A rep starts a quote and immediately opens up a spreadsheet (that they mostly trust) with a matrix that specifies which products are compatible with others. It’s complicated. And a constant headache. They know their product line well, but the variety of possible configurations is complicated – and seems to continue to get more complicated by the quarter.
So they do what most reps do: they scan the matrix, make their best call, and move on. Or they ask someone. Or they skip the check and send it, and find out later when the order gets flagged.
This is the normal state of quoting for manufacturers with complex, technical catalogs. Products have real compatibility requirements — physical, mechanical, electrical — and the people building the quotes aren't the people who designed the products. Expecting reps to carry that knowledge in their heads doesn't work. Expecting them to pause every quote to check documentation doesn't either.
The result is configuration errors that make it onto quotes, and a quoting process that's slower and less confident than it should be.
What Compatibility Rules do
Compatibility Rules are now live on Quotivity's Enterprise plan. The short version: the rep makes a selection, and the system figures out what's still valid. Options that aren't compatible with what's already been chosen are removed from the available set automatically. The rep never has to know the rule exists.
Compatibility Rules work with your existing bundles. Your bundles define the full menu of available products in each category. Compatibility Rules sit on top of that and evaluate a rep’s selections and narrow the available options accordingly. No more guessing and reading error messages – it’s just right the first time.
How the rules work
Built on the powerful Quotivity Rules Engine, each rule has a set of conditions (IF a selected product has these attributes) and a set of exclusions (THEN these products are removed from a specific option group). Both sides are property-based, so a single rule can cover a broad class of products without listing individual SKUs.
Cheat codes built-in
If other products in a bundle are not compatible with a new selection, you're one click away from resolving all of the issues automatically. Just click the "Auto-resolve" button, and Quotivity will select the lowest-cost product that's compatible with the other selections.
Who it's for
Compatibility Rules were built for manufacturers with large, technically complex catalogs where the gap between product knowledge and sales knowledge is real. If your reps regularly reference documentation to confirm what goes with what, or if you've had quotes go out with incompatible configurations, this is the feature that closes that gap.
It's an Enterprise plan feature. If you're already on Enterprise, it's available now. If you're on Professional and the documentation-lookup problem sounds familiar, it's worth a conversation about what moves up with the plan.
