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Zuora Release 2023.05.R1

Zuora

Zuora Release 2023.05.R1

Welcome to the release notes for Zuora Release 2023.05.R1. This article is a consolidated page of all release notes for the following Zuora products:

For the latest release notes of Zuora Revenue, see Zuora Revenue release notes.

We welcome and appreciate your feedback on this release notes article. Please use the Feedback button to let us know what you think about the new release notes.

Release schedule

For release schedule details, see this release notification.

For the planned schedule of upcoming Zuora releases, see Zuora Release Management in Zuora Community.

Join Release Notifications in Zuora Community to receive timely notifications about Zuora Billing, Collect, and Central Platform.

UI enhancement

here_black.png New UI experience now opt-out by default (all environments)

The new Zuora UI experience became a default opt-out option for all customers in all Sandbox environments in April. Now, we are pleased to make it opt-out by default in all Production environments in mid-May. 

With the default setting, the following UI enhancements are generally available for all customers:

If you are an existing customer and have previously disabled the new UI experience, we will also enable the new UI experience for you. However, you can switch back to the old UI using the Enable New Zuora Experience user profile setting as necessary.

For more information about the new UI, see New user interface.

Zuora Billing

The Zuora Billing features and enhancements will be deployed to Production environments no earlier than 8 June 2023.

here_black.png Product Catalog

Support Stacked Discount for the Discount-Percentage charge model

We have enhanced the Discount - Percentage charge model to specify whether a discount charge is stackable. Stacked discounts allow you to combine multiple discounts together and apply them all at once to a regular product rate plan charge. For more information, see stacked discount.

here_black.png Orders and Subscriptions

Draft orders generally available 

The draft orders feature is now generally available to all Zuora customers in tenants with Orders or Orders Harmonization enabled. Customers can save their orders and configurations as draft orders for further editing. 

For more information, see Draft orders.

UI enhancements to automatic refunding after subscription cancelations

We made the following UI enhancements to the canceling subscriptions with a refund and write-off process that is triggered by clicking Cancel on the reinvented subscription details page:

  • Added the following options to the Do you want to refund payment after the subscription is cancelled? section on the Cancel Subscription window.
    • Payment amount eligible for refund
    • Write-off invoice after refund
    • Refund reason code
    • Generate the final invoice
  • When the automatic refund is not eligible, the section name Do you want to refund payment after the subscription is cancelled? is changed to Do you want to generate the final invoice after the subscription is cancelled?. Meanwhile, only the Generate the final invoice checkbox is displayed in the section.
  • In the invoice section of the Cancellation Result window, added invoice details.

For more information, see Cancel subscriptions and refund end customers automatically.

Support of setting order line item owner

We have enhanced the Order Line Items feature to support setting the order line item owner. Previously, you could only set the invoice owner for an order line item. The invoice owner is the owner of the order and determines the bill-to contact of the order line item. You can now additionally set an order line item owner, which is the owner of the order line item and determines sold-to contact of the order line item.

Support of setting bill-to contact for order line item

We have enhanced the Order Line Items feature to support setting the bill-to contact for an order line item. You can now set the bill-to contact for an order line item by specifying the ID of a contact that belongs to the invoice owner account of the order line item.

Subscription status change on reinvented subscription details page

Previously, for subscriptions whose cancelation date is a future date, the status of the subscriptions was shown as Pending Cancellation on the reinvented subscription details pages. For such subscriptions, the status is now changed to Cancelled followed by the future date, for example, Cancelled (on 05/01/2023).

For more information, see View details of subscriptions through the reinvented UI.

here_black.png Invoicing and Tax

Billing Schedule supports pausing and resuming invoice schedules through REST API

With the Billing Schedule feature, you can now use the following API operations to manage your invoice schedules effectively:

  • Pause an invoice schedule
    You can use this operation to pause an invoice schedule to prevent Zuora Scheduler from automatically picking it up.
  • Resume an invoice schedule
    When you want to execute a paused invoice schedule, you can use this operation to resume the invoice schedule, and Zuora Scheduler will continue picking it up automatically as before.

With the new operations, you can have greater control and flexibility over your invoicing process.

For a summary of REST API updates specific to this enhancement, see the "API updates for the Billing Schedule feature" section in 2023 API Changelog (May 19, 2023) and REST API Reference.  

Billing Schedule supports configuring whether to invoice subscriptions separately through REST API 

When using the Billing Schedule feature, you can now use the invoiceSeparately request field of the following operations to control whether to generate a consolidated billing document for unbilled charges under an account:

If you set this field to false, multiple invoice schedule items with the same date under one account are billed on a single invoice. The other charges that are excluded from the corresponding invoice schedules but ready to bill for the account are combined into the same invoice. Therefore, you can have a single invoice if multiple charges included in and excluded from an invoice schedule will be invoiced on a single day under the same account.

For a summary of REST API updates specific to this enhancement, see the "API updates for the Billing Schedule feature" section in 2023 API Changelog (May 19, 2023) and REST API Reference.  

Billing Schedule supports configuring next run dates for invoice schedule items through REST API

When using the Billing Schedule feature, you can now use the nextRunDate request field of the Update an invoice schedule operation to update the next run date of an invoice schedule. 

Therefore, you can control when Zuora Scheduler needs to generate a credit memo or an invoice in the next schedule. For example, you can accelerate the credit memo generation for previous contracts if you want to bill early for the new contract.

For a summary of REST API updates specific to this enhancement, see the "API updates for the Billing Schedule feature" section in 2023 API Changelog (May 19, 2023) and REST API Reference.  

Billing Schedule supports configuring additional subscriptions and their target dates for invoice schedule items through REST API 

You can now use the targetDateForAdditionalSubscriptions field of Invoice Schedules operations to configure and view billing target dates for invoice schedule items. Therefore, Zuora Scheduler can bill other fixed-period charges together based on the configured billing target date. 

Besides, you can also use the additionalSubscriptionsToBill request field to specify additional subscriptions that need to be billed together with the invoice schedule. Therefore, Zuora Scheduler can generate credit memos automatically along with the next invoice when some of the subscriptions in previous contracts are canceled.

For a summary of REST API updates specific to this enhancement, see the "API updates for the Billing Schedule feature" section in 2023 API Changelog (May 19, 2023) and REST API Reference.  

Billing Schedule supports displaying invoiceScheduleItemId and invoiceScheduleId fields on more objects through REST API and Data Query 

When using the Billing Schedule feature, you can now retrieve the following fields on more objects through the REST API and Data Query.

  • invoiceScheduleItemId and invoiceScheduleId fields on the Invoice Item object
  • invoiceScheduleItemId and invoiceScheduleId fields on the Credit Memo Item object
  • invoiceScheduleId field on the Rate Plan Charge object

For a summary of REST API updates specific to this enhancement, see the "API updates for the Billing Schedule feature" section in 2023 API Changelog (May 19, 2023) and REST API Reference.  

Resolved: Subscriptions configured to be invoiced separately could not be associated with invoice schedules

Previously, if subscriptions had the "Invoice Subscription Separately" setting as true, the subscriptions could not be associated with any invoice schedule for customized billing.

This issue has been resolved. You can now create an invoice schedule including subscriptions with the "Invoice Subscription Separately" setting set as true. When the invoice schedule bills the subscriptions, the "Invoice Subscription Separately" setting on subscriptions is ignored regardless of its value.

Billing Schedule compatible with Prepaid with Drawdown feature

When using the Billing Schedule feature, you can now also use the Prepaid with Drawdown feature. With this enhancement, you can create an invoice schedule for prepayment charges to bill your customer with custom invoices.

Additionally, you can now configure the following settings for the charges in orders:

  • Set Billing Cycle Type to Charge Trigger Day, Term Start Date, or Term End Date appropriately.
  • Set Billing Period Alignment to Align to ChargeAlign to Term Start Date, or Align Term End Date appropriately. 

REST API enhancements for credit memo creation

When using the following operations to create credit memos through the REST API, you can now specify either an account ID or account number, or both in the request body. 

If you specify both the accountId and accountNumber fields in the request, they must belong to the same account. 

Previously, you could only specify either an account ID or an account number.

REST API enhancements for updating accounts

You can now specify the following request fields of the Update an account operation to update the purchase order number and customer service representative for an account:

  • purchaseOrderNumber
  • customerServiceRepName

Flexible Billing feature renamed to Flexible Billing Attributes

The Flexible Billing feature is now officially renamed to Flexible Billing Attributes for more publicly known awareness and clarity. The feature name has been updated in all related articles in the Knowledge Center and API documentation in the Developer Center.

Flexible Billing Attributes feature available for all Sandbox customers

The Flexible Billing Attributes feature has been enabled for all customers in Sandbox environments. This feature provides you the flexibility to manage billing, taxation, and payment at a more granular level other than the account level. With this feature, you can configure different bill-to contacts, sold-to contacts, payment terms, invoice templates, and sequence sets for subscriptions.

If you want to enable the Flexible Billing Attribute feature in your Production environments, submit a request at Zuora Global Support.

Contact-related objects available on HTML templates

When configuring HTML templates for billing documents, you can now use the following contact-related objects as joint objects on some base objects:

Joined object Base object

Bill To Contact

  • Invoice
  • Subscription
  • Order Line Item

Bill To Contact Snapshot

  • Invoice
  • Subscription
  • Order Line Item

Sold To Contact

  • Invoice item
  • Credit Memo Item
  • Debit Memo Item
  • Subscription
  • Order Line Item

Sold To Contact Snapshot

  • Invoice item
  • Credit Memo Item
  • Debit Memo Item
  • Subscription
  • Order Line Item

To specify bill-to contacts and sold-to contacts at the subscription level, you must have the Flexible Billing Attributes feature enabled first.

Invoice Schedule Number field supported by Global Search

From this release, Global Search supports searching for invoice schedules by the Invoice Schedule Number field. With the enhancement, you can quickly find the invoice schedule that you are looking for. 

This enhancement on invoice schedules is available only if you have the Billing Schedule feature enabled.

Bill Run Number and Bill Run Name fields supported by Global Search

From this release, Global Search supports searching for bill runs by the Bill Run Number or Bill Run Name fields. With the enhancement, you can quickly find the bill run that you are looking for. The search result shows bill run summary information including bill run status and batches.

New billing rules setting page available in Sandbox

The newly redesigned billing rules setting page with improved and consistent usability is now available through the Zuora UI. You can search for billing rules by name, and edit a single billing rule easily.

We will release the new billing rules setting page only in Sandbox environments, and it will not be deployed to Production environments until further notice.

Resolved: exemptStatus field on Account was defaulted to null during account creation 

Previously, if no value was specified for the taxInfo > exemptStatus field in the request for account creation through the Create an account operation, the field was set to null by default.

This issue has been resolved. Currently, if you do not specify any value for the taxInfo > exemptStatus field in the request for account creation, the field is set to No by default.

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Zuora Payments

The Zuora Payments features and enhancements will be deployed to Production environments no earlier than 8 June 2023.

here_black.png Payments

Logo change for credit card brands

In Zuora UI and Payment pages, we have updated the logos of the following credit card brands to the latest version:

  • American Express
  • MasterCard
  • Discover
  • Visa

Deprecation of support for non-referenced refunds on PayPal Express Checkout

PayPal has deprecated the non-referenced refund functionality since 1 May 2023. To align with the gateway provider’s design, we no longer support non-referenced refunds on the PayPal Express Checkout payment gateway integrations. As none of Zuora’s PayPal payment gateway integrations support non-referenced refunds, please use referenced refunds for your refund transactions.

If you have any questions about this deprecation, contact PayPal Support or Zuora Global Support.

Custom payment number available for early adopters

As a user, you can now add a custom payment number while creating a payment using the Zuora UI and API so that you can effectively reconcile payment numbers between Zuora and external systems/merchants. 

Zuora now supports adding a Custom payment number for external and electronic payments through the Zuora UI and API. This field addition is helpful when you want to keep the original payment number from external systems/merchants into Zuora for easy cross-referencing, reporting and effectively reconciling payment. 

The support for Custom Payment Numbers in the Early Adopter phase. To use this feature, submit a request to Zuora Global Support.

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Zuora Central Platform

here_black.png Custom Objects

Limitations imposed on Audit Trail for Custom Objects

Audit Trail now tracks and records changes of custom fields in Custom Objects only if the custom fields are configured as auditable fields. One custom object can have a maximum of five auditable custom fields.

Previously, changes of all custom fields in Custom Objects were audited.

For more information about auditable custom fields, see Create a new custom object definition.

here_black.png Events and Notifications

Support for auditing changes of notification objects

To help you meet audit requirements and maintain compliance, Audit Trail now supports tracking changes of notification objects. The following changes can be audited:

  • The creation, updation, and deletion of the following objects:
    • Advanced SMTP Server Setting
    • Communication Profile
    • Custom Event
    • Custom Scheduled Event
    • Email Template
    • Notification Definition
    • OAuth 2.0 Provider
  • The update of the Callout Option object.

Administrators or users who have the Audit Trail Access permission can enable or disable auditing changes of the above notification objects. For more information, see Manage Audit Trail settings.

You can use Data Query to run a report against the auditobjectchangeevent table to retrieve changes of notification objects. For example, you can retrieve notification definition changes in April 2023 with the following query:

SELECT *
FROM   auditobjectchangeevent
WHERE  objecttype = 'NotificationDefinition'
       AND year = 2023
       AND month = 4

For more information about Audit Trail sample queries, see Sample queries of Audit Trail.

A new field on the Communication Profile object

A new field named "number" is now available for the Communication Profile object. The number field stores the number of a communication profile, which provides an alternative approach to the communication profile ID when operating this object. The number value must be unique and contain 36 characters at most.

Note that Zuora will assign unique numbers for existing communication profiles and new ones. The number values provided by Zuora are in the format of CP-xxxxxxxx.

Support for enabling or disabling communication profiles during the creation

You can now enable or disable communication profiles during the creation. You can create and enable a communication profile with one of the following approaches based on whether through the Zuora UI or the API:

Previously, newly created communication profiles were disabled by default.

For more information about creating communication profiles through the UI, see Create a communication profile.

here_black.pngDigital Experience (Beta)

Digital Experience is now available for early adopters

Zuora has launched a new feature called Digital Experience in OneID, a cross-tenant management and administration portal that helps admins monitor your organization’s tenants.

Hosted on one.zuora.com, Digital Experience is a single entry point to seamlessly handle metadata, process context for business logic, analyze support trends, view contract consumption, manage intramural user roles across tenants, view contract history metrics, monitor and maintain system health, and more.

This feature is in the Early Adopter phase. To join this early adopter program, submit a request at Zuora Global Support and sign the EA agreement form with the Zuora OneID and Digital Experience option selected to enable the feature.

To use the Digital Experience portal EA, you must be a part of OneID EA.

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REST API

For the detailed API documentation, see API Reference.

For a summary of REST API updates and documentation updates in the Zuora API Reference, see 2023 API Changelog

Quickstart API 

From 2022.09.R1, the Quickstart API is available to you if you have the Orders (or Order Harmonization) and Invoice Settlement features enabled in your tenant. The QuickstartAPI allows new integrators to swiftly integrate with Zuora, and it supports essential business use cases.

For the detailed Quickstart API documentation, see Quickstart API Reference.

For a summary of REST API updates and documentation updates in the Quickstart API Reference, see Quickstart API Changelog

SOAP API

Current WSDL version: 133

For information about how to check your version and download the latest version. see Zuora WSDL.

SOAP API change history

For a summary of updates made to the SOAP API in recent Zuora releases, see Zuora SOAP API Version History.