As you know, we are proud that Elfsquad integrates with everything that goes without saying. Of course, our CPQ software can also be used as a stand-alone application, but it is at its best when you integrate it with the rest of your IT infrastructure. For this reason, we’ve been working hard on two nice updates lately. Better API responses and Python Scripting will result in even more freedom and possibilities when it comes to integration after the last update.
While we make it as easy as possible to integrate business with Elfsquad, things can always go wrong. If something goes wrong, you look for the reason behind this in order to find a solution. Therefore, we’ve expanded the number of status codes with the new update to give you the most accurate picture of the problem. Thanks to this, one does not have to endlessly dig and search by themselves, but one can immediately see where the problem lies in the integration.
Additionally, to help you get started even faster in the event of errors we have also included extensive error recognition in our API on top of expanding the number of status codes. For this, we use a wonderful principle called the Levenshtein distance. We won’t bore you with the details, but the bottom line is that we can completely break down and analyze the requests you send to Elfsquad. Elfsquad can then find out what is likely going wrong and give you an accurate response based on that.
In practice it looks like this: suppose you want to add an article to Elfsquad, but you have written ‘nmae’ instead of ‘name’. Until recently, if you received a relatively meaningless error message that a parameter was entered incorrectly, you will now see a clear message and even a suggestion that can look like this, for example: “We see that you want to add a product, but you ‘ instead of ‘name’. Once you fix this, everything is fine and you can add the product.”
With the new update, it is now also possible to include scripts with Python in your configuration model. This makes it even easier to integrate with other applications while configuring. There are all kinds of interesting uses for this.
It starts quite simple, for example by retrieving the price of an item or the stock status from your ERP. Or perhaps the configuration of your product involves difficult parametric calculations, which you would much rather have performed by another specialist’s best-of-breed system. It can also just be an unnecessary amount of work to move a calculation to Elfsquad, if it is already running perfectly elsewhere. The same applies if you prefer to keep the logic or calculation internal, as it contains sensitive information. Thanks to Python scripting, your programmers can easily insert these things into our model with a small script, instead of adding a huge calculation.
Since the integration boundaries disappear thanks to Python scripting, there are an incredible number of applications and possibilities. For example, the integration with a form of artificial intelligence.
Let’s look at a concrete example:
Let’s say you roll out your configurator within your dealer network and want to ask them for feedback. Then of course you can add a comment box and ask them for their opinion. That can be very valuable, but then you have to have the time to analyze and follow up on all of this, which is often the case. However, if you integrate scripting via Python with an application that does natural language processing, the feedback can be automatically valued. Such an application ‘reads’ whether it is negative, positive or neutral feedback. Then, for example, you set up that you immediately receive a signal in the event of negative feedback in order for this to be followed up immediately, which limits the damage.
With Elfsquad you opt for state-of-the-art CPQ software, which runs completely in the cloud. The greatest advantage of this is that you always work with the most recent version and immediately benefit from the hard work of our developers. In addition to these 2 concrete examples of the optimization of Elfsquad, do you want to see more, or are you curious about how Elfsquad CPQ can be used in your situation? Then request a demo.
During a demo we will tell you everything about:
Elfsquad removes all worries from your pre-production process. With Elfsquad as backbone, we realize the digital factory that smart industries have been trying to find for so long. We do this through a product configurator, with integrated solutions for marketing, sales, and operations.
Let us know what you think.