Salesforce Quotes

There is no doubt that the Salesforce Quote functionality is useful.  But could this object be any more specialized?  We've run into so many issues with customizations.  Here's a list of some issues or limitations I've recently come across:

1. You cannot override the standard Quote view with a custom visualforce page.  The option to override View is not available.

• I suspect that because the object is so specialized (oppty sync, PDF creation, etc) that this is not likely to change.  If you need custom quote functionality, you may need to build your own from the object up.

2. The standard Discount field is not available as a merge field in Email templates.

• As a workaround, you can create a formula field that references the out-of-box field and then use the formula field in your email template.

3. You cannot roll up list price from the line item.

• Apparently, list price is a reference to the PricebookEntry object and so it is not a field that can be summarized.  To proceed, you need to create another currency field and populate it with a workflow on the QLI based on your business requirements.

4. You can only control edit access to Sales Price from a Profile-level parameter.

• It's not so bad to have to use this parameter, since you can also put it in a permission set, but it's pretty inconsistent from the way the rest of the profile/page layouts behave.

5. If your record is locked as the outcome an approval process, you will not be able to save your pdf to the quote using the Create PDF button.

• Speaking of inconsistent... on all other objects that are locked, you can almost always add an attachment.  To get around this, I changed our approvals to unlock the record, then used validation rules to keep the QLI from being changed.