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Our reading tip for you: M.Variety FAQs

The more variants your product offers, the harder it is to keep an overview of all variants and their properties. M.Variety can help you with that as our module for variant analysis. After filtering the wide variety of product variants, you can display all variants in a structured variant tree. For example, you can filter for variants with very specific features and analyze them.

In our FAQs, you can find the most important questions and answers concerning M.Variety.

Your benefits

Quick quote overview

thanks to structured dashboard view

Quick reaction time

by utilizing different analysis values

Quick variant comparison

by utilizing appropriate and individual metadata

Interesting M.Variety facts

What is M.Variety?

M.Variety is our module for variant analysis in all relevant company departments surrounding the product lifecycle. The module enables you to identify and analyze large variant spaces and helps you to visualize and structure the findings. You can analyze your entire product structure or only individual variants or even only individual files or components of your product. Thereby, you can limit the analysis to those files that are actually relevant. Using a variant tree, you can graphically illustrate the desired variants and define the order of the various features. M.Variety is an analyzing tool for existing configurations that helps you learn from the past for the future. The data analysis results in an overview of the analysis results on sales figures and generated quotes. Check which variants are popular with your customers.

Just like M.Sales and M.Customer, M.Variety sources data from the set of rules in M.Model. Here, the entire product knowledge is stored and linked using different rules. Those rules also apply in the composition of variant trees in M.Variety. All changes are synchronized between the different modules. You can export the different variants you have created in M.Variety as a Microsoft Excel file.

Which functions does M.Variety include in Merlin CPQ?

The analyzing tool offers two different views: the Analysis view and the Dashboard. Usually, both views are available in German and English by default. Of course, your product structure is available in all the languages you have used to model it in M.Model.

In the Analysis view, you can create variant trees based on selected files and features and, thereby, check whether the respective variants are valid or invalid. At the end of the variant tree, you can display any data for each variant. For example, you can display status comparisons based on variant prices. Further examples include the weight of a vehicle, its CO2 emissions, or more general information. For example, you can display how often customers have selected a component and/or variant in combination; or how many customers have selected a specific variant overall.


The Dashboard offers an overview of newly created quotes from the M.Sales and M.Customer modules of Merlin CPQ. This way, you can see at a glance which of your products are top sellers and identify their most popular features. Thus, the Dashboard provides valuable information on your end customers and their preferences. Learn more about their purchasing behavior and customer benefits. The view also helps to visualize the characteristics of different markets and segments as well as regional differences. You can also use the view to identify market trends and new developments early.

For what purposes can companies deploy M.Variety?

M.Variety can be useful for various areas and departments of your company:

In the product development department, the module helps to identify trends early and respond to them accordingly.

In marketing, you can utilize it to measure the success of your sales promotions and plan or modify further actions.

In production, you can better plan production capacities based on the data saved in M.Variety.

The product management department uses the analysis module of Merlin CPQ to identify tops and flops and, thus, contributes to successful product evolution.


The sales team uses M.Variety to support pricing processes and quote generation.

What are the questions M.Variety can answer for you?

The following contains four exemplary questions that can be answered for your product landscape when deploying M.Variety:

- Which product components have been selected the most/never?

- What is the percentage distribution of all files of a selected feature?

- Which file is supposed to be selected next in the configuration?

- Which configurations contain a specific combination of files?


Of course, many questions remain concerning the analysis of your product landscape and its variants. These questions can be answered by deploying the analyzing module.

Evolution of M.Variety

As we continuously improve and develop M.Variety, you can look forward to many more exciting features. For example, you will be able to open your M.Sales and M.Customer configurations in M.Variety and start the analysis directly comparing different variants.

Have we piqued your interest in the M.Variety variant management tool? Then contact our sales team by clicking the contact button at the end of the page or contact your project team if you already use Merlin CPQ and want to expand to M.Variety. We are looking forward to many new and exciting use cases!

Variant management made easy

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