Columns could also be determined using product properties. So what's the difference? A product property is assigned to a product or products in a product group. It is therefore only queried in certain cases, and the determined value does not appear as a separate column in the quotation document.
It therefore makes sense to define custom columns if the requested specifications apply to each of your products and should also be clearly displayed in the quote.
Custom Columns have no calculatory function, even if they are currency or number fields. The values shown here are purely informative.
Configuration
At the Quote Line Item
Content that you want to map using custom columns is first created as custom fields on the object "Position" sf42_quotefx__SF42_GenLineItem__c. There are six different field types to choose from:
Field Type | API-Name Example | Input Example |
|---|---|---|
Text | CustomText__c | abc |
Number | CustomNumber__c | 123 |
Percentage | CustomPercent__c | 10% |
Currency | CustomCurrency__c | 10,00 € |
Picklist | CustomPicklist__c | blue, white, red Please create the field as Unrestricted Picklist or add the selection value "Null" to make the transfer to the opportunity product work. If you assign a default value to the picklist, your custom column will be pre-populated with this value (if no other value is stored on the product). |
URL | CustomURL__c | www.appero.com |
The custom fields you create on "Position" are mapped with the same formatting - e.g. number of decimal places, character length, selection values - as a column in the appero quote Lightning Editor.
In the quote editor
After you have created the desired fields on "Position", they will be available as Columns in the Quote Editor and can be added to the layout normally.
At each product that you add to the quote, you can now fill the columns as you wish:
When saving the quote, the entered values are written to the corresponding fields of the Quote Line Item and can be read out there as well.
At the Opportunity
If you want to copy the values from the Custom Columns to the Opportunity products as well, please create the exact same fields (identical API names, identical field type) on the Opportunity product OpportunityLineItem. The "Copy Products to Opportunity" command will also write the values from the Custom Columns to the corresponding fields.
Map custom fields from the product
Custom Columns can also be used to map additional information about your products, which you maintain there via custom fields, in separate columns in the quote.
The key here is also to create an identical field (identical API names, identical field type) for each custom field on the product on the Quote Line Item and also on the Opportunity Product if needed.
Add these fields to your quote as a column as described above. If the fields on the product have values, these will be automatically written to the Custom Columns when the product is inserted into the quote.
Custom Columns und Product Properties
It is possible to map values from product properties to custom columns.
To do this, enter the API name of the field at the Quote Line Item that is to be used as a custom column in the Opp Lineitem API sf42_quotefx__SF42_OppLiAPIfieldname__c field at the product property. Again, it is important that the property type and the field type at the Quote Line Item match.
If you specify a default value for your product property (sf42_quotefx__SF42_PreassignedValue__c), it will be written directly to the custom column.
Changes to the product property are then written to the custom column at the same time. Conversely, changes to the column do not affect the property value.
Key for the interaction of Quote Line Item, Column, Opportunity Product, Product and Product Property is that always identical API names and field types (Text, Number, Currency, Percent, Pick List, URL) are used. If there are any deviations in terms of name or type, the synchronization will fail and the values will be ignored.
Exception are product properties of type Table/Relation: Here the associated Custom Column must be independent of the queried field of type Text.
Map images in custom columns
With version 20.100 you can also map image files via URL in custom columns.
To do this, create a calculation field with an IMAGE function at Product2 - alternatively a text field with a full html tag - and a long text type field of the same name as the target field on the Quote Line Item. The API names of both fields end with ImageUrl__c. If you now insert the column in the quote, the image associated with the link will be read.
If images are to be used outside of Salesforce, please configure the remote site setting for this purpose.
Custom Columns and Multilingualism
Please note that custom columns of type Picklist always map the field values in the user language. The "Multilingualism" feature is not supported here.