Create products
Creating a new product involves the following process:
- Create and define the product.
- Release the product to legal entities.
- Define legal entity-specific data.
When you create a new product definition, the type and subtype are the key attributes to enter.
Go to Product information management > Products > Released products to create released products.
The product type classifies whether a product is tangible (item) or intangible (service), whereas the subtype is a subclassification of the product.
Product translation
The Text translations page lets you have product translations. On this page, you can enter descriptions and product names for multiple languages. However, the product name and description are optional; only the product number is required. To open the Text translations page, select Product > Translations on the Released product details page.
The product translations are used for output on external documents, whereas the data values always show in the system language, such as when you open and view the product-related pages and list pages.
On external documents, the product name is displayed according to the company language or the preferred language by the customer or vendor.
Authorize product setup in a legal entity
Before you can use a product master on a transaction, such as a sales order or purchase order, you need to release the product master and one or more of its variants to each legal entity, that is, if the configuration technology is set to be predefined variants. When releasing products, you can release many combinations of products, product masters, and product variants to one or more legal entities:
- Single product or multiple products
- Single product variant or multiple product variants
- Single legal entity or multiple legal entities
The release product process lets users in an organization push product definition to various legal entities. By releasing a product or a product master, you can associate it with a legal entity and authorize the product definition for use in the legal entity.
Go to Product information management > Products > All products and product masters and then select one or more products that you want to authorize for one or more legal entities. This process allows you to use the product in processes, such as inventory, purchase, sales, and production, by selecting the Release products button.
Scenario
In the USMF company, a new product is being introduced. The product designer has completed the setup for the new product and has released it to the production legal entity USMF so that production can start. After the product designer speaks with the sales manager, they agree to release the new products into the sales legal entities of US and USRT but to no other countries or regions for now.
The product designer wants to make sure that each product variant is available in the two legal entities that they agreed on.
From the Release products page, you can view all open product release sessions, view the error if the Show Infolog upon failure field is set to Yes, change the session, and initiate the release. A session is deleted if no more errors exist.
Finalize released products
After a product is released to a legal entity, you need to complete its definition before it can be on a transaction, such as a sales order or purchase order. The product definition must be completed in each legal entity where it was released. You can select the Validate button on the Product Action Pane to verify if the product has been finalized.
The following fields are necessary to finalize a product. You can enter the information manually or by using a template:
- Item model group
- Item group
- Storage dimension group (only if it's not specified on the product definition)
- Tracking dimension group (only if it's not specified on the product definition)
- Sales, Purchase, Inventory, BOM units
- Reservation hierarchy (if warehouse management processes are used)
- Unit sequence group ID (if warehouse management processes are used)
The following tabs are available on the Product details page:
- General - Enter or view more information about the selected product.
- Purchase - Enter or view information on default purchase orders, purchase order pricing, and discounts.
- Promote - This section is used for commerce functionality; it can prevent a product from being added to a coupon.
- Deliver - You can enable parameters such as direct delivery and applying boxing logic to the product.
- Sell - Enter or view information on default sales orders, sales order pricing, and discounts.
- Foreign trade - Enter or view information on foreign trade, including Intrastat and product origin.
- Manage inventory - Enter or view information on product measurements, physical dimensions, handling, and packaging.
- Engineer - Enter or view information on bill of materials, production, and product builder.
- Plan - Enter or view information on the plan coverage group.
- Manage projects - Enter or view information on the project category.
- Manage cost - Enter or view information on the costing of the product, such as cost price and cost group.
- Financial dimensions - The default financial dimensions for the main account. When you select a financial dimension value, the Dimension is used field group displays where the dimension is used in account structures and advanced rule structures.
- Warehouse - On this tab, you can set up parameters if the product is stored in a warehouse-managed location, which means that the warehouse is managed by the Warehouse management module.
- Retail - You can enable and assign values for this product that is used in the Retail module.
- Transportation - You can choose to enable transportation management process for the product.
- Product variants- Only applicable for product masters, you can specify default product dimension values such as size, color, style, and configuration.
Country/region of origin
For those companies that sell across country/region borders, requirements are often in place to include information about the country/region of origin of the products that they're moving. The Released products table includes a field that provides for the country/region of origin, as shown in Product information management > Products > Released products on the Foreign trade FastTab.
The next screenshot shows a rule being set that specifies a particular product's Destination and Origin country, located at Product information management > Setup > Product compliance > Country of origin > Country of origin rules.
Occasionally, sellers provide a certificate to their customers that includes an expiration date and certificate number. Then, customers use this documented information to prepare the shipping documentation where required. With this information, the customer can follow up with suppliers when a certificate expires. To create a Country of Origin Vendor Certificates, navigate to Product information management > Setup > Product compliance > Country of Origin > Country of Origin Vendor Certificates.
Additionally, before making a sale, a seller can use this information to verify if details are provided about whether a particular product is going to a country/region that has specific requirements or tariffs.
Hazardous materials
Some organizations sell products that contain hazardous materials. In these circumstances, companies need to take special precautions. Hazardous material capabilities also include international compliance and regulations.
Hazardous materials product information management
If a company distributes products that contain hazardous or dangerous goods, they need to be able to store extra information about those products. This extra information helps them conform to regulations around shipping and handling the products, locally or across different geographies. Other setup options for this scenario are located at Product information management > Products > Released products. On the Released products details page, select Manage inventory on the Action Pane > Compliance > Item hazardous material.
Hazardous materials shipping documentation
You can set up the fields that were on the Released products screen by going to the menu item for Hazardous material shipping documentation.
Key fields in the Hazardous material shipping documentation list are:
Hazardous material label - Indicates what is printed on the shipping label
Hazardous material identification - Identifies the material.
Emergency response - Indicates the appropriate response if the material came into contact with a person or other items.
Hazardous material packing instructions - Specific packing instructions that relate to the material.
Scenario
The product designer must finalize the setup for the new widgets that they released in USMF company. They want to make sure that the widgets have the mandatory setup for the product to be used in a transaction.
When finished with the setup, the product designer selects Validate on the Released products page to ensure that mandatory fields are populated. The system checks for the attributes and produce an error if no value exists. However, the system won't block the product from being used; it's merely a check of the setup.
Product templates
Most companies require the additional setup of a product before the product definition can be completed. If many similarities exist between the setups of multiple products, we recommend that you use a template.
You can use product templates to copy information from a released product to other selected released products. Product templates help streamline the process for setting up legal entity-specific data for products when many values are the same from one product to another.
Two types of templates can be created: personal template and shared template. A personal template is available only by the user who created the template, whereas a shared template can be accessed by any user in the system.
Watch the following video for a demonstration of how to create a new product directly in the Released products page.