Consumer Goods Cloud Setup

Consumer Goods Cloud Setup

Activate when configuring Salesforce Consumer Goods (CG) Cloud for a consumer-packaged-goods company: retail execution, visit planning, in-store task capture, order-taking on the field, promotion compliance, and image-recognition-driven off-shelf detection. CG Cloud is distinct from Field Service — it is merchandising-first, not dispatch-first.

Before Starting

• Confirm the CG Cloud license and mobile offline package. The CG mobile app is its own download; reps cannot use the standard Salesforce mobile app for visit execution.
• Map the retail hierarchy. Retailer → Banner → Store → Shelf is the typical hierarchy. Modeling this as Account hierarchies drives visit targeting, route planning, and reporting.
• Know the visit cadence. Weekly, biweekly, monthly, or exception-triggered visits each imply a different Route Plan and Visit auto-generation strategy.

Core Concepts

Retail Store + Visit + Task model

RetailStore is its own standard object — "Create records for physical retail stores associated to business accounts" — not an Account record type. Visit (API 47.0 and later) tracks "information related to a field rep's visit to a retail store where they perform retail activities." The work inside a visit is AssessmentTask: "Perform activities such as planogram check, inventory check, promotion check, in-store survey, or custom task in stores." Visitor represents "the sales reps performing visits" and VisitedParty "the contact person at the account that's being visited."

Two models in one product

CG Cloud is half standard objects and half a cgcloud__ managed package, and the split is not intuitive. Retail Execution ships standard: RetailStore, Visit, AssessmentTask, RetailStoreKpi, RetailVisitKpi, InStoreLocation, Assortment, Promotion, RetailLocationGroup. Route planning, order taking, and inventory are managed-package custom objects — cgcloud__Trip_List__c ("Use Trip List to plan visits based on a predefined sequence of customers"), cgcloud__Visit_Template__c ("Template that describes the basic call behavior"), cgcloud__Order__c, cgcloud__Inventory__c, cgcloud__POS__c, cgcloud__Org_Unit__c. There is no object named RoutePlan.

Visit templates and KPI targets

cgcloud__Visit_Template__c is the "Template that describes the basic call behavior" — the task list a rep executes. Targets and results are separate standard objects: AssessmentIndicatorDefinition "Define parameters that act as markers of compliance for retail tasks to compare target and actual values," RetailStoreKpi maps "store groups to assessment indicator definition, products, and in-store location categories and define targets," and RetailVisitKpi captures "the actual information during a visit against the defined assessment indicator definition and target values." Store segmentation for targeting comes from RetailLocationGroup plus RetailStoreGroupAssignment.

Image Recognition / Computer Vision

CG Cloud integrates with Salesforce Image Recognition for on-shelf photo analysis. It scores SKU facing counts, out-of-stock flags, and planogram compliance. Requires IR license and the shipped ML models.

Common Patterns

Pattern: Weekly route with in-store survey

A cgcloud__Trip_List__c sequences a Tier-1 territory weekly; each Visit carries AssessmentTask records from a cgcloud__Visit_Template__c — a merchandising check, an AssessmentTaskOrder step ("Define an order activity that the sales rep can perform during a visit to stores"), and a compliance photo step. RetailVisitKpi records the captured values against the store's RetailStoreKpi targets.

Pattern: Off-shelf alert routing

Image Recognition flags a SKU out-of-stock against the InStoreLocation ("locations within a retail store's layout such as aisles, shelves, or backrooms") and the expected StoreProduct. A Case routes to the retailer's category manager, with resolution SLA tracked via Entitlement.

Pattern: Promotion compliance audit

A Promotion runs Aug 1–14, scoped by PromotionChannel ("Associate a promotion with a store, store group, or an account") and PromotionProduct. The visit template for that window includes a compliance AssessmentTask: "Is the endcap display up?" Photos attach through AssessmentTaskContentDocument; IR scores planogram match; RetailVisitKpi rows aggregate to a promotion compliance dashboard.

Decision Guidance

Recommended Workflow

1. Confirm CG Cloud license, IR license (if using), and mobile offline package are provisioned.
2. Enable CG Cloud features in Setup and create the RetailStore account record type.
3. Import the retail hierarchy (Account → RetailStore → InStoreLocation) and RetailLocationGroup segmentation before any visit or trip-list data.
4. Define cgcloud__Visit_Template__c records per store tier; attach AssessmentTask definitions and RetailStoreKpi targets.
5. Build cgcloud__Trip_List__c sequences per territory; assign Visitor records; smoke-test Visit generation.
6. Configure Image Recognition models (shipped or custom-trained) and attach to photo task steps.
7. Run a full round-trip in a sandbox: sync offline → execute a Visit → upload → verify KPIs populate.

Review Checklist

• CG mobile offline app installed on a rep test device
• RetailStore and RetailLocationGroup loaded before any Visit or trip-list records
• Visit Templates assigned to every active store segment
• Trip-list visit generation validated for next week's window
• IR models trained / validated on agency SKU set
• Offline conflict resolution policy documented
• KPI dashboards render expected rollups per rep/territory

Salesforce-Specific Gotchas

1. CG Cloud uses shipped platform events for visit sync. Disabling the events breaks offline reconciliation silently; always check the Platform Events usage monitor after enabling.
2. Image Recognition requires pre-trained models per product line. Out-of-the-box models do not know your SKUs; budget model-training time before go-live.
3. Trip-list regeneration is expensive. Rebuilding sequences on large territories can take hours — schedule off-hours.

Output Artifacts

Related Skills

• architect/sales-cloud-architecture — account and data-model foundation
• integration/platform-events-integration — CG visit-sync backbone