How do you create products and product families?

Required tools

• Administrator access to Dynamics 365 Sales — You must be able to create products and unit groups.
• Finalized assortment — What you actually sell and how it is grouped.

Lay the groundwork

1. 1.Define device groups first

   Decide which units you sell in—items, hours, licenses, cartons. The unit group must exist before the product can be created, and it is cumbersome to change later.

2. 2.Build product families that reflect how you sell

   Families group related products and allow properties to be inherited down the hierarchy. Use the customer's terminology in the names, not internal product codes—the salespeople need to be able to find what they're looking for.

Create and publish

1. 3.Create the products with a unit and standard price

   Each product needs a unit group, a default unit, and a place in at least one price list. If the price list is missing, the product cannot be selected for a quote.

2. 4.Publish the products

   New products remain as drafts until they are published. This is the step people forget, and the result is that the seller cannot find the item even though it has been created.

3. 5.Test as a seller

   Create a test quote and add a few products. This will show you whether the units, prices, and names make sense in the context in which they are actually used.

4. 6.Establish a procedure for expired products

   Products that are no longer sold should be retired, not deleted—their history should be preserved. Schedule regular reviews; otherwise, the catalog will grow until it becomes unusable.