This article introduces Orders and Order Metrics, and gives a comparison of the two features. Note that once turned on, neither Order Metrics nor Orders can be rolled back.
This feature is only available if you have the Orders feature enabled. We are actively soliciting feedback from a small set of early adopters. If you wish to have access to the feature, submit a request at Zuora Global Support.
Previously, with subscriptions, you managed the changes in the subscription life cycle with amendments. One amendment made one change in a subscription, for example, add or update products. You can use the Orders feature to manage more complex deals.
In a single Order, you can make multiple changes (amendments) to one or more subscriptions. Orders provide the Order Metrics that show the impact of the Order Actions on the included charges.
Major benefits of managing subscriptions with Orders include the following:
Simplified process of booking complex deals in Zuora
Use multiple Order Actions to describe multi-part deal structures in a single Order, making it easier to manage and report on sophisticated deals like a contracted ramp.
Enhanced booking metrics
Order metrics, such as the change in Total Contracted Billing (TCB), change in Extended List Price (ELP), change in discounted Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR), and change in quantity are available for each charge.
Billing tied to the whole Order
Track downstream billing by Order so that you can readily determine the billed and unbilled amounts for easier accounting.
The following components represent an Order:
Order
A contractual agreement between a merchant and a customer. One Order can affect multiple subscriptions which belong to the same invoice owner account. These Subscriptions can be owned by multiple customers.
Order Action
The content of an Order, representing the actions that are done on subscriptions, for example, create a subscription, add a product, renewal. An Order can have one or more Order Actions, and each Order Action operates on one subscription.
Order Metrics
Metrics on how each Order Action changes MRR, Total Contracted Billing, ELP, and Quantity.
Once the Orders feature has been enabled, it replaces certain functions of Subscriptions:
| Previous behaviors | Orders |
|---|---|
|
Create subscriptions and subscription amendments. |
Subscriptions are managed by orders. You must create orders to create subscriptions and make subscription amendments. An order action in an order represents a subscription operation. |
|
Create subscriptions and subscription amendments one at a time. |
You can create multiple subscriptions and subscription amendments in a single order. |
|
If you create multiple amendments to the same subscription, multiple subscription versions are generated. Zuora generates a new subscription version for each subscription amendment. |
If you create an order with multiple changes to the same subscription, only one subscription version is generated. |
|
Amendments |
You cannot create subscription amendments directly. So all the amendments operations from Zuora UI, SOAP API, and REST API are all deprecated. |
See the following resources for more information about the Orders feature:
Customers want to remove products and subscribe to your other products on the existing subscription.
For example, your customer subscribes to your Service A. But later the customer wants to replace the Service A with your Service B. You can do the subscription changes in one order. First, create a Remove Product action to remove Service A from the subscription. Then create an Add Product action to add Service B to the subscription.
See Replace a Product in a Subscription for a tutorial.
Customers want to upgrade or downgrade the products when renewing subscriptions.
For example, your customer subscribes to your Basic Services for a year. Later the customer wants to renew the subscription and upgrades the service to the Premium Services. You can do the subscription changes in one order. First, create a Renew Subscription action to renew the subscription. Then create a Remove Product action to remove Basic Services from the subscription. Finally, create an Add Product action to add the Premium Services to the subscription.
See Renew a Subscription and Upgrade a Product for a tutorial.
A ramp deal is a set of time-based periods where products or pricing can change. You can initially set up a ramp deal and then make future-dated changes to the subscriptions. For example, create multiple actions with future-dated changes to the charges in an order.
See Create a Ramp Deal for a tutorial.
This feature is only available if you have the Order Metrics feature enabled. If you wish to have access to the feature, submit a request at Zuora Global Support. We will investigate your use cases and data before enabling this feature for you. If you have the Orders feature enabled, you already have the Order Metrics feature enabled.
If you have the Order Metrics feature enabled prior to March 2018, you can submit a request at Zuora Global Support to migrate the Order Metrics to the latest version.
The Order Metrics feature is a reduced version of the full Orders capability:
For more information about metrics for orders, see Key Metrics for Orders.
An order is auto-generated when you do any of the following operations.
Note that if you do the above operations with the unsupported conditions, the orders will not be generated.
Orders data is not generated for draft, pending, or deleted Subscriptions and Amendments.
Also note that as part of the Order Metrics migration, a new Amendment Type of "Composite" will appear in the Subscription to represent the Subscription creation.
You can retrieve metrics for orders through REST API operations:
You can also retrieve metrics for orders through Zuora Reporting and Export ZOQL queries, using Orders data sources:
The table below lists the features you will get from Order Metrics and Orders individually.
| Area | Features | Order Metrics | Full Orders |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zuora Central | View the new metrics (the Order metrics) in data sources and reporting |  |
|
| Zuora Central | Access Orders data via REST APIs | |
|
| Zuora Central | Estimate the Order metrics for evergreen subscriptions | |
|
| Zuora Central | Break down billing by Order | |
|
| Zuora Central | Create multi-action Orders | |
|
| Zuora CPQ | Create ramp deals natively | |
|
| Zuora CPQ | Access the new quote metrics enabled by Orders | |
|
| Zuora CPQ | Add much more changes in a single Quote | |
Legend:
(check mark): Zuora supports the feature.
Vision