nicgios on "plugin dependencies and configuration"

Hello,

I'm writing a plugin that create some pages with custom templates in a private area and deals with Custom Post Types. Trying not to reinvent the wheel I've found plenty of standard plugins that integrate mine and perfectly and do the job. The questions are:

1]
is there an efficient way to install plugins dependencies?

2]
Is there an efficient way to configure them automatically? (I'd like the user install my plugin and the others are just installed and configured automatically without any issue for the user).

Thanks a lot for your help