- Functional Knowledge: The configuration of pricing is a very big skill in itself. To conquer this, you need to to a have formal material in your hand. I chose to use this book. You may also choose to use another book or alternate material but there is no way you conquer pricing without knowing the basic functional configuration of pricing. Now the literature on SAP CRM pricing is limited so feel free to pick SAP SD Pricing configuration guide/book and do a comparative study of both to enhance your knowledge.
- Internet Pricing Configurator(IPC): The pricing engine in SAP CRM is IPC. Without knowing this it is very difficult to conquer the pricing. Pricing engine contains Pricing , Tax and Configuration Engine. Also should have understanding of Virtual Machine Container(VMC) which is a part of Application Server ABAP. What do we do in IPC ? There are many things we do in IPC. Primarily all custom routines which are implemented in ECC SD have to be re-implemented in IPC. Since IPC is Java based , hence you need to have knowledge of JAVA , NWDS and NWDI. There are restrictions as to what Java based functionality you can use in IPC. To know more details , please download this document. This would explain you everything related to IPC. The document is a treatise and would help you to ramp-up on all topics in SAP IPC. This document was delivered with a SAP Note.
This diagram illustrates the Development Infrastructure used in IPC
The development process in Java is illustrated below ( holds good for IPC Java developments as well)
The ABAP & JAVA development process is compared
- ABAP Based Developments for pricing: Though there are somethings which are missing in this blog, yet this blog is an absolute must for beginners. The ABAP based developments are covered and that part is sufficient.
- Tools to analyze pricing: There are some excellent tools available to analyze pricing in SAP CRM.Check the attachment in the note . You would need the access to Service Market Place. The following paramters are used in SAP CRM/IPC analysis.
- Middleware: The mass generation of following types of objects could be done
- Price determination relevantconditions (PR , BO and FG) -These conditions control the price determination when the trade promotion is executed or the sales order is executed.
- Conditions used in campaign determination (CD) -These conditions control thecampaign determination when the trade promotion is executed.
The transation CND_MASS_GEN_OBJECTS is used to generate the objects these objects
With this learning map at least you would have more than the basic idea about pricing from customization, IPC from its infrastructure, development and other related areads and CRM Pricing Analysis tools. Enough to get started.