PRICING

PRICING

Pricing Concepts

Pricing Rules, Pricing Actions, Pricing Controls and Pricing Extensibility are the key pricing concepts.

• Pricing Rules: Pricing rules are the pricing policy or terms associated to customer or product hierarchy. Oracle Advanced Pricing allows you to associate pricing actions to a group or a level of group to which a customer belongs. You can also base pricing rules on order or line volume. Pricing rules govern who becomes eligible for a specific price.
• Pricing Actions: Pricing action are specific pricing activities that applies to an order, order line or multiple lines. Pricing action enables to populate a list price, price adjustments and selling price on the sales order. Pricing actions relates to pricing objects like price list, modifier, formulas and agreements.
• Pricing Controls: Pricing control controls how the pricing actions are applied. You may achieve pricing controls using effective dates on price lists, modifiers, and agreements. You can also achieve pricing controls by defining what pricing phase the actions be applied. The pricing phases can map to various activities during order entry and processing. There are many other ways to control pricing.
• Pricing Extensibility: Pricing needs is very different from organizations to organization. Oracle Advanced Pricings provides the flexibility to its users to accommodate industry specific pricing requirements by using its attribute mapping functionality and a set of pricing APIs.

Oracle pricing engine determines the selling prices for products and services. It provides answers to the following questions:

• Who qualifies for prices and benefits?
• What is the item or service, which is being priced or modified?

· How do we adjust the order price or the order line price?

How Pricing Works

Oracle Advanced Pricing prices any transaction by first identifying a list price. Price list contains the list price. The pricing engine determines whether the price found on the price list must adjust. Modifiers control the amount of these adjustments, and can modify a price by either giving a discount or adding a surcharge. Once the pricing engine has selected one or more modifiers that adjust the price, it computes the final selling price.

Pricing Engine, Qualifiers, Attribute Mapping, Price Lists, Modifiers and Formulas are the various pricing components.

The Pricing Engine selects the appropriate price list and adjusts the price by the applicable modifiers, based on the Pricing Engine inputs

Price lists: Price List contains price for items and/ or services. For example: Corporate Price List, Winter Promotion Price List.

Modifiers: Determines how the eligible Pricing Request or Pricing Request line be adjusted. For example: Discounts, Surcharges, Coupon Issue, Item Upgrade, Terms Substitution, Freight Charge, Promotional Goods.

Inputs to the Pricing Engine are:

Pricing Qualifiers: The pricing qualifiers determine who is eligible for a price or modifier list. For example: Order Type, Customer Class, Customer Site, and Customer Name.

Pricing Attribute: The Pricing Attribute determines what is being priced or modified on a price or modifier list. For example: Item Category, Product Brand, Location, Distance, Age, and Volume.

The Final Price is the extended price, which is equal to the original price on the price list minus any eligible discounts, plus any other applicable surcharges or promotions.

With Oracle Pricing, you can define the price lists and modifiers to be very specific, generic or any combination in between. For example:

Price List A is for Product X and applicable for Customer ABC.

Price List B is for All Products and applicable for All Customer.

Price List C is for all products belonging to Item Category A and B and applicable for All Customers.

Pricing Engine

The Pricing Engine takes the pricing request from the calling application, selects the applicable price lists and modifier lists and determines the base list price. It then calculates the final selling price by applying the benefits and surcharges from the modifier lists to the base list price.

Pricing Engine consists of two engines:

Search Engine: The search engine uses the qualifiers and pricing attributes passed from the calling application to select the price list lines and the modifier list lines that may apply to the pricing request. As part of this process, the search engine uses rules of eligibility, incompatibility, exclusivity, and precedence.

For each pricing phase the search engine executes the following functions:

· Selects eligible price list lines and modifier list lines using predefined pricing rules

· Resolve incompatibilities among eligible benefits

· Applies the eligible benefits to the pricing request

Calculation Engine: For each pricing request line and its associated pricing request line details, the calculation engine calculates the base price, adjusted price, and extended price.

Qualifiers

Qualifiers decide who are eligible to receive benefits (discounts/ surcharges). Qualifiers can be associated to the Modifiers and Price Lists to define rules that govern who is eligible to receive a specific price, promotion, discount or benefit. There are a set of seeded basic qualifier contexts and associated qualifier attributes for use.

Examples of Qualifiers:

Specific Customers

Customer Groups

Order Types

Order Amounts

Geographic Location

You can tie qualifiers to modifiers both at the list or/ and line level. This enables to restrict the eligibility for a list or group of modifier lines. For example if an order is not eligible for a modifier list, it is not eligible for any of the line level modifiers on the list, even if the lines have qualifiers for which the order is eligible.

You can create complex qualifier sets consisting of multiple qualifiers that are evaluated together in ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ relationships. You can define qualifier groups, which comprises of multiple qualifiers tied together in ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ relationships. For example: Customers must belong to VIP class and order amount must be within the range, $5000 to $9000 or Order Type must be Special Order. You can link qualifier groups to price lists and modifiers to define rules governing who can receive a particular price, discount, promotion or benefit.

Attribute Mapping

With Attribute Mapping, Oracle Advanced Pricing provides the capability to refer to non-seeded (not delivered out-of-box) data elements and attributes.

Attribute Mapping controls what the pricing engine:

Prices and

Modifies

With Advanced Pricing, you have the capability to access your pricing related business specific data and use it according to your pricing rules. You may be capturing some data critical for you business on the customer record which demands a special pricing or a promotion. You can use flexfields on the customer record to enter these data. In turn, you can define these flexfield values as qualifiers for your discounts, surcharges and promotions.

Some typical examples where you could use the attribute mapping functionality

Define a qualifier based on the total order value since the beginning of the current calendar year. If total order value exceeds $10,000 customer gets 5% additional discount.

Define your own customer classifications in addition to the standard groupings that Oracle provides. You use these groups to control pricing; if a customer belongs group A, the customer receives a 15% discount or if the customer belongs to group B then that customer receives a 10% discount

Define a qualifier like if today is last day of the month then receive 5% discount.

Define an additional element in the product hierarchy to give discounts based on the brand of the product.

Price Lists

Price lists are critical to ordering products because each item entered on an order must have a price. Each price list contains basic list information and one or more pricing lines, price breaks, pricing attributes, qualifiers, and secondary price lists. Price lists contain prices and currencies associated with products and services.

Prices on the price list can be:

An absolute value

Derived from a formula

Either a positive or negative value

You may define prices that apply to the entire organization or be specific for a single operating unit. Price lists can have a start and end date. This gives an opportunity to create price lists in advance of when they need to be effective. Users cannot use these price lists on sales orders until their effective start dates. The pricing engine allows the use of secondary price lists. If an item appears on both the primary and a secondary price list with the same effective dates, the pricing engine uses the primary price list to price the item. If an item does not exist on the primary price list, the pricing engine uses the secondary price list. If an item appears on the primary price list but the effective end date has passed, the pricing engine uses the price on the secondary price list.

Oracle Pricing enables price list maintenance several ways:

Manually adding lines to the price list

Copying price list lines from one price list to another

Adding a new group of inventory items to a price list by specifying a range

Adding a new group of inventory items to a price list by specifying an item category

Adjusting the price of all items on the price list by an amount or percentage

Adjusting the price of items belonging to a category or a range of items by an amount or percentage

Modifiers

Modifiers enable to setup price adjustments, benefits and freight and special charges that the pricing engine applies immediately to pricing requests or accrues for later disbursement.

Examples of price adjustments: discounts and surcharges. Examples of benefits: free goods, coupons and product upgrade.

Modifiers can be defined to be automatic or manual. Automatic modifiers apply automatically to the order or order lines based on the eligibility rules defined. Manual modifiers need the user to manually associate to any applicable order or order line. You can create ask for promotions or deals, the pricing engine does not apply these modifiers unless the customer asks for them. At order entry, one must reference such modifiers to apply them. You can define modifiers to be incompatible, if you do not want the pricing engine to apply them to an order or order line in combination with other modifiers.

Using modifiers, you can:

Setup a modifier list with multiple modifier lines

Define modifiers with or with out override capability

Create eligibility rules for modifiers by assigning list and line level qualifiers

Define modifiers that are incompatible with other modifiers

Create exclusive modifiers

Create cascading modifiers

Accrue monetary and non-monetary benefits

The following are the modifier list types supported in Oracle Advanced Pricing:

Discount

Surcharge

Freight/Special Charges

Promotion

Deal

For each list type that you define, you can associate certain line types. The available line types are:

Discount: Creates a negative price adjustment.

Surcharge: Creates a positive price adjustment.

Freight charge: Creates a freight charge.

Item upgrade: Replaces a specific item ordered with another item for the same price.

Terms Substitution: Term Substitution replaces freight charges, shipping charges, and payment terms with charges that are more favorable.

Other item discount: Gives a price adjustment or benefit to a specified item on an order when the customer orders one or more other items on the same order.

Promotional goods: Adds a new item with a price adjustment or benefit when the customer orders one or more other items on the same order.

Figure below illustrates the Process flow, Events and the various associated Pricing Phases:

Note: Events are points in the process flow of the calling application at which it sends a pricing request to the pricing engine. The information that the pricing engine returns, for example, base prices, price adjustments, promotions, or freight charges, depends on the pricing phases of the event.

Pricing phase controls which price lists and modifiers, the search engine would consider and in what sequence they apply to the pricing request.

Figure below illustrates Pricing Events mapping to the respective Pricing Phases:

ENTER ORDER LINE 0 LIST LINE BASE PRICE

1 LIST LINE ADJUSTMENTS

BOOK ORDER 2 ALL LINE BASE PRICE

3 ALL LINE ADJUSTMENTS

4 HEADER LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS

REPRICE ORDER 2 ALL LINE BASE PRICE

3 ALL LINE ADJUSTMENTS

4 HEADER LEVEL ADJUSTMENTS

Formulas

Formulas are mathematical expressions that the pricing engine uses to determine the list prices of items and the discounts that apply to these items. Pricing Formulas enables the pricing engine to determine item prices based on a combination of price list, numeric constant, pricing attribute, factor list and customizable function. Using Pricing Formulas, you can:

Create a price by computation as an alternative to entering prices in a price list

Calculate a price adjustment. For example, you can instruct the pricing engine to calculate a discount by attaching a formula to a discount line.

You may link formulas to either a price list line or a modifier line. Formulas associated on the price list line could be dynamic or static.

Dynamic Formula Calculation: Pricing engine uses the formula to calculate list price at the time of order entry.

Static Formula Calculation: You need to execute a concurrent process before order entry, which calculates the list price.

Discounts

Examples of some of the common discount scenarios used in the industry that can be easily set up using the advanced pricing module:

Any customer, who purchases 10 – 30 units of item ‘A’, gets a 10 % discount.

Any customer purchasing 50 and above units of item ‘B’ gets a 15 % special discount.

A customer with the customer status ‘ABC’ when purchases 1 – 15 units of any item gets a special discount of 10 %.

If a customer belongs to the customer class ‘XYZ’, they get 5 % additional discount on all purchases.

If a customer belongs to the ‘ABC’ or ‘XYZ’ customer class, they get an additional 3 % discount on all purchases.

Manual discounts (by Amount) with override capability, applicable for all customers.

A fixed manual discount of 25 % with non-override option is applicable for all customers purchasing item ‘A’.

Manual discounts (by Percentage) with overwrite capability, applicable for all customers.

Any customer belonging to customer class ‘ABC’ who spends $1000 or more per order receives a 4 % Preferred Customer Discount on the entire order.

Any customer buying products of a specific item category gets a Volume Discount based on the various quantity slabs. The eligibility volume is total number of units purchased for that specific item category on the entire order (quantity is accumulated across multiple items in a single order). The discount applies to all eligible lines and keeps changing as the quantity increases or decreases.

Surcharges

Examples of some of the common surcharge scenarios used in the industry that can be easily set up using the advanced pricing module:

Any customer belonging to the customer class ‘ABC’, when spends less than a $1000 per Order gets a Low Order Volume surcharge.

Any customer belonging to the customer class ‘XYZ’ placing a Rush Order (delivery requested within two days) receives a $5 per unit surcharge.

Any customer placing an order for item ‘A’ for less than 5 units gets a 2 % percentage surcharge.

Promotions

Examples of some of the common promotional offers used in the industry that can be easily set up using the advanced pricing module:

For every three units of item ‘A’ purchased, all customers receive two currency units off.

Any customer buying products of a specific item category gets a Quantity Discount based on the various quantity slabs. The eligibility volume is the number of units purchased for that specific item category on any specific order line. This is not a cumulative type of discounting.

For every two units of item ‘B’ purchased all customers get a third one free.

Any customer placing an order for an item ‘C’ during the period ‘Sep 01, 2002’ to ‘Sep 28, 2002’ automatically gets a free product upgrade to item ‘D’ for no extra charge.

Any customer who buys an item ‘X’ gets the second one at half price (50 % discount).

Pricing API

Oracle Pricing has a set of Application Program Interfaces (APIs) available. You may use these APIs in custom programs for automation of some of the pricing functions.

Below is the list of some of the main Pricing APIs available:

QP_Price_formula_PUB.Get_Price_Formula (Formula Calculation API): The Formula Calculation package consists of entities to calculate the value of a formula.

QP_Price_formula_PUB.Process_Price_Formula (Update Formula Prices API): The Update Formula Prices package consists of entities to update formula prices.

QP_CUSTOM.Get_Custom_Price (Get Custom Price API): You may add custom code to this customizable function. The pricing engine while evaluating a formula that contains a formula line (step) of type “function” calls this API.

QP_PREQ_GRP.Price_Request (Price Request API): The Price Request Application Program Interface (API) is a public API that allows you to get a base price and to apply price adjustments, other benefits, and charges to a transaction.

QP_MODIFIERS_PUB.Process_Modifiers (Business Object for Modifier Setup API): The Business Object for Modifier Setup package consists of entities to set up modifiers.

QP_QUALIFIER_RULES_PUB.Process_Qualifier_Rules (Qualifiers API): The Qualifiers package consists of entities to set up qualifiers.

QP_ATTR_MAPPING_PUB.Build_Contexts (Attribute Mapping API): The Attribute Mapping package consists of entities to map attributes.

QP_Price_List_PUB.Process_Price_List (Price List Setup API): The Price List Setup package consists of entities to set up price lists.

ADVANCE PRICING TABLES

QP_PRICING_ATTRIBUTES

QP_LIST_LINES

QP_LIST_HEADERS_B

QP_QUALIFIERS

QP_PRICING_ATTRIBUTES

QP_LIST_LINES

QP_LIST_HEADERS_B

QP_SEGMENTS_B

QP_PRC_CONTEXTS_B

QP_PTE_SOURCE_SYSTEMS

QP_ATTRIBUTE_SOURCING

QP_PTE_REQUEST_TYPES_B

QP_PTE_SEGMENTS

QP_PRICING_PHASES

QP_EVENT_PHASES

PRICING

PRICING:-

/*Price Lists

   Since a price list consists of line item with price against each item 
  and date of validity against each item.

  So you chose a price list at the orderheader level. when you  place line items 
  in a order then each item is looked into the price list for the price for that 
  unit of measurement.
  This looks very obvious because in a b2b environment, there will be hundreds 
  of thousands of items in the inventory or sub-products, and hence there should 
  be some place to store the price of each item(as the order entry person cannot 
  remember the price of every single item). It is the price list which does this. 
  Another place to store this is probably in the item master(in inventory) along 
  with all other details of the item. 
  However, in the price list, we can set the price of an item based on the dates, 
  so that we have the history of all the prices that particular item has. Also it 
  is really convenient in the price list than to go to each specific item in the 
  inventory and make the price change.*/

/**************************************************** 

While entering an order ,we might get the error "Item and UOM not on Price List" 
then ensure that, 
 
1) Price List is defaulting/available on Order Line.
2) Order Currency matches the Price List currency.
3) Price List is active- both by dates and by Active Flag.
4) Price List is appropriately qualified and your order line meets all qualifying conditions.
5) Make sure that the item is attached to the inventory organization, that you 
   are dealing with.
 
Run two requests from Oracle Pricing
 
1. Build Attribute mapping rules
2. QP: Maintains the denormalized data in QP Qualifiers 
*/

/*  Price Adjustments : The Price Adjustments are Discounts,Surcharges,Freight charges,Taxes which change the 
    total order price.*/

/* Freight Charges : Let us see how can we create a freight charge for a specific order.  

      We can associate freight charges either at the header level or the line level. 
  (setup =>Modifiers)
      First create a Modifier list of type 'Freight and Special charge List'. And at the 
 line level of the Modifier list, create line of Modifier type 'Freight/Special Charge' 
 (which is the only type you can create). At the line level you can mention,either 
 this modifier will apply at the header or line level of the Order. Let us create 2 
 lines one for the line, and one for the order.  
      Second, pullup the order to which we want to apply the freight charges in the sales order form.
 Now to apply the freight charges at the header level, do
  Actions => Charges.
 Here choose the charge that you have defined in the Modifier (of type Order,of the 
  freight modifier list).
  
  Third, go to the order lines, pick one order line and do,
     Actions => Charges and Freight Costs.
 Here choose the charge that you have defined in the Modifier (of type Line,of 
 the freight modifier list).
 
 So in essence, what we have done is created a Modifier (of type freight) with consisting of two line
  (line,order) and applied the freight charges both at the header level and at the level.
 */
 --Once these steps are completed, we will have price adjustments like this.  
 
 select * from oe_price_adjustments where header_id = 92777
 
 select * from oe_order_headers_all where order_number = 1100032097
 --WHERE HEADER_ID = 1662
 
/* So basically whether we create a Freight Charge List at the header level/line level.
 It is not taxed in OM.  and when I interfaced it to AR, there also it is not getting charged.
 
 However if I created a Surcharge(surcharge list) either at header/line level, 
 that charge is included as a part of the line amount and it is taxed.
  
 Similarly when we create a discount (by discount list), say at the line level, 
 that amount is included as part of the line amount and it is taxed.
 
 It is important to note that whatever lists we are creating here and associating 
 it with the order/lines,we could do that either to the order in the sales order form 
 OR at the price list level.(the price list is associated with the order anyway).
 
 /*Yes you should be able to override the price directly on the line. Check the value 
 of the profile option "OM: Discounting Privilege". Thats the only dependency that 
 I can think of at the moment. 
   Check the value of the profile option OM: Negative Pricing*/ 


/*IMPORTANT POINTS ABOUT PRICE LIST :
    
 1) WITH OUT pricelist we cannot enter any lines,we have to have pricelist 
    mentioned either at header/line level.
       Once an item is entered which is part of that price list, then the price of 
       the line item will default to the value mentioned in the price list. 
       SO WE HAVE TO DEFINE A PRICE LIST FOR SURE.
 2) Similarly we need to select from a pricing attribute. Usually selecting a 
    pricing attribute will override the price associated with the pricing attribute. 
    So in the case, where you want to value entered at the line level of the 
    order persist, we need to do the following.
    
 We can define a pricing attribute    
 
 There are two ways you can create a modifier, either go to actions => view adjustment and create/apply a  
 modifier. Or We can directly modify the price on the line item and it will automatically 
 prompt us to choose a modifier, and then we can apply a modifier there.
  
-- When I create a surcharge modifier, even then I am not able to select and apply that charge to Order/line.
    
-- To get a list of different kind of lists ,run the following query.
   select distinct list_type_code from qp_list_headers
   
-- Creating Frieght Charges. What are the existing frieght lists available.
   To create a frieght charge, we first need to create a Modifier list of type Frieght,using
         Pricing => Modifiers*/ 
         
   select * 
   from qp_list_headers 
   where  list_type_code ='CHARGES'
   
-- All the list types are stored as lookups and put the above values in here..
 
  select * 
  from   qp_lookups 
  where  lookup_code in ('AGR','CHARGES','DLT','PML','PRL','PRO','SLT')
  and    lookup_type ='LIST_TYPE_CODE';
  
  select list_header_id, list_type_code,automatic_flag,name,description, 
     source_system_code,pte_code,active_flag
  from   qp_list_headers 
  order  by creation_date desc
  
  select list_line_id, list_header_id, list_line_type_code,modifier_level_code 
     ,arithmetic_operator,operand
  from qp_list_lines 
  where list_header_id = 9359

-- Also the qualifiers go into the qp_qualifiers

 select qualifier_id, qualifier_context, qualifier_attribute,qualifier_attr_value, 
     comparison_operator_code,
     list_header_id,list_line_id, active_flag, list_type_code
  from qp_qualifiers
 
 select * from qp_modifier_summary_v
 
 select * from qp_pricing_attributes where trunc(creation_date) = trunc(sysdate) -2
 
 select * from wsh_freight_costs
 
 select * from OE_ITEM_GROUP_LINES
 
 begin fnd_client_info.set_org_context(44); end;

-- QP_HDR_PRICING_ATTRIBS_V, qp_pricing_attributes
 
 select * from FND_DESCR_FLEX_COL_USAGE_VL
 where descriptive_flex_context_code = 'PRICING ATTRIBUTE'

 select * from qp.qp_attribute_defns
 
 select count(*), product_attribute_context
 from qp_pricing_attributes group by  product_attribute_context

/*Pricing Attributes. 

I wanted to know how exactly we can define pricing attributes.  I understand 
that pricing attributes are nothing but the DFF with a specific context value 
defined and its values. So If we want to define an adminstrative cost for an item, 
then we can define adminstrative cost defined as a segment and choose that pricing 
context when creating an order. But however what is the difference between this 
and the following.?

you create an order with a line. then you create a surcharge modifier list as 
administrator cost. then you associate this modifier to that particular item. So 
in this particular case, you have not created the pricing attribute,but still changed 
the price. So the question,I have is what exactly are pricing attributes and what are 
they used for.

what is the difference between creating a pricing attribute at the modifier level 
and creating a pricing attribute at the price list level ? 
I believe there is no difference.

1). What is a pricing attribute and how does it work?

A pricing attribute is an attribute that you associate with an item which has
an effect of its price. A pricing attribute is basically a DFF which is of 
title "Pricing contexts" and a context value which you can define. Once you associate
a pricing attribute to an item here is how it works.

Say you have associated a Pricing attribute XYZ, with an attribute "Duty cost" to an
item and specified the  value equal to 25. The price of the item is speicified 
on the price list as 99. Then when you pick this pricing context on the order 
line(in the pricing tab) and enter the value as 23 in the DFF, then the order line
price will change immediately to 99. Even if it does not change right away, you
could do the  
        Actions => Price Line, 
so that price on the line is updated accordingly.    
Remember if the pricing attribute is not provided on the order line (and if it is
specified on the price list), then the "All Items" price value will default on the
order line.

2). What is the difference between creating Pricing attribute in the following two ways?

There is a very important point to note here. There are two ways to define a 
pricing attribute. Basically you can define a DFF using the regular menu (AOL Method)
  Setup => Financials => Flexfields => Descriptive => Segments
When you define a pricing attribute using this method, then it goes into 
the fnd_flex_attributes table.
OR
A pricing context can be defined here  (QP Method), 
   Pricing => Setup => Attribute Management => Context and Attributes.
When you define a pricing attribute using this method, it goes into the qp pricing 
attributes table i.e basically in the pricing related tables.
 
It is very important to define the pricing attribute using the QP menu,because then
it will automatically shows up in the DFF. However when you define using the DFF,
it will not be available in the QP tables.  

3). What are the steps to create a new Pricing Attribute Context?? 

 a) Using the menu create a context setup  
   Pricing => Setup => Attribute Management => Context and Attributes.
   Ensure that in the detail block, the column mapped is a column more than the
       pricing_attribute30 etc.
    
 b) Then using the menu, link the context to a pricing transaction entity. So if you
 want the pricing attribute to be associated with Order Fulfilment provide the same
 accordingly.
      Pricing => Setup => Attribute Management => Attribute Linking and Mapping.
 Then click on the link attributes and ensure that in the attribute mapping
 method the method is given as "USER ENTERED".

 c) Now run the program "Build Attribute Mapping And Rules".

Now this pricing attribute is ready to be associated to a price item as well as 
for picking on an order line.
 
 4) What are the different kinds of Lists available in pricing.
 
   A list can be of any type. Examples of Lists are price lists, Modifier Lists.
   A Price List is basically a list consisting of the lines with each line corr
   to an inventory item and associated price.  
   
   Modifier Lists are the lists which are of different types. They 
 actually modify the total price of the order. So for ex, a discount is a 
 modifier which modifies the total price of the order.
 Different kinds of modifier lists that are available are 
    Discount Modifier List
    Surcharge Modifier List
    Freights and Special charges Modifier List.
 Right after the Modifier is defined, a qualifier may be defined ,if we need to 
 restrict the modifier to specific orders.    

 5). How do you associate a pricing attribute to an item ??
   A pricing attribute can be associated to an item either on a price list or in
   any kind of list (for ex Modifier list, Qualifier List etc).

 6) What does the "Build Attribute Mapping rules"  program do??  
     "Build Attribute Mapping rules" program basically builds a package dynamically
  which maps the  attributes to the flex tables, i think. To undertand better
  from the backend,look at the 
        qp_build_sourcing_pvt package ,
     qp_attribute_mapping_pub.build_contexts package.
 It is important to understand the just by adding an item to a price list, we need
 not run this program. Thhis program needs to be run only if some attribute mapping
 changes have happened.     
         
7) What is the default price for all items in a price list.
    In a price list we can also define something called "All Items" and a price for
 it. So whenever a price is not found for a particular item, then this price 
 is defaulted on the order line.    
   
8) What is the difference between Manual Modifier and Automatic Modifier and how
  do they work ?
   As mentioned above a modifier is a list consisting of header and lines.Each line
   will have a flag or check box called Automatic.If Automatic flag is not checked, 
   then it is a manual modifier and if it is checked, then it is an Automatic modifier.

   Ex of Automatic Modifier, let us say we have defined a modifier line on an item "myitem10"
  which has a price of $100 and put a discount of 10%. Then when you create an 
  order line with this item, and then save it, then the price of the order line
  changes to $90(for 10% discount). 
 
   Ex of Manual Modifier, let us say we have defined a modifier line on an item "myitem11"
  which has a price of $100 and put a discount of 12%. Then when you create an 
  order line with this item, and then save it, then the price of the order line
  will not change automatically. You will have to explicitly do the following,
     Actions => View Adjustments
   Then you pick the manual modifier and say Apply. Then the price of the order
   lines changes to $88(for 12% discount)
   
9) Can pricing attributes be defined only in modifiers and not else where,i mean at 
the order line level?  
      No,pricing attributes can be defined only either at the price list level or at 
      the modifier level. And while defining at the Modifier level,the pricing attribute 
      button is enabled only when we choose the product attribute and product attribute 
      value fields in the modifier line level i.e when we choose a particular item
      While defining a pricing attribute at the Price list level, the pricing attribute 
      is always enabled.

10) What is the functionality of the override flag on the modifier line ?
    If override flag is selected, then the system will allow the user to change the price
 of the line item on the sales order, otherwise not.   
   
12). Can a price list be accessed across multiple operating units?
     By default, when you define a price list, it is a global i.e it is accessible across 
 the operating units.However we can refine it to include only for a specific OU.
   
13). what is a price break ?
 A price break is basically specifying the price of an item with based on
 parameters like quantity,amount etc i.e.
  ex if the quantity is between 1 to 100 then the price is $10 ; and if
  the quantity is between 101 to 200, the the price is $9; etc 
  ex if the amount is between $100 to $250 the price is $25 ; and if
  the amount is more than $1000, the the price is $19; etc 

14). Can we specify a price break any price list and modifiers?
    Yes, you can create price breaks either on a price list or on Modifiers.
    If you have to create a price break on a Price list line item, then you click 
 on the price breaks button and can specify any number of breaks. So for each 
 line (on the price list) you can have any number of details records. however
 this would require creating formulas and factors(see details below).

    If you have to create a price break on a Modifier, then you just create multiple
 lines with each line corresponding to a price break. Basically there are no
 formulas and factors here.

    In summary,the difference is in the case of price list we need formulas/factors and
 in the case of modifiers we dont need them.  

15). What are formulas and factors ?
  formula and factors :   1 * nvl(2,3);  where 1,2 and 3 are steps in the formula, 
 which could be api’s, numerical constants or factors.
       Ex : product 1 for different quantity from 100 to 200 =>adj factor 0.95=> ;
   200 to 300 =>adj factor 0.90;
       So the actual price if the customer ordered 250 units would be  1 * 0.90; 
 so if he orders more he will get less price as the adj factor is less;
       Ex : product 2 for different amounts from $100 to $500 =>adj factor 0.99 =>;
  $500 to $800 =>adj factor 0.80; etc;

16).   What is volume type, break type ??
     Typically on a modifier,we specify volume type and break types;
 Volume type means like based on Quantity, Amount ;
  ex if the quantity is between 1 to 110, $10 otherwise $20;
  ex if the amount is between $100 to $250, $10 otherwise $20;
 break type means Point or Recurring ; point means only one %; recurring means 
  for each unit it will apply %.
 
17)   What is the significance of the autoamtic flag in the modifier ?
   The automatic flag is there at both header and details level in the modifier.
 the header flag only helps us in defaulting to all the lines, the line level 
 is more important and that is waht is taken into consideration.

18) what is pricing phase ?
 Ex : this is because sometimes we might have a deal like if you buy a and b 
 products, then we give 50% off the product c, and this can be possible only 
 after you enter all the lines. 

 The three important values for this are 
 Enter line => pricing happesn as you tab out
 list line adjusmtent=> pricing happen as you move out of the line
 All line adjustment => pricing happens when you enter all the lines and save the record. 

19). What is the main use of the Modifiers ?
   Modifiers are very important in that they provide the functionality of pricing phases
 or adjustments (like line level, all lines etc). This functionality allows you to 
 define pricing scenarios like buy 1 get 1 free ,buy 1 get 50% off the other etc.I
 believe modifiers are mostly useful when you have multiple line items on the orders
 and when they have pricing dependency. 
   Modifiers lets you use qualifiers which lets which customers can get qualified for these.
 (although even at the price list you can do that)

20). Can we define any number of modifier lists ?
   Yes. Ex : create two automatic modifier lists on an item and place that item on SO, 
 and check to see which one is applied ; 
 The system applies both the  modifiers i.e it will apply all the eligible modifiers,so
 you can define any number of MOdifiers as you may wish. 

21). why is that even though you have chose the discount list as the modifier type, 
 the surcharge is being appliced at the line level.?

22). How do we implement buy 1 get 1 free in Advanced Pricing?
     Any kind of pricing scenarios can be implemented in Oracle Advanced pricing using 
 the modifiers.For this we need to create a Modifier of list type "Promotional Goods".
 So the steps are
 Create a Modifier of type "Promotion".
 At the line level,create a line type of "Promotional Goods" and enter the details
   of the item ,say "myitem" for which you are giving this deal.
 Go to the detail of the lines and there you will see the "Get" section,which means
  here you enter the details of the items that the customer gets for free.
 Since you are giving the same item for free, enter the same item "myitem" and enter
  the percent as 100%,which means you are giving another same item 100% free.
  If you are giving another item for 50% free (i.e it is buy 1 ,get another 50% off)
  then enter the percentage as 50%.