The runtime Oracle Configurator and Oracle Configurator Developer use the CZ schema within the Oracle Applications database to access and store data. There is only one CZ schema within an Oracle Applications database instance.

The CZ schema contains an Item Master subschema. The Item Master is a set of your enterprise data, structured into Items and Item Types, and is the primary source of data for your application. The Item Master consists of Items, which are specific elements of a product, and Item Types, which are logical groupings of Items. An example of an Item Type is "TV Set". The available models are the Items within the TV Set Item Type, such as 19" Black and White, 21" Color, and 42" Wide Screen. When building configuration models in Oracle Configurator Developer, you can use data in the CZ schema's Item Master to build Model structure.

Items and Item Types also have Properties. Properties are associated with imported Items and Item Types when you import a BOM Model. You manually assign Properties to the Items and Item Types that you create in Configurator Developer.

In Configurator Developer, Item Master data appears in the Item Master area of the Repository. This area of the Repository is described in Introduction to the Item Master Area of the Repository
Note:
1. Do not confuse the CZ schema's Item Master with the Oracle Applications Item Master. In this user's guide, the term Item Master always refers to the CZ schema's Item Master, unless otherwise indicated

2. 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.

Items in CZ Item Master
The Items in the Item Master are either created from scratch in Configurator Developer or are imported from source data in the Oracle Applications Item Master and other tables. In most development situations, Item Master data is imported.

Imported Items
Imported data in the CZ schema represents the source data and is only used for defining the configuration model. At runtime, after a configuration has been created and passed back to the host application, items are ordered from the source data. Legacy data, such as Bills of Material or pricing information, can be imported into the Item Master. Generally, the data source is either an Oracle Applications database or a non-Oracle Applications database. For consistency, imported data should be maintained in the source database. You can see whether an Item was imported by viewing its details page. (In other words, click on the item's name in the Item Master area of the Repository, or open it for editing.) If the item was imported, you cannot delete it, or modify its name, description, or other information.

Items Created in Configurator Developer
You may want to create Items and Item Types in Oracle Configurator Developer to automate the process of creating and updating Model nodes. For example, you may need to reuse nodes that represent customer requirements questions across multiple Models. Instead of manually recreating the nodes, you can create them once as Items and Item Types and then use the data to automatically create them as many times as necessary.

Orderable Items
The Orderable setting appears in the details page for all imported and manually created Items. This setting indicates whether the Item appears in the Configuration Summary page when it is selected at runtime.

The Orderable setting is automatically selected for all imported BOM Items and is read-only in Configurator Developer. By default, the Orderable setting is not selected for Items that you create in Configurator Developer. You can select this setting if you want the Item to appear in the Configuration Summary page when it is selected at runtime.
Only BOM Items can be ordered from a host application that is part of Oracle Applications (for example, Order Management). Custom implementations may want to use the Orderable setting, for example, to process non-BOM Items downstream in a non-Oracle system.

Modeling Items
There are multiple ways of defining or designing catalog groups. We can have separate catalog groups defined for each option class/component items. Let’s 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 component’s 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.