Introduction to the Product domain
The Product domain is an operational-styled hub that manages the definition of products. Its collection of products makes up a product catalog that is accessible to other systems across the enterprise.
Product type hierarchy
Different types of products have different types, or sets, of attributes associated with them. The Product domain allows you to define a hierarchy of product types and associate data to capture with each type.
The following product types are provided for you to use as is:
You can create products of any
one of these five types. An associated data model and set of services
exists for each of these product types. Examples of services include AddServiceProduct and UpdateFinancialProduct.
Any one of these five product types can be sub-typed further
to create a custom product type hierarchy. For example, you can sub-type
the FinancialProduct type to create DepositAccountProduct and LoanProduct types.
You can also attach specs to any product type in order to define what data needs to be captured when you create products of that type. The specs can be cascaded down to descendent types.
Product relationships
You can create relationships between products for a number of reasons. For example, you might want to relate products if you want to identify cross-sells, create product bundles, or identify product components.
The relationship type—for example, accessory or cross-sell—is a mandatory code value that identifies the type of relationship that exists between products. You are provided with the ability to create new relationship types using the code table services.
In addition to product relationships, products can be related to each other through the root-variant product structure. A root product typically represents a product line; a variant product is a closely-related product that is a variation of the root product.
Product equivalencies
A product that is defined within the Product domain might also exist in another system. A product equivalence key allows you to determine the product's identifier in the other system.
Since the product's identifier can be made up of a number of different parts, the product equivalence key allows you to store the identifier in its parts or as a concatenated string. See the External rules for the Product domain section for the externalized rules for building equivalence keys.
Product identifiers
This feature provides the ability to store known identifiers of the product that might be assigned by third parties. Examples include NSIN, CUSIP, ISIN in financial services and GTIN, barcodes, UPC in retail.
Product terms and conditions
Terms and conditions serve as an agreement between parties. You can create and relate terms and conditions to one or more products or product relationships. Examples of terms and conditions include eligibility rules and disclosures.
You can create a hierarchy of conditions by creating sub-conditions of conditions.
The static text of terms and conditions can be captured, as well as the parameters of conditions. For example, an eligibility rule for a particular product might have a condition stating that the customer must have an account in a valid status. The parameters of this condition would contain the valid status values.
Product category hierarchy
You can create multiple category hierarchies and group products together in order to create structures that can be navigated, such as product catalogs. For example, you can create a web catalog that contains products presented to external consumers.
You can attach specs to any category in the category hierarchy in order to define what data needs to be captured with product associated with that category. The specs can be cascaded down to descendent categories. See Configuring product category attributes for more information.
Categories can exist in other systems. The Category Equivalence feature supports this and provides for the storage of category equivalency keys in the same way as product equivalency keys are stored for the Product Equivalence feature. See the External rules for the Product domain section for the externalized rules for building equivalency keys.
Product category attributes
Product category attributes are product attributes defined in a spec that can be associated with a category hierarchy. These attributes apply to any product associated with the category. Product category attributes are required in order to feed downstream systems and to support user maintenance of product data through the product UI.
Product data localization
Product data can be maintained, retrieved and searched on in multiple languages.