Nextian Product Management leverages standard Salesforce price books to manage product and service pricing across multiple customer segments and sales channels. Multiple price books can be configured to support diverse pricing strategies. For example:
- A Communications Service Provider (CSP) might use separate Residential, Business, and Wholesale price books for different market segments. A product like 100 Mbps Business Internet may have different prices in each, and some products may only be available in specific markets.
- A colocation or private cloud provider may differentiate pricing by region (e.g., North America vs. EMEA).
- Temporary promotional price books can be created for limited-time offers or SPIFFs.
- E-commerce and online sales may require different pricing than traditional sales channels.
A single customer account can purchase products and services from multiple price books. These price books may include different pricing not only for new products, but also for add-ons and service requests.
This complexity impacts both pricing and workflow execution. For example, a cancellation work order templates for the same product may differ between residential and B2B price books.
To address this, Nextian Product Management extends the standard Salesforce Price Book object with the following custom fields:
- Is Portal Pricebook — Identifies the price book used for online sales via the Customer Portal (only one can be set as the Portal Price Book).
- Is Default Pricebook — Indicates the default price book used by Nextian CPQ and the Customer Portal. This is used, for instance, when services are imported without an associated price book. (Note: Salesforce’s native IsStandard field could not be used for technical reasons.)
Additionally, the original price book used when a service is created is stored directly on the service record to ensure consistency throughout the service lifecycle. The following rules apply:
| Scenario | Price Book Selection |
|---|---|
| New product quote and order in the CRM / Nextian CPQ | User can select any price book; the default is pre-selected. The selected price book is saved on the service upon creation. |
| On-line new service order from the Customer Portal | The Portal Price Book is used and saved on the newly created service. |
| Changes and cancellations from the CRM / Nextian CPQ | Any price book can be selected, but the service’s original price book is pre-selected in the Nextian CPQ user interface. |
| Changes and cancellations from the Customer Portal | The service’s price book is used, if available. Otherwise, the default price book is used. |
