Published at: 2026-09-17

Sales BOM management

Overview

By maintaining product combinations, groups, and hierarchical structures, the business can turn complex products into front-end sales structures that can be configured directly, reducing manual explanation and configuration mistakes.

Before you begin

[!IMPORTANT] - Permissions required: You need maintenance permissions related to CPQ, product combinations, or product management. - Prerequisites: CPQ is enabled. If standard BOM is needed, the related switch is also enabled. - Dependencies: If you plan to configure constraints, attributes, or ERP integration later, confirm that the basic structure will be reused by those capabilities.

Step 1: Confirm the product combination object and foundational fields

After CPQ is enabled, the system provides the Product Combination object. All later combination-structure maintenance is centered on this object.

A complete product combination usually involves at least the following fields or concepts:

Parent product
BOM type
BOM purpose
BOM version
Child items
Groups

The page behavior also helps explain how these objects are implemented in the system: after CPQ is enabled, quotes and orders expose hierarchical fields, and only after Standard BOM is enabled does the BOM Type field include a Standard BOM option.

Complex product configuration capability can be enabled after CPQ is turned on.

Step 2: Determine the parent product, BOM type, and version

The parent product is the entry point of the entire combination. The business can either use an existing main product as the parent or create a virtual product for this purpose. Once a product is used as a parent product, it is no longer just sold independently. It becomes the main entry into a combination structure.

BOM Type: distinguishes configuration BOM from standard BOM. Configuration BOM is better for customer-driven selection during sales, while standard BOM is better for fixed structures.
BOM Purpose: distinguishes at least Sales BOM and Service BOM, indicating whether the structure is intended more for sales configuration or service use.
BOM Version: manages different structural versions of the same parent product so historical versions remain identifiable and maintainable.

When creating a product combination, confirm at least the following:

Whether the parent product is an existing main product or a specially created virtual parent product
Whether the current structure is a Configuration BOM or a Standard BOM
Whether the BOM Purpose is for sales scenarios or service scenarios
Whether multiple structural versions need to be maintained in parallel

When creating a product combination, you can maintain the parent product, BOM type, purpose, and version directly.

Step 3: Configure child items and groups

Child-item configuration and group configuration are the most important maintenance actions:

Use Add Product to add regular products or combination products into the current structure.
If the added item is an existing combination product, it becomes a reused BOM.
Use Add Group to organize child items by scenario, type, or function.
Set constraints on each group, such as single-select, multi-select, required, minimum quantity, and maximum quantity.

The value of this approach is that the system records not only which child items exist, but also how they are allowed to be selected.

The page behavior adds two more useful points:

Add Product can add both regular child items and existing combination products as reused BOM structures.
Add Group is useful not only for organizing existing child items, but also for creating empty groups first and adding child items gradually later.

You can enter Save and Configure Product Combination directly from the product side.

Step 4: Extend to multi-level structures

Each child product can continue to contain its own child products. In other words, Sales BOM is not limited to one parent-child layer. It supports multi-level combinations, which is especially important for equipment, hardware, and service-bundle scenarios.

Child products can continue to nest sub-products, forming a multi-level structure.

Result check

Confirm that the parent product, BOM type, purpose, and version are fully defined.
Confirm that child items are added to the structure as expected.
Confirm that group rules cover requirements for single-select, multi-select, mandatory selection, and quantity limits.
Confirm that the multi-level structure can be consumed correctly during front-end configuration later.

Common notes

Once a parent product becomes the combination entry point, also reconsider its standalone sales strategy.
Group rules should not be divided only by technical logic. They should also match how sales understands the offering.
If you will configure constraint relationships or attributes later, stabilize the hierarchical structure first before moving to the next step.

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Sales BOM overview

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