From Quote to Production Floor: Configuring Any Product in Business Central
Complex or custom product configurations often require manual routing creation and cost estimation, causing delays and errors. Production planners, sales engineers, and manufacturing professionals benefit from understanding automated configuration workflows that streamline BOM creation and improve quoting accuracy.
Chapters
0:01 — Welcome and free app overview
4:51 — Why you need a configurator
9:49 — Building your first configuration
18:13 — Adding custom pricing rules
24:21 — Automatic upsells and images
30:29 — Configuring products by search
34:16 — Setting up your configurations
45:01 — Audience questions and pricing
Product configurations that do not align with standard BOMs can disrupt quoting and production planning, leading to inefficiencies and increased manual work. This webcast explains how leveraging Business Central’s configuration capabilities—using advanced rule builders and configuration tools—can simplify the process from quote to production order. Viewers gain practical insights into automating dimensional calculations, validating configured quotes, and managing production order statuses for accurate manufacturing control.
- Configuring job-shop items without full routings
- Automating product dimension calculations via inherited values
- Converting configured quotes into controlled production orders
- Comparing standard costs between parent and sub-configurations
About Insight Works
A little bit about Insight Works: you may already know who we are. We’ve been around for about ten years now, and we’re the premier developer of products for anything related to inventory. So anytime you have to handle physical inventory, whether it’s in the warehouse, in manufacturing, or at the point of sale, that’s where we come into play. Primarily warehouse and manufacturing, but we do have a retail side as well, and all of our products are built around that inventory concept.
We work through our partners, so if you have questions or need a quote, your Business Central partner, if they’re one of our resellers, should be able to help you out. If not, contact us and we’ll see what we can do for you.
Free Insight Works Apps
A number of our products are free, and I’ll mention a few of the key ones because they’re good to have and easy to get. If you’re on the cloud version of Business Central, you just click a button to install, there’s no registration required, and the additional functionality is available to you right away.
The first two are for planning and forecasting. If you’re using the built-in Business Central Requisition Worksheet or Planning Worksheet, get the Enhanced Planning Worksheet instead. It works better for purchase planning in a warehouse environment, and even for manufacturing planning if you’re doing production forecasting. The Sales Forecasting Worksheet looks at your sales history, uses Microsoft’s Azure AI tools to build a forecast, and updates Business Central with it.
There are also more technical, behind-the-scenes applications that your partner will likely use, or that you may need, for printing and data management. On the production side, the Graphical Scheduler lets you drag and drop production orders, assembly orders, jobs, or whatever you want to place on it. The default is production orders, but you can put whatever data you want on that scheduler. Dock Extender is drag-and-drop document management. Business Central has its own drag-and-drop document handling, but this lets you also store documents in SharePoint so you can access them independently of Business Central, even without a BC license, along with good revision control and workflows.
Order Ship Express covers warehouse management and shipping. It’s a free app that gives you shipping labels, tracking numbers, and costs right within Business Central, and if you don’t already have discounted carrier rates, it can also get you discounted rates with carriers like UPS, FedEx, and USPS. There’s also a free warehouse management app for the core warehouse functions: receiving, picking, inventory counts, and bin movements, if that’s all you need. And the Safety Logbook app is for manufacturing, for tracking HSE events, certifications, and similar records.
About the Configurator
Now let’s talk about the configurator. The key points: it’s built into Business Central. We do have a web API becoming available, and it’s being implemented at a couple of places where customers are extending the configurator into their e-commerce solution, but for the most part you’ll work with it inside Business Central, which makes it very easy to set up and use.
Configurators in general can be a pain to get up and running, and you could spend a lot of time getting one working. The value of ours is that it makes it quick and easy to get set up. There are still complications if you have a lot of complicated rules, which you can build into the configurator, but that just takes some extra time. The core setup is quick and easy to get working, and I’ll show you some of that in the demo today.
The real value of the configurator is being able to configure a product without having to create a new item in your item master for every new configuration. You can either create a new item for every configuration, or use what’s called a coding item, which doesn’t create a new item number in the item master. We also currently support, as an extension, and coming in a future release as a standard feature, the ability to work with jobs, so you can create planning lines and similar records from the configurator as well.
There’s also smart item number configuration. If you do want to create a new item number for each configuration, it can generate that number based on the selections made for that product, incorporating things like length, color, or gauge directly into the item number.
Right now the configurator works with production BOMs and routings, so it will create the BOM and routing if you like, or it can create assembly BOMs instead, as well as planning lines through the extension I mentioned. If you’re using it as a production configurator, whether assembly or production, you’re building an actual BOM or routing. You can also use it more like a sales configurator, where it isn’t building a BOM or routing at all, it’s just coming up with a price, and engineering takes that afterward to actually engineer the product.
The best fit for the configurator is a standard item with customizable options. If you’re an ETO manufacturer where everything is engineered up front, the configurator may not be a good fit. It’s better suited to a standard product with configurable components, like a pump that could have different housings or different plans, or electrical equipment with different voltages or plugs.
It’s been used in cases as simple as choosing options for a fast food meal, all the way up to building trucks, and everything in between: clothing manufacturers, jewelry, and more. We support multi-level BOMs and multi-level configurations. Part of the reason it can be used across such a wide range of products is the rule builder, JavaScript rules, and an API, which give you a lot of mechanisms for creating custom rules to control how the configurator behaves, so a user can’t configure a product that couldn’t actually be built.
One more point: if you have people who only do quoting, like an order desk where someone just needs to quote on product, you can use a Team Member license for that, which is a lot cheaper in Business Central. They can use the configurator and create a quote without needing the premium license required to create items. Someone else can then convert that quote to a sales order.
Demo: Configuring a PC on a Sales Order
Let’s jump into Business Central. I’m on the shipping and receiving role center, but I also have my sales orders and sales quotes. As I mentioned, you can create a configuration on a sales quote and then convert it to a sales order, and I’ll show that in a bit. I’m going to start with a sales order, since the process is exactly the same. Quotes and orders look almost identical, and from the configurator’s point of view the process is pretty much the same, with one exception: on a quote, you can later convert a quoting item to a regular item, which I’ll cover shortly.
I’ll create a sales order for one of my usual customers, and now I’ll create a configured item. There are two main options, technically three: the BOM Designer, which is for configuring one item at a time; the Bulk Configurator, for when you’re creating multiple configurations of the same item, for example if you’re selling architectural panels that are the same panel but in a range of lengths and widths, you can use the Bulk Configurator to design that in a spreadsheet-style view, entering many configurations of the same panel type on one screen; and Design with AI, which I’ll also show, where instead of searching for a product and browsing results, you type in search terms and it builds a configuration for you.
We’ll start with the standard way of using the configurator, the BOM Designer. At the top it asks for the item category, the type of product you’re configuring, which is equivalent to a product line. If you had a website with your products broken into separate pages or product lines, this list represents those lines. Within a line, like a line of shelving, each model, similar to a manufacturer’s individual named models, would be a separate configuration in this list.
In this case I’m using older Business Central demo data, so we’ll look at a computer. First we choose the type of processor, and I’ll pick a fast one, then choose the amount of RAM and other options. Notice it has default quantities built in from simple rules. On the side are the options and the choices available for each one, and you can default quantities for those choices.
On pricing, you’re able to update it here and set up rules to adjust it, for example to round the total price up to the nearest dollar. The demo data doesn’t have costs set up for this item, but the configurator also calculates total cost as you build the configuration. That can be hidden if you don’t want salespeople to see it, but it lets you see your margin as you configure the product.
Continuing through the options: for the monitor, these are the ones I typically stock, but a customer might have seen a different monitor online, say a larger one, that I’ve never stocked before. If it’s set up to allow it, I can use the option to select from additional choices, which looks at the catalog item, meaning all the products my vendor offers that I’ve never necessarily bought or stocked. I can search there and add an item from the catalog into the configuration instead of the default choices, so you have the ability to pull from the item catalog or other items on the item master if something isn’t already predefined here.
For the keyboard, I’ve defaulted in one option, and for the mouse there are a few choices. Here’s a simple rule: if I choose the fancier keyboard, the cheap mouse option is no longer available, so I have to choose a different mouse. All of the choices here are just components, meaning other inventory items in the system. I’ve got one simple rule that hides the basic mouse if the more advanced keyboard is chosen, and it’s calculated out the price and cost as I go. This is a very simple example, but when I hit OK, it builds the configuration.
For this PC, I have it set up to create a new item number for every configuration. If I had built this exact same configuration before, it would reuse the existing item number instead of creating a new one, so it never duplicates configurations, but it will create a new item number for any new configuration of this item type. In this case, the item number just uses a number series, incrementing one at a time, though it could instead use a smart item number based on the selections made in the BOM Designer.
The text shown here is also configurable. I’ve set it up to add to what’s called the extended text in Business Central. You can format this however you like, choosing which options show up in the text, and this text can also appear on the assembly order, the production order, the routing, or the bill of materials.
This particular product is set up to create an assembly order, so setting the quantity created that order. Looking at the components, we have everything we expected, including the cost to assemble the computer. Labor was also added automatically, two hours of labor for this configuration, based on rules in the background, without me having to select it. So the PC is configured and ready to go.
Demo: Configuring a Desk with Formulas and Rules
Now the customer needs somewhere to put that computer, so we’ll sell them a desk as well. You could have several different lines of desks to choose the appropriate line from, and here several fields are already defaulted in. For example, the quantity is defaulted but not the specific code, so if I choose a nine-foot desk, it automatically calculates how much trim is needed.
At this price point, the desk is costing us $430 but we’re only selling it for $180, which isn’t a good idea, but it illustrates the calculations available. You can add in most of the formulas you’d see in Excel, including IF statements and other math formulas, within the configurator, for example a formula that increases the quantity of trim if a nine-foot table and three doors are chosen.
There’s another rule here, the opposite of the mouse rule: if the desk chosen is greater than ten feet, it forces shelving into the configuration automatically, with an appropriate quantity for the length of the desk, without prompting the user. I could instead have prompted them, and I’ll show that in the next example.
There are also door options, and I’ll choose two glass doors. Some choices here, like the trim component, are placeholders rather than actual item numbers. Based on that placeholder, additional components are pulled in, for example trim, glue, or additional labor needed to install it, so it just represents “yes, I want trim” and the system fills in what’s actually required.
This item is also set up with descriptive text. This is often used, for example, if I’m selling twenty desks for an office building where the customer has marked up a drawing showing where each unit needs to go. I could have a custom field on the sales line for a drawing mark, enter that reference, and whatever text I put in there will flow into the sales order.
This desk uses an item number like “desk config” rather than creating a new item number for me. That’s what we call a coding item: it uses the same item number every time for every configuration, without creating a new one, though each configuration has its own custom bill of materials and its own production or assembly order, all maintained under that same item number. That still gives you full traceability, so you can look up everything sold to a customer under that item number and see all the individual configurations.
Demo: The Bulk Configurator
This is also where the Bulk Configurator comes in. To illustrate, I’ll create a couple of desk configurations in one screen, for example an eight-foot maple desk with three wooden doors, then another with different options. You could keep building out any number of configurations this way. This just shows that the same item number can appear multiple times with completely different configurations behind it.
That’s how the coding item works. If you do this on a sales quote, when you convert the quote to an order, it will ask whether you want to convert it to a new item number. That’s the hybrid approach: like the PC example, you might want a new item number for every configuration you actually manufacture, but if you do many more quotes than orders, you don’t want to create a new item number for every quote. So on the quote you use a coding item number, and when it converts to an order, it becomes an actual, unique item number for that configuration. You can also do this conversion manually at any time using the convert coding item option.
Demo: Configuring a Bike with Images and Upsell Rules
Now I’ll sell them a bike as well, since they’ll want some exercise after sitting at that desk all day. This configuration uses a slightly nicer interface with categories laid out in a tree, shown in red and bold when a mandatory selection hasn’t been made yet. You can lay these out with multiple levels of indentation however you like.
This configuration is also set up to build a picture of what’s being sold. Choosing a purple frame shows a purple frame in the image, and choosing a red frame shows red instead. On the handlebars, there’s a rule: choosing the standard handlebars prompts the user and forces them to also buy a bell, in this case two bells for that set of handlebars, calculated automatically, for every set of handlebars, two bells are required.
Choosing a different set of handlebars gives the option to add a light as an upsell: it asks whether you want one, and if you say yes it’s added, if no it isn’t. I’ll say yes, and the light appears, an option that was hidden before because it wasn’t available with the previous handlebar choice.
On the PC, choosing a specific keyboard hid one of the mouse choices, which is one way to control the interface: you can hide specific choices within an option. The other way is to hide an entire option so it doesn’t appear on screen at all, becoming visible only after a prior choice is made, and so on down the list. That approach is more like a wizard, where each choice reveals the next one, versus showing everything on screen at once, which is more flexible.
Continuing through the bike configuration, the front and back mudguards option is another placeholder: there’s no item called “front and back,” but selecting it pulls in the components needed. Once finished, the bike configuration builds a bill of materials and routing automatically. If I want to adjust any of these choices afterward, I can go back into the configurator and open the BOM Designer again to make changes.
Looking at the item structure that was built from just those few selections shows the full set of components and labor, including the routing, needed to manufacture the product, effectively production-ready. The salesperson simply entered the choices, and the configurator built everything needed.
Planning and Production for Configured Items
Because of how the configurator works, the result is just a standard item, so MRP and MPS in Business Central work exactly as expected. Running the Enhanced Planning Worksheet, which is free, will plan the manufacture of this product automatically, because from this point on, everything works exactly as it would if the item had been manually created and entered on the sales order. We’re just dealing with standard items in Business Central.
Coding items are a little different. If you want to create production orders for those, you create the production order from the sales order, since they’re a bit special. MRP will still work with them, but you won’t get the same bill of materials from MRP for a coding item, so you need to create the production order directly from the sales order.
Demo: Design with AI
I’ll show one more thing on this sales order, and then how the sales quote works. With Design with AI, since I’d rather talk than type, I can describe what I want, for example a maple desk, eight and a half feet long, with iron legs and four wooden doors. It figures out that I need a desk, brings in the steel option for “metal,” and starts the configuration, without needing exact terminology.
You can imagine this on an e-commerce site, where a potential customer types in search terms, the system checks whether a matching item is in stock, and if not, brings up this configuration screen to ask about remaining options and shows the price at the bottom. Design with AI doesn’t ship with the base product; if you want access to it, contact us and we’ll get you set up. It’s intended for future use with e-commerce sites, but it does already work inside Business Central.
Demo: Sales Quotes and Converting Coding Items
Now let’s look at a quote. I’ll create one for the same customer and use the BOM Designer to build a simple desk configuration. From there you send off the quote the way you normally would in Business Central, the customer approves it, and then it’s converted into an order.
When that conversion happens, instead of keeping the coding item number, it converts the configured coding item into an actual item number. You can have this happen automatically, have it prompt you, or never convert it at all. That’s how you can quote all sorts of configurations without creating new items in your item master, but as soon as you firm up the quote into a sales order, it creates the item, and you can then run MRP or MPS to produce it.
So that’s the basic sales-side usage of the configurator: on a quote or order, open the BOM Designer or Bulk Editor, select the choices for the options, and it builds the configuration.
Setting Up the Configurator: Item Categories
Now let’s look at how this gets set up. Configurator Item Categories is the starting point for all of this, where you define your product lines and the high-level information about them. For the mountain bike I configured, it’s set up to create a new item, and that new item uses a number series rather than a smart item number. With a smart item number, you can configure the item number to include things like a color selection or other choices made during configuration.
For the desk, it’s set up as a coding item, using a fixed item number as the default. For the bike, using a number series, there’s a basic smart item number setup that combines a selected code, a dash, and a set of digits from the number series, and you can configure all sorts of variations on how that item number is built.
Also on the item category is the data template. When these items are created, you’ll want defaults, for example whether they’re purchased or manufactured items, or made-to-order. This uses standard Business Central templates, applied through the configurator, so you can set default values for everything on the item created through it. You can also set up a template for how the description is built on the sales order, and configure whether AI is enabled to describe and build the configuration.
Setting Up the Configurator: Options and Rules
The real detail is under Configurator Options, where you define what the user gets to see and select. For the mountain bike frame, for example, you list the different frame types with variant codes for the colors. You can include items, production BOMs, if a selection includes several items, or resources, which are your labor operations for assembly orders. You can also include a text placeholder if you don’t want an actual component to select from, and a sub-configuration, which allows for multi-level configurations, for example a truck with a hydraulics sub-configuration, which could itself contain a further sub-configuration for pump size or volume.
For each choice, you can set the default choice, default quantity, a quantity calculation formula, and how pricing is calculated. For the mudguards, there were only two front-end choices, front, or front and back, and both are text placeholders. Anything listed against the “front and back” parent choice gets included automatically when that option is selected, for example one hour of labor per bell, so if two bells are included, that’s two hours of labor for that operation. Without a formula defined, it just uses the selected quantity.
Some options also have rules attached, like the handlebar rule controlling whether a bell or a light upsell is required. This uses the rule builder, which takes a bit of getting used to at first: it lets you build conditions, for example checking whether the handlebar choice is a specific type and the bell choice or quantity doesn’t meet a required condition, and if so, forcing a bell into the selection and messaging the user. The rule builder also lets you show or hide options, run other rules, and control the configurator’s behavior more broadly. There’s also a case where, if a different handlebar type is chosen and no light has been selected, the user is prompted to add one as an upsell, and it’s only added if they say yes. These rules can also be written directly in JavaScript instead of using the rule builder interface, producing the same result.
For images, the picture built during configuration gets stored with the item card as the item’s picture, or, for a coding item, with the sales order or sales quote, so those images can appear on your quote or order. You can bring in multiple images and use image positioning to control how they’re laid out, and there’s a reset option if you make changes you want to undo.
Importing Configuration Data from Excel
If you already have your configuration data, for example in an Excel spreadsheet, there’s a table for importing it. The structure needed is the type of product, the option, and the choices for that option. For example, a three-quarter bathroom with a shower option and its associated choices. You can enter this in Excel and import it directly, which is one of the simpler ways to set up the configurator.
As far as configurators go, this is about as simple as it gets to set up. Configurators in general can be complicated, taking anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of months depending on your needs, so you’ll want to evaluate that for your own situation. A number of our customers have self-implemented without any help from us at all. If you do need help, we provide training and support, though we won’t build your configurations for you.
Demo: Sub-Configurations
Here’s a quick example of sub-configurations. Say I have a house with up to five bathrooms, and I want to configure each one independently. I set the first bathroom as a full bath, which opens its own configuration screen where I choose the options for that bath, then hit OK to save it. I can then configure a second, a half bath, and go back and reconfigure any of the sub-configurations afterward. This is how you can have any number of levels of sub-configuration, and a sub-configuration can reference values set in its parent, for example using a length set at the top level to drive additional calculations further down.
