Quotemanagement involves the management of quotes that are associated witha sales opportunity.

Quote management uses the Quote Fulfillment pipelinein Process Modeling to send a quote through its various stages suchas creation approval presentation acceptance or rejection andorder placement and track the quote's lifecycle. The lifecycleof quotes associated with an opportunity begins with the creationof one or more quotes by a Field Sales Representative and ends wheneither an order is created from one of the associated quotes or thequotes are abandoned.

AField Sales Representative can create and present one or more associatedquotes to a customer for a single sales opportunity. However thecustomer can accept only one quote for that opportunity thereby abandoningall the other associated quotes. When a quote is accepted by a customerthe quote can be converted into an order any time prior to the quote'sexpiration date. Subsequently the quote is moved to the Ordered statusthe opportunity is moved to the Won status and all the remainingassociated quotes are abandoned. If the quotes expire or the customerdoes not want to negotiate on any of the quotes associated with anopportunity the quotes are moved to the Abandoned status and theField Sales Representative manually moves the opportunity to the Loststatus. Quotes are purged when they are moved to either the Orderedstatus or the Abandoned status in the Quote Fulfillment pipeline.

A Field Sales Representative can add notes to aquote throughout the quote's lifecycle and associate a notereason for each note added such as Customer Inquiry Competitor Priceand Customer Satisfaction.

Aquote flows through the following process:

1. A Field Sales Representative creates a quote eitheras a result of a sales opportunity or at the direct request of a customer.If a sales opportunity already exists the Field Sales Representativecreates one or more quotes related to that opportunity. If a customerinitiates the creation of a quote the Field Sales Representativecreates an opportunity for that quote and may also create additionalalternative quotes.
2. Using the Customer Rating details and DiscountAdvisor the Field Sales Representative arrives at an appropriateprice for each of the product lines in a quote.
3. If a customer requests a special feature or functionfor an item in a quote the request must be evaluated and worked onby engineering before the quote is submitted for approval.
4. A quote may require one or more approvals beforebeing presented to the customer. For example if a Field Sales Representativeoffers a discount that exceeds the amount the Field Sales Representativeis allowed to offer a supervisor may be required to approve the quote.In a more complex scenario multiple people and multiple departmentsmay have to approve the quote.

   An approval transactiondetermines whether the quote has to be submitted for approvals andif yes the people who have to approve the quote. If approvals arerequired the quote is put on hold and the appropriate approversare notified that the quote is waiting for their approval. All theapprovers must approve the quote before the quote can be presentedto the customer. If approvals are not required the quote is automaticallymoved to the Approved status.

5. The Field Sales Representative presents the quoteto the customer after all the items in the quote have been validated.
6. The customer can either accept or reject the quote.
   • If the customer accepts the quote an order iscreated from the quote either automatically or by the Field SalesRepresentative. The quote is moved to the Ordered status all theassociated quotes are moved to the Abandoned status and the opportunityis moved to the Won status.
   • If the customer rejects the quote the Field SalesRepresentative may rework the quote and present the reworked quoteto the customer or the quote may expire. When the customer does notwant to negotiate on the quote anymore the customer may request anabandonment of the quote. In such a case the quote is moved to theAbandoned status in the Quote Fulfillment pipeline.
     Note: If a customer accepts a quote and then requests changesto the quote the quote must be reworked and is moved back to theCreated status in the Quote Fulfillment pipeline.
7. Theorder purge agent purges the quotes that are in the Ordered statusand the Abandoned status. A quote is in the Abandoned status underany of the following conditions:
   • The Field Sales Representative decides that thequote is no longer negotiable and moves the quote to the Abandonedstatus.
   • An order is created for an associated quote inthe sales opportunity.
   • The quote has expired and has been moved to theAbandoned status.

     The opportunity purge agent purgesthe corresponding opportunity after all the quotes associated withthe opportunity have been purged.

After an order is created from a quote the ordergets fulfilled through the Order Fulfillment pipeline.