Published at: 2026-09-17

BOM constraints and dependencies

Overview

Constraint and dependency rules let the business turn rules such as what must be included, what cannot be included, and how quantities should stay linked into system behavior directly, reducing misconfiguration and rework.

Before you begin

[!IMPORTANT] - Permissions required: You need maintenance permissions related to product combinations, constraint rules, or the quote engine. - Prerequisites: Product combinations, child-item structures, and required attribute configuration are already complete. - Dependencies: If you need quantity formulas or advanced linkage, confirm that the quote engine capability is enabled.

Step 1: Configure product constraints

The most common constraints fall into two major categories:
  1. Product constraints Used to maintain relationship rules between products.
  2. Product attribute constraints Used to maintain relationship rules between BOM child items and attributes.
Together, these two categories cover both structural selection logic and parameter-level selection logic.
Product constraints mainly support two relationship types:
  • Required selection
  • Not allowed
They are suitable for rules such as “if this component is selected, another component must also be included” or “if this component is selected, another one cannot be selected.” These constraints operate primarily at the product-to-product level rather than handling the full BOM or attribute model by themselves.
Product constraints maintain relationships between products.

Step 2: Configure attribute constraints

If the product also uses attributes, the constraint capability can be refined to the attribute level. Common results include:
  • Automatically selecting a value that matches the condition
  • Graying out values that should not be selectable
  • Forcing sales to choose only within a defined range
This means a complex product is no longer just about whether something can be selected, but also under what conditions it must be selected in a certain way.
The page makes these effects more intuitive:
  • Required selection automatically selects the target item when the condition is met.
  • Not allowed grays out the disallowed option directly.
  • Required selection range narrows the selectable values to a predefined set.
Constraint rules support create, edit, export, and related operations.
Required and not-allowed rules directly affect front-end selectable states.

Step 3: Configure quantity relationships and advanced formulas

If you need to constrain the quantities of certain accessories, you can use advanced formulas to define default values or calculation rules. The system can not only return constrained quantities automatically, but also warn users again during submission if changes do not satisfy the rules.
This means advanced formulas are used not only for default value calculation, but also for submission-time validation, which is especially important in complex hardware or multi-component configuration scenarios.
Advanced formulas can handle more complex quantity linkage relationships.
Constrained child-item quantities can be returned by fixed values or formulas and validated at submission.

Result check

  1. Confirm that the product combination and child-item structure are complete.
  2. Maintain product constraints to handle required and mutually exclusive relationships between components.
  3. If attributes are configured, maintain attribute-level constraints as well.
  4. If quantity linkage is required, add advanced formula rules.
  5. Validate the rules in a front-end configuration scenario.

Validation focus

  • Whether required components are selected automatically
  • Whether disallowed combinations are grayed out
  • Whether certain attributes are limited to a specified range
  • Whether quantity relationships are returned by default and validated at submission
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