Published at: 2026-09-17

Product attributes

Overview

By configuring attribute capability consistently, the business can standardize product parameters, pricing, and front-end configuration behavior, reducing inconsistent sales explanations and later repricing rework.

Before you begin

[!IMPORTANT] - Permissions required: You must have system administrator or equivalent back-office configuration permissions. - Prerequisites: The company has purchased CPQ Attribute Edition. - Dependencies: If you want to use advanced formulas, cascading constraints, or incremental pricing, confirm the supported capability scope in advance.
Before you start configuration, confirm two key conditions:
  • The company has purchased CPQ Attribute Edition
  • The target tenant has the required back-office configuration permissions
If the required product has not been purchased, attribute capability cannot actually be enabled even if the navigation path exists.

Step 1: Enable attribute capability

The back-office path is:
Back Office > Business Rule Management > Sales-in-Progress Management Configuration > Item/Product Configuration > Attribute Configuration
Three key switches are usually involved here:
  • Enable Attribute Configuration
  • Enable Quote Engine
  • Enable Incremental Attribute Pricing
Location of the attribute configuration, quote engine, and incremental pricing switches.
The most important point is that enabling attribute configuration initializes the related objects, and once the switch is enabled it cannot be turned off.
The page also highlights two management implications: the quote-engine switch affects advanced formulas and cascading constraints, while the incremental-pricing switch determines whether incremental pricing options appear in the attribute price book.

Step 2: Maintain attribute objects

Administrators should first build the attribute foundation library, including:
  • Standard attributes
  • Non-standard attributes
  • Attribute values
Standard attributes are suitable for stable value sets. Non-standard attributes are suitable for numeric and text-entry scenarios. During maintenance, you should not stop at the attribute name. You should also define defaults, sorting, and value sets.
The page behavior shows that object maintenance itself supports batch operations, so it is better maintained centrally by administrators rather than distributed to business users one by one. Non-standard attributes support numeric and text types, plus defaults and grouping. Non-standard attributes support numeric and text types, plus defaults and grouping.

Step 3: Maintain attribute groups

As the number of attributes grows, groups become increasingly important. They not only help aggregate front-end display, but also determine display priority through the group sequence number. Common grouping methods include appearance groups, basic feature groups, and advanced feature groups.

Step 4: Maintain the attribute price book

The attribute price book must be linked to a master price book and assigned an applicable scope. The key issue is not whether prices can be entered, but whether the business has clearly defined which attributes participate in pricing and whether pricing should be full or incremental.
The attribute price book can use either full pricing or incremental pricing.

Pre-launch checklist

Before releasing attribute capability to business teams, confirm at least the following:
  • The attribute, quote-engine, and incremental-pricing switches match the intended business scope
  • The standards for standard attributes, non-standard attributes, and groups are unified
  • All pricing-related attributes have completed both master price book and attribute price-book configuration

Result after configuration

After configuration is complete, the business should have a reusable attribute framework:
  • Products can reference standardized attribute objects
  • Attribute values can be selected directly by sales
  • Pricing-related attributes can return price results
  • The setup can later work together with Sales BOM scenarios
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