Prerequisite for using Oracle Configurator is knowledge of Oracle Inventory

and Oracle Bills of Material modules.

After going through this white paper reader should understand following
things:

Oracle Configurator Components

Important Profiles and Concurrent Programs

Relationship of Oracle Configurator with Oracle Inventory/Bills of

Material

Overview of Most Importance component Oracle Configurator

Developer

I will be using Oracle E-Business Suite R12 for screen shots but I will be
discussing features which are present in Oracle EBS 11.5.10.2.
Overview:
Oracle Configurator Module can be treated of as a selling machine if there is
a model bill against which to configure by selecting options. It can also be
thought of as an engineering machine if there is no model bill. An
engineering machine could generate a bill. Configurations created with
Oracle Configurator are standard bills based on an already existing model
bill. Configurator does not have to be based on bills of material, although
that is currently necessary for ordering and downstream ERP.
Oracle Configurator is an application or part of an application that lets a user
configure products and services. The configuration model, which is typically
based on a BOM model, consists of structure, rules, and UI definition.
Oracle Configurator Components
Oracle Configurator consists of the following main elements:

Runtime Oracle Configurator

Oracle Configurator Servlet (OC Servlet)

o UI Server
o Configuration Interface Object (CIO)

The Oracle Configurator Schema within an Oracle Applications

database

Oracle Configurator Developer

With Oracle E-Business Suite 11.5.10.2 all above components come as

integral part Oracle EBS installations. In Previous version, Oracle
Configurator Developer used to be a separate desktop application.
Runtime Oracle Configurator
The runtime Configurator provides a means of selecting options to create a
configuration. It is presented to end users by the OC Servlet as an Oracle
Configurator window. Although Configurator can be deployed as a standalone
application, the Oracle Configurator window is usually launched from within a
host application.
From Oracle Order Management runtime Configurator can be invoked if
ATO/PTO model is entered on Order Line and Configure button is clicked.
Oracle Configurator Servlet
This consists of UI Server and Configuration Interface Object. The OC Servlet
runs on Oracle Internet Application Server (iAS), which includes the Apache
Web Server. The behavior of the OC Servlet can be customized by setting
Servlet properties.
Oracle Configurator Schema
The Oracle Configurator schema consists of Configurator (CZ) tables in the
Oracle EBS 11i database that is accessed by both the runtime Oracle
Configurator and Oracle Configurator Developer.
Oracle Configurator Developer
With Release 11.5.10 this comes as integral part of EBS. This is used to
develop various configuration rules, user interface, add non-BOM items
which are necessary for guided selling. The user interface (UI) can later be
published to various hosting applications like Order Management, iStore etc.
Important Responsibilities

Oracle Configurator Administrator

Oracle Configurator Developer

Inventory (For defining MODEL, Catalogs)

Bills Of Material (for defining MODEL BOM)

Both Oracle Configurator responsibilities see the same user interface except
using Administrator responsibility one can edit/change MODELs created by
other users while Developer responsibility can edit MODELs created by same
user. So we will be using Oracle Configurator Administrator only.

Important Profiles

Profile Name

Value

CZ: Generic
Configurator
UI Type

HTML Hierarchical Table

CZ: Use
Generic
Configurator
UI
BOM:Configura
tor URL of UI
Manager

Yes

Descriptio
n
This
displays
DHTML
user
interface
created in
Oracle
Configurat
or Module

http://<host
This will
name>:<port>/OA_HTML/configurator/Ui launch
Servlet
Configurat
or UI

Item Related Setups in Oracle Inventory

Oracle Configurator is driven by the MODEL (ATO or PTO) type of items.
Generally Oracle Configurator is used for guided selling i.e. user is presented
with various questions and based on user inputs respective components are
selected. So user should be allowed to select various product properties.
These properties are stored as Item Catalog values in Oracle Inventory.
Item Properties are grouped into Catalog Groups. Each Catalog group can
have multiple catalog elements (properties). At the most one catalog group
can be assigned to a given item. While defining product structure for ATO
Model and related Option classes one must design option class and its
properties in such a way that end user should be able choose various
property value in Configurator. In Configurator, these catalog groups are
termed as Item Types. We can define property based rules to choose
components for various option classes.
There are multiple ways of defining or designing catalog groups. We can
have separate catalog groups defined for each option class/component
items. Lets discuss this with example of Model Sentinel Custom Desktop

Item Code CN-92777. This model has various components viz. Software,
Memory, Hard Disk etc. Each option class and its related item can have
related catalog group attached to it. E.g. Hard Disk Catalog Group can have
properties (elements) like Manufacturer, Size, type etc. All items which come
under hard disk options can have this catalog group assigned to it. Finally
the MODEL item can have a new catalog group e.g. CTO Sentinal or Laptop
which will contain all the catalog elements of individual option classes.
Second type of Product design can be MODEL and all its option
classes/components can have the same catalog group assigned to them e.g.
Desktop Catalog and individual components have values only for related
properties/catalog elements.
A product can be configured (by calling Configurator) from Oracle Order
Management, Order Entry screen. This order can be progressed to create a
new configured item (typically called STAR item because the new item code
is Model item code and a sequence number separate by *). Newly created
item is standard item with standard bill of material containing actual
components (as against the option classes for MODEL item). The new star
item also get the catalog group assigned to Model and the catalog element
values come from individual components catalog element values. For
example, newly configured star item CN92777*12245 has CTO Sentinal or
Laptop group of which is same as base MODEL and individual value like
Memory, Hard Disk Size etc will get values from individual components.
While designing catalog element one has to take care that all option class
catalog elements names are unique. E.g. Manufacturer property will be
present for all option class catalog groups, to make it unique we should
name it like HD. Manufacturer for Hard Disk, FD. Manufacturer for floppy
disk, RM. Manufacturer for RAM etc. So when final star item gets created all
catalog elements for individual components get clubbed to gather
automatically.