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Zuora Quotes Q2 2015 Release Notes

Zuora

Zuora Quotes Q2 2015 Release Notes

This release notes provides a summary of new features, enhancements, and resolved issues in the Zuora Quotes Release 6.50 (Q2 2015) and its maintenance and patch releases. 

To use the 6.50 release of Zuora Quotes, you must upgrade your package as described in Upgrade Zuora Quotes to Q2 2015.

Zuora Quotes Highlights

Some of the highlights in the Q2 2105 release of Zuora Quotes are:

  • Charge level metrics: Charge level metrics are now retrieved directly from Zuora's Rating and Billing engine and are available in Quote Preview for New Subscription Quotes.
  • Permission sets: End-user permission set is available to make the Zuora Quotes package easier to deploy in your Salesforce organization.
  • Ability to apply a credit balance from Quotes: While creating Quotes, users can now apply a credit balance on the customer account to invoices.
  • Quote object model refactoring: Some of the Quote objects and fields were restructured to streamline and simplify future Quote development.
    WarnNavy2.png Carefully assess your customizations in relation to this release prior to upgrading as there have been significant data model changes made.

Maintenance Release 6.50

Apply a Credit Balance to Quotes

Now you can indicate in quotes to have any credit balance on a customer account automatically applied to invoices. By default, this flag is set to not apply credit balance to invoices. You can set the setting at the global level in Zuora Config, and you can override the global setting at the quote level on the Quote Detail page.

See Quote Configuration Settings for specifying this setting at the global level in Zuora Config.

Charge Level Metrics Available

Previously the charge level metrics, MRR and TCV, were calculated internally in Zuora Quotes, occasionally resulting in mismatching metric values between the quote header level and charge level.

Now Zuora Quotes uses the new API Preview options, delivered in the June Zuora Release, to get the charge level metrics for New Subscription quotes.  Charge level metrics for Amendment and Renewal quotes will be available in a future release.

The charge level metrics from Zuora are stored in the following fields:

  • zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c.zqu__PreviewedMRR__c
  • zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c.zqu__PreviewedTCV__c

To display the charge level metrics on the Quote Detail page, add the above fields to the Display Charge Fields (zqu__DisplayChargeFields) field set on the Quote Rate Plan Charge (zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c) object.

In order to use the new charge level metrics, your Zuora Connection Setting must be set to Zuora WSDL, version 68 or higher.

Salesforce Permission Set for Zuora Quotes

A permission set is a collection of settings and permissions that give users access to objects and functions in Salesforce. A permission set, Zuora Quotes End User (zqu__User_Profile), is now available with the Zuora Quotes package. This permission set grants the minimum level of permissions to create, manage, and send Quotes to Z-Billing. 

The permission set does not grant access to manage settings or objects, including Zuora Config.

See Set Permissions for Zuora Quotes Custom Objects for more information.

Ability to Override a Charge Level Field, Bill Cycle Type, in Subscription

A new field, Bill Cycle Type (zqu__BillCycleType__c), was added to the Quote Rate Plan Charge (zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c) object. The field specifies how to determine the billing day for the charge. If you want to use the BillCycleDay field, set this field value to SpecificDayofMonth.

When you add this new field to the Display Charge Fields (zqu__DisplayChargeFields) field set, the field appears in the Product Selector, and your users can set the value to override the value in Subscription Rate Plan Charge in Zuora.

Quote Object Model Refactored

To streamline and simplify future Quote development, some of the Quote objects and fields were restructured. Starting in this release, the Quote Charge object is no longer used to represent New Subscription Quotes. The Quote Rate Plan Charge object is used for New Subscription as well as Amendments, Renewals, and Cancellations.

As part of the upgrade process, you need to:

  • Review any customization you have made on the Quote Charge object, e.g. custom fields.
  • Review your current Quote Template and update the merge fields linked to the Quote Charge object. 
  • Recreate any in-flight New Subscription quotes.

The New Subscription quotes that were saved in previous versions of Zuora Quotes must be upgraded using the migration script provided in the 6.52 release. Amendment/Renewal quotes are not affected.

A New Custom Setting for Maximum Number of Rate Plans in a Quote

Previously, the maximum number of Rate Plans that you could add to a Quote was 30. We made the limit configurable. Now in Zuora Config, you can set the maximum number of Rate Plans that your users can add to a Quote.

Depending on complexity of Rate Plans and Charges in your Product Catalog, you may hit the Salesforce governor limits if you specify a high value for this setting.

See Advanced Quoting Configuration Settings for more information about the new setting.

Invoice Target Date Now Used in Quote Metrics Calculation

In Quote Metrics Preview on the Quote Detail page, Invoice Target Date is used to calculate Quote Metrics if Invoice Target Date is available. If Invoice Target Date is not available, the Calculate Quote Metrics Through, Start Date and Term Start Date fields are used to calculate quote metrics.

The originalChargeGroup Method Exposed as Global in ZChargeGroup Class

The originalChargeGroup method on the ZChargeGroup class is now globally exposed. You can call the originalChargeGroup method to detect changes between the original version of the subscription and updates made on an amendment.

See zChargeGroup Class for detail information about the zChargeGroup class and its global methods.

Time Zone Support in Zuora Application

Starting in the July 2015 release, Zuora application fully supports time zones. Improvements were made in handling of date time and time zone data as well as local time zone support. See July 2015 What's New to learn more about the enhancements. 

Local time zone support in Zuora is in Limited Availability. We are currently not accepting early access to this feature. 

To take advantage of these enhancements, you need to:

The following table summarizes the compatibility among releases of Zuora Quotes and the Zuora tenant time zone setting. It specifies the supported versions of Zuora WSDL that you can use in the Zuora Connection Setting for each given Zuora and Zuora Quotes combination. Review it carefully before you proceed with upgrade.

Zuora Quotes Release Tenant Time Zone Setting OFF
or
Time Zone Set to PST
Tenant Time Zone Setting ON
and
Time Zone Set to non-PST
Version 6.40
(Q1 2015)
or earlier

Connection URL: Use WSDL 68 or earlier

Not supported;

Must upgrade Zuora Quotes to Version 6.50.

Version 6.50
(Q2 2015)

Connection URL: Use WSDL 69

Connection URL: Use WSDL 69

Resolved Issues

The Update Zuora Account Details Page Does Not Display the Differences in Contact Information

In some Salesforce page configuration, a JQuery conflict caused the following issues on the Update Zuora Account Details page:

  • Differences in Contact information between Salesforce and Zuora were not displayed.
  • When you clicked Update Zuora Data, the contact information in Zuora was not updated.

The Valid Until Field of Quote Is Now Editable on the Quote Detail Page

To allow users to update the Valid Until date of Quotes, the Valid Until (zqu__ValidUntl__c) field was added to the Quote Information (zqu__Detail_Quote_Information) field set on the Quote object.

You can edit the Quote Information field set to display the Valid Until date on the Quote Detail page and make the field editable by users.

The Enable Amendment Functionality Setting Is Deprecated

The Enable Amendment Functionality Zuora Config setting was deprecated. Now you add or remove supported quote subscription types in the Setup menu on the Quote Wizard Step custom object.

See Zuora Quotes Q2 2015 Upgrade Guide for information to enable or disable Amendments in Zuora Quotes.

The New Payment Method Button Supports Payment Pages 2.0

The New Payment Method button on the Quote Detail page was updated to use the latest Payment Pages 2.0 component if the page being requested is a Payment Page. 

The New Payment Method button uses Payment Pages 2.0 if:

  • Payment Pages 2.0 permission is turned on in your Zuora tenant.
  • The default Payment Page was assigned in Payment Pages Settings. The New Payment Method button renders this default Payment Page.

If the above two conditions are not met, the New Payment Method button will use the HostedPage component as in previous versions.

Patch Release 6.50.1

The 6.50.1 release includes the following resolved issue.

The updateChargeGroups global method throws an error, "Too Many SOQL queries."

When executing the updateChargeGroups global method with a Quote Rate Plan Charge that contains more than 100 quote charge tiers, an error returned that there were too many SOQL queries.

Maintenance Release 6.51

The 6.51 release includes the following new features, resolved issues, and other internal operational fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Charge Metrics Available for All Quote Types

Charge level metrics, namely, TCV, Delta TCV, MRR, and Delta MRR, are now retrieved directly from Zuora's Rating and Billing engine and are available in Quote Preview for Amendment, Renewal, Cancellation quotes as well as New Subscription quotes.  A new object called Quote Charge Details has been created to store these metrics.

See Display Charge Level Metrics for configuring Zuora Quotes to display charge level metrics on the Quote Detail page.

Override the Price Change Option When Sending Quotes to Zuora

Z-Billing provides the ability to automatically change subscriber pricing when termed subscriptions renew. Starting in this release, you can set an uplift option in Zuora Quotes when creating a Renewal quote. When you send the Renewal quote to Z-Billing, the uplift option you select in Zuora Quotes overrides the value at the Subscription Rate Plan level.

The following fields were added to the Quote Rate Plan Charge (zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c) object:

  • Price Change Option (zqu__PriceChangeOption__c)

A picklist field with the options: NoChange , SpecificPercentageValue , UseLatestProductCatalogPricing

  • Price Increase Percentage (zqu__PriceIncreasePercentage__c)

The feature is available when adding new products to New Subscription, Amendment, and Renewal quotes to override these fields in newly added products.

To display and allow your users to enter an price change option, add the above new fields to the Display Charge Fields field set on the Quote Rate Plan Charge object.

See Automated Price Change (Uplift) for Renewed Subscriptions for detail information about enabling automatic price change and for the descriptions of price change options supported.

Updated Quote PDF Generation Process Based on the New Quotes Data Model

The process to generate Quote PDF documents were updated to support the new quotes data model introduced in the Q2 2015 (v. 6.50) release. The updated process is compatible with old versions of quote PDF templates as well as the new templates.

The QuoteRatePlanCharge replaced the Charge merge object for the New Subscription quotes. The latest sample quote template for New Subscription quotes uses QuoteRatePlanCharge merge object. 

The following scenarios are supported: 

  • The 6.50 or later version of Zuora Quotes with the new quote template downloaded from Zuora on August 20, 2015 or later
  • The 6.50 or later version of Zuora Quotes with the old quote template downloaded from the July 2015 (version 190) or earlier release of Zuora

Some of the Charge merge fields will not have the corresponding fields in the QuoteRatePlanCharge object, and those unmapped fields will show without a value and in field code, e.g., <<Charge.FirstPeriodCharge>>.

  • Charge.FirstPeriodCharge
  • Charge.ListPriceDisplay
  • Charge.MRRForRollup
  • Charge.PeriodNumeric
  • Charge.Prepay
  • Charge.PrepaymentPeriods
  • Charge.TCVForRollup
  • Charge.TimeProductAdded
  • Charge.Total_Discount_Amount
  • Charge.Type
  • The 6.4x or earlier version of Zuora Quotes with the quote template downloaded from Zuora in the July 2015 release or earlier

The quote templates downloaded from Zuora on August 20, 2015 or later will not work with the 6.4x or earlier version of Zuora Quotes.

If you must use a new template with an 6.4x or earlier version of Zuora Quotes, edit the New Subscription template and replace the QuoteChargePlanCharge merge object with the Charge merge object.

The quote template downloaded in the period from Zuora between July 22, 2015 and August 20, 2015 uses the ChargeSummary merge object for New Subscription quotes. We recommend you upgrade this version of the template to the latest quote template that uses the QuoteRatePlanCharge merge object.

See Customize Quote Templates for customizing and integrating quote templates to generate quote PDF documents in Zuora Quotes.

Resolved Issues

ZQuoteUtil Global Methods Removes Product Features After Updating Quote Charges

When you updated a quote charge using the ZQuoteUtil global methods, the features included in the quote were removed after the update. The features remained correctly in the quote if a charge was updated in the Product Selector. 

Maintenance Release 6.52

The 6.52 release includes the following feature and other internal fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Migration Script for New Subscription Quotes Created Prior to the 6.50 Version

We provided a script to upgrade previously saved New Subscription quotes data to the new quote object model. The script migrates previously created New Subscription quotes, both in-flight and sent to Z-Billing, from the Quote Charge object to the Quote Rate Plan Charge object.
After running this script, you will be able to view and edit New Subscription quotes that you created in prior to the version 6.50.
The migration script, ZuoraQuotesUpgradeConversion6_51.cls, is a batch job that you can execute in the Apex Developer Console. 

We recommend that you first test out this migration script in your sandbox environment before running the script in your production environment to ensure that it meets your requirements.

See the upgrade article for the steps to run the script.

Maintenance Release 6.53

The 6.53 release includes the following features, enhancements, resolved issues, and other internal fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Tax Exempt Status Fields Supported for New Subscription Quotes

Now you can send the tax exempt certificate information stored in Salesforce to Z-Billing and use the information to create a new billing account in Zuora.

The following fields are available for users to set when creating New Subscription quotes on a new billing account:

  • Tax Exempt: Tax exempt status
  • Certificate ID
  • Certificate Type
  • Issuing Jurisdiction
  • Company Code
  • Description
  • VAT ID

These fields are not displayed in the default quoting flow. See Display Tax Exempt Status Fields about displaying the tax exempt status fields in the quoting flow.

This feature is not supported for the Amendment or Renewal type quotes.

Support List Price of Recurring Charge on Its Own Price Base

Starting in this release, you have an option to define the list price of a recurring charges based on a month or on a billing period, no longer having to tie the charge price to the billing period. Overall charge amount is automatically computed based on the billing period month.

The field accepts two values 'Per Month' and 'Per Billing Period', and like in Zuora, the field is only editable on New Subscription quotes and Add Product Amendment quotes. 

To display the List Price Base field and allow users to edit the value in the Product Selector, add the new List Price Base field (zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c.zqu__ListPriceBase__c) to the Display Charge Fields field set (zqu__DisplayChargeFields) on the Quote Rate Plan Charge object. Ensure the field-level permissions are set for the user profiles.

This field was also added to the zCharge global class as a string type variable, LIST_PRICE_BASE, along with the corresponding boolean variable isListPriceBaseEditable.

See Send a Quote to Z-Billing and Sync Field Reference for mapping of this field between Zuora Quotes and Zuora.

Subscription Term as a New Option for the Billing Period

The Billing Period of a Rate Plan Charge can be set to Subscription Term in the Product Selector. With the Subscription Term as the Billing Period, you can automatically bill and collect payments for subscriptions with variable term lengths.

See Create Product Rate Plan Charges for information about this new setting.

Resolved Issues

An Error Returned when Sending Quotes with a Parent Account to Zuora

When you sent a quote to Z-billing, after adding a parent account name in the later step through Edit Quote Details, you received an error from Zuora.

Renewal Setting Value Set by Populate Value Plugin Was Reset After the Quote was Saved

When you use the PopulateDefaultFieldValuePlugin to pre-populated the RenewalTerm to "Renew to Evergreen", the RenewalTerm value was changed to "Renew With Specific Term" after the Quote was saved.

Field Level Security Not Respected for Price Fields in Quote Rate Plan Charge Tier

When you set the read-only access to the price fields for the user profile, the user could still edit the price fields in Quote Rate Plan Charge Tiers on the Product Selector page.

Now Salesforce Field Security will apply to all the fields on the Product Selector, including the tier price fields.

Space Characters in Payment Gateway Names Caused an Error in Payment Pages 2.0

When you implemented a Payment Page in Zuora Quotes, space characters in Payment Gateway names caused an error while loading the Payment Page. 

See PaymentPage Component for implementing a Payment Page using the PaymentPage component.

The Quantity Fields in Rate Plan Charge Tier Did Not Support Comma Separators

Comma separated quantify values were not supported in the To fields for Tiered Charges in the Product Selector. Comma separated input values were reset to the default values.

Amendment Quotes Showed Different TCV/MRR Values Before and After the Quote was Sent to Z-Billing

When the start date of an Amendment quote was after the original subscription term end date, the amendment quote metrics from Zuora were incorrectly calculated. 

Now the subscription term range will be factored in when the Delta TCV and Delta MRR are calculated. For example, if you create a Remove Product Amendment quote whose start date is after the original subscription term end date, the Delta TCV of the amendment will be $0 because the Amendment will not modify the original subscription that ends before this Amendment starts.

Patch Release 6.53.1

The 6.53.1 release includes the following resolved issues.

Auto Suggestion of Rate Plan Names Breaks When a Filter Is Applied

After adding a filter condition to RatePlanList in List Filter Configuration in Zuora Config, the auto suggestion of rate plan names did not work in the Product Selector. 

Quote Wizard Flow Issue with the Cancel Operation

When you selected Cancel on the Quote Details page (Step 2 of Quote Wizard), even after you clicked No in the confirmation dialog, the quote flow returned back to the previous page to Step 1 of the Quote Wizard.

Maintenance Release 6.54

The 6.54 release includes the following features, enhancements, resolved issues, and other internal fixes.

New Features and Enhancements

Override Billing Period on Quote Rate Plan Charges

When you create a new quote and add a charge, you can now override the Billing Period of individual rate plan charges with a different Billing Period. This enhancement affects the New Subscription quotes and the New Product Amendment quotes. The following fields on the Quote Rate Plan Charge object are used to support this enhancement:

  • Period (zqu__Period__c): The Billing Period that your organization uses to charge for service.
  • Specific Billing Period (zqu__SpecificBillingPeriod__c): The number of months in the billing period. This field is required if you set the value of the Period field to Specific Months. If the Period field is set to Specific Months, use this field to specify the number of months.

When the quote is sent to Z-Billing, the values in the Period and Specific Billing Period fields will be used to populate the existing the BillingPeriod and SpecificBillingPeriod fields on the Rate Plan Charge object.

To use this feature:

  1. Edit the zqu__Period__c field on the Quote Rate Plan Charge object to add "Specific Months" as a new Picklist Value.
  2. Add the Specific Billing Period field to the DisplayChargeField Set on the QuoteRatePlanCharge object to have it available for edit in the Product Selector.

Global Populate Value Plugin Available for Cancellation Quote

You can now use the Populate Value Plugin on the Property Component to provide default date values in the Cancel Quote flow. The specific Quote fields that you can pre-populate are:

  • Start Date (zqu__StartDate__c)
  • Cancellation Effective Date (zqu__CancellationEffectiveDate__c)
  • Cancellation Date (zqu__CancellationDate__c)

See Use Case: Populate Default Dates on Cancellation Quote for a sample implementation of the Populate Value Plugin.

Recalculation of Quote Metrics on Invoice Owner Change

When the Invoice Owner of a quote changes, quote metrics are recalculated for the quote.

See Quote Metrics for detail information quote metrics.

Amendment Quotes Custom Fields Supported in Sending to Z-Billing

Now you can send custom fields on quotes of all types, New Subscription, Amendment, and Renewal, to Z-Billing to update the corresponding fields on the subscription.

If you send a null custom field value from Zuora Quotes to Z-Billing, the custom value in Zuora will not be set to a blank value.

See Send Custom Fields to Z-Billing for configuring to send custom fields from Zuora Quotes to Z-Billing.

New Custom Fields Added to Quotes for Reporting Data Sources

To enable Data Sources to report on Subscription metrics, the following new system custom fields were added in Zuora Quotes and in Zuora:

  • Quote Type
  • Quote Business Type: A picklist field of Upsell, Downsell, Renewal, Churn, New.
  • Quote Number
  • Opportunity Close Date
  • Opportunity Name

The fields will be populated out of the box for for New Subscription, and Amendment, and Renewal quotes.

See Upgrade Zuora Quotes to Q2 2015 for the upgrade task related to the above new fields.

See Viewing a Subscription for descriptions of the new fields.

End of Support for Early Versions of Zuora Quotes and Zuora 360

Starting in December 2015, we will no longer support the following versions of Zuora Quotes and Zuora 360:

  • Zuora Quotes v. 5.80.x or earlier
  • Zuora 360 v. 2.4.x or earlier

Refer to Zuora CPQ End of Support Policy for detail.

Resolved Issues

Incorrect Invoice Date on Invoice after Parent Quote is Sent to Z-Billing

When sending a parent quote to Z-Billing, the Invoice Target Date on the parent quote was incorrectly used for the InvoiceDate of the Invoice in Zuora.

Now the Invoice Date of the quote is correctly used to set the InvoiceDate of the Invoice when a parent quote is sent to Z-Billing.

Quote Charge Migration Script Did Not Migrate Quote Charge Summery Records

The Quote Charge migration script introduced in the 6.52 release did not migrate the ChargeType field values to the Quote Charge Summary records.

If you ran the migration script prior to this release, the updated script will not add the Type values to the existing Charge Summary records. Run the following script to update the Type value of each of their Quote Charge Summaries using the ChargeType value on the related Quote Rate Plan Charge:

<zqu__QuoteChargeSummary__c> summariesToUpdate = new List<zqu__QuoteChargeSummary__c>();

for(zqu__QuoteChargeSummary__c qcs :
   [SELECT Id, zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__r.zqu__ChargeType__c
      FROM zqu__QuoteChargeSummary__c
      WHERE zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__c!=null AND zqu__Type__c=null])
{
   summariesToUpdate.add(
   new zqu__QuoteChargeSummary__c(Id=qcs.Id,
      zqu__Type__c = qcs.zqu__QuoteRatePlanCharge__r.zqu__ChargeType__c)
   );
}
if(summariesToUpdate.size() > 0){
   update summariesToUpdate;
}