Insights Product Release Notes

May 27, 2019

If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, you can now access the dashboard via Analytics > Dashboard in your Zuora tenant. Previously, the dashboard was located in the Reporting menu of your Zuora tenant.

April 5, 2019

• If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, users with the Manage Dashboard permission can now choose how the data shown on each card is grouped:

  

  Previously, the data shown on the ARR Changes and MRR Changes cards was grouped by business impact, but users could not customize the grouping. The data shown on other cards was not grouped.

• Zuora has reduced the number of fields that are available when filtering data on the Zuora Dashboard. The set of available fields now represents the reporting dimensions that are of greatest relevance to subscription metrics.

  Zuora has not removed any fields that are currently being used in customers' filters.

March 7, 2019

• If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, users with the Manage Dashboard permission can now choose the aggregation period of each card:

  

  After choosing the aggregation period, users can specify how many periods' worth of data to show on the card. For example, the card could be configured to show quarterly data for the past 8 quarters. The dashboard supports up to 60 periods per card.

February 5, 2019

If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, users can now export data from any card.

December 21, 2018

If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, users with the Manage Dashboard permission can now:

• Add a card.
• Clone a card.
• Delete a card.

December 11, 2018

The following enhancements have been implemented in the Zuora Dashboard feature:

• Users with the Manage Dashboard permission can configure which subscription metric is shown on each card.

• The following additional metrics are available:

  • Net ARR

  • ARR Changes

  • Average ARR Per Subscriber

• The calculations of Active Subscribers and Subscriber Churn Rate have changed. From this release, an account is considered active if it has at least one effective rate plan charge. Previously, an account was considered active if it had positive MRR.

Note: The data export functionality has been removed from the dashboard in this release. We are working to improve the performance of data exports.

November 19, 2018

If your organization uses the Zuora Dashboard feature, users with the Manage Dashboard permission can now:

• Rearrange and resize cards on the dashboard.
• Change card display options, including the ability to switch between headline numbers and charts.

September 20, 2018

Support for currency conversion in Insights Analysis has been improved:

• You can now associate a currency with each report that is based on the Booking Metrics data source or the Transaction data source. Insights Analysis converts certain field values to the specified currency when you preview the report results, run the report, or export the report results.

  See Insights Analysis for more information, including a list of the fields that support currency conversion.

• More than 180 currencies are supported.

• You can now use currency conversion with multi-entity reporting. Insights Analysis aggregates data across multiple entities and currencies to display values in the currency associated with the report.

Previously, currency conversion in Insights Analysis was based on the home currency configured in your Zuora tenant, and was not available with multi-entity reporting. Home currency conversion is separate from the currency conversion improvements described above.

September 11, 2018

• The following configurable cards are now available to all Insights customers who have the Zuora Dashboard feature enabled:

  • Active Subscribers
  • Average MRR Per Subscriber
  • Monthly Subscriber Churn Rate

  Additionally:

  • The data loading performance of the Net MRR card has been improved.
  • You can now export data from each card on the dashboard.

August 16, 2018

• The dashboard that displays key subscription metrics is now available via Reporting > Dashboard in your Zuora tenant. Previously, the dashboard was available via Overview in Insights.

  Two versions of the dashboard continue to be available to Insights customers:

  • A dashboard where each card is configurable, with data provided by order metrics. See Dashboard for more information. This version of the dashboard was previously called the Configurable Dashboard feature.
  • A dashboard where each card is not configurable, with data provided by Insights Analysis reports. This version of the dashboard displays a different set of subscription metrics. See Static Dashboard for more information.

May 29, 2018

• A new feature—the Configurable Dashboard feature—is now available. We are actively soliciting feedback from a small set of early adopters of the feature. If you wish to have access to the feature, submit a request at Zuora Global Support. To be eligible to have access to the feature, Order Metrics must be enabled in your Zuora tenant.

  The Configurable Dashboard feature includes the following enhancements:

  • A new card called Net MRR is available on the Overview dashboard. The Net MRR card shows the MRR across all accounts, net of subscription and charge level discounts. The Current CMRR card has been replaced by the Net MRR card. See Calculations of Key Subscription Metrics for more information.

  • The calculation of the MRR Changes card on the Overview dashboard now includes discounts. See Calculations of Key Subscription Metrics for more information.

  • You can drill down to view account level information about the Net MRR card and the MRR Changes card:

    

  • You can change the title, description, and displayed data for the Net MRR card and the MRR Changes card. A new filter builder enables you to configure the data on each of these cards:

    

• The MRR Changes card on the Overview dashboard is now broken down by business impact, instead of by type of subscription change.

  

  See Calculations of Key Subscription Metrics for more information.

• The behavior of the Next Renewal Date account attribute has been improved. Previously, for accounts with multi-year subscriptions, the value of Next Renewal Date for an account could have been earlier than the account's actual next renewal date. This was because the calculation of Next Renewal Date included anniversaries of all subscription end dates and rate plan charge end dates.

  The calculation of Next Renewal Date now does not include anniversaries. This means that if you have created a segment to track accounts that are coming up for renewal, the segment will no longer prematurely match accounts that have multi-year subscriptions.

  The previous behavior of Next Renewal Date is available via the new "Next Renewal Date (with Implied Anniversary Dates)" account attribute. See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

January 11, 2018

• If your organization uses Zuora Multi-entity, you can now include custom fields when using Insights Analysis to report across more than one entity. Previously, Insights Analysis only supported custom fields if a single entity was selected.

  You should take care when reporting on custom fields across multiple entities. See Insights Analysis for more information.

November 9, 2017

• If your organization uses Zuora Multi-entity, you can now report across multiple entities in Insights Analysis. A new entity selector enables you to specify which entities to report on, and the Entity object enables you to include entity information in reports. See Insights Analysis for more information.

• If your organization uses the Advanced AR Settlement feature, you can now report on Advanced AR Settlement transactions in Insights Analysis. See Transaction for more information.

• The Product Rate Plan Charge Tier data source is now available in Insights Analysis.

November 2, 2017

• New standard account attributes and metrics have been added to Insights:

  • Auto-Pay    
  • Additional Email Addresses
  • Last Invoice Amount
  • Average Invoice Amount - Last 3 Months
  • Average Invoice Amount - Last 6 Months
  • Average Invoice Amount - Last 12 Months

  See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

• Fixed an issue where the Contracted MRR (CMRR) of evergreen subscriptions with quarterly or semi-annual terms was calculated as today's MRR. This issue affected the displayed CMRR for accounts with such subscriptions.

September 30, 2017

• When you create a new Segment or save changes to an existing Segment, Insights now calculates the full history of every Segment metric. This enables you to view complete trend charts for each Segment, no matter when the Segment was created or last modified. Previously, trend charts began from the date the Segment was last modified.

  To generate complete trend charts for your Segments, edit then save each Segment.

August 25, 2017

• On Account identity pages, headline charts and sparkline charts now display the percentage change from the previous value when you hover over the chart:

  

  For daily metrics, Insights displays the day-on-day change. For monthly metrics, Insights displays the month-on-month change. For yearly metrics, Insights displays the year-on-year change.

• Insights now remembers the sort order of tables, based on user preferences. The new features include:

  • When viewing the Accounts or Users in a segment, the default sort order of the table matches the sort order that was specified when the segment was created.

  • When viewing all Accounts or Users, Insights remembers any changes you make to the sort order of the table.

  • When viewing the Events summary, Insights remembers any changes you make to the sort order of the table.

July 31, 2017

• A new dashboard provides an at-a-glance view of the health of your subscription business. You can use the dashboard to explore trends in key subscription metrics related to monthly recurring revenue (MRR), customer numbers, subscription changes, billing, and revenue collection:

  

  To use the new dashboard, navigate to Overview in Insights.

• A new reporting solution called Insights Analysis is now available. You can use Insights Analysis to dig deeper into the metrics that are displayed on the Overview dashboard and build your own reports that reveal trends in key subscription metrics.

  To use Insights Analysis, navigate to Insights > Analysis in your Zuora tenant. See Insights Analysis for more information.

July 19, 2017

• You can now set segment permissions when creating a new segment.

• You can now show only selected fields in the list column chooser. This makes it easier and faster for you to customize your view of Accounts, Users, and Events.

June 29, 2017

• A new standard field called Customer Lifetime Value has been added to Insights. The new field estimates the total revenue that each account will bring to your subscription business during its lifetime as an active subscriber. You can use this field to perform future relative revenue comparisons between accounts. See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

• Insights now saves custom column arrangements in account lists by segment. When you view the accounts in a segment, you can customize the column arrangement by hiding, showing, and moving columns. Insights saves your customizations automatically by selected segment in the segment dropdown. Your customizations do not affect other segments or other Insights users.

• Fixed an issue where some fields counted draft or canceled actions in the calculation.

June 9, 2017

• You can now view the segment criteria of segments that you do not have permission to modify. To view the segment criteria, select Options > View Segment Criteria on the profile page of the segment:

  

  After viewing the segment criteria, you can modify and save a copy of the segment.

• In the segment query builder, you can now specify "contains", "does not contain", and "starts with" conditions in segment criteria for picklist attributes:

  

• Documentation enhancements. The new article Dates in Insights is now available.

May 11, 2017

• You can now set the permissions for segments in Insights. By default, segments can be modified by every Insights user in your organization. To control whether other Insights users can modify a segment that you created, select Options > Edit Segment Permissions on the profile page of the segment:

  

  If you prevent other Insights users from modifying a segment that you created, other Insights users will not be able to edit the segment name, view or edit the segment criteria, or delete the segment.

April 20, 2017

• A new standard financial field called Net Payments (Lifetime-to-Date) has been added to Insights. The new field describes the sum of all processed payments, net of payment refunds, for the entire history of each account. See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

April 8, 2017

• The Event List Grid is now exportable. To bulk export lists of Events loaded into Insights, navigate to Events, select List, and then click the Export button.

  

  See Exports From the Insights User Interface for more information about exporting data from Insights.

• New standard Zuora account attributes have been added to Insights that describe your accounts based on parent-child hierarchy relationship. These fields will become available in your Insights Stream on 4/11/2017.

  • Zuora Parent

  • Zuora Parent Account Number

  • Zuora Child

  • Zuora Child Account Names

  • Zuora Child Account Numbers

  See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

March 7, 2017

• Insights administrators can now make multiple account profile layouts available to all Insights users. This feature enables each of your organization's teams to quickly and easily view the account information that they find most useful.

  When multiple account profile layouts are available, each Insights user can choose their preferred layout when viewing an account dashboard.

  

  If you previously had any unapplied account profile layouts, the layouts still exist, but the layouts have not automatically been made available to Insights users.

  See Customize Account Profile Pages for more information.

• If you have enabled email notifications for a segment, Insights will now send at most one email per day for the segment. Each day the segment changes, Insights will send you a summary of the day's changes.

  Previously, you could choose whether to receive hourly or daily notifications. The switch to daily notifications ensures that each notification is consistent with the data you send to Insights that day.

  See for Enable Email Notifications for a Segment more information.

• Documentation enhancements. The new article Guidance for Insights Administrators is now available.

February 3, 2017

• You can now export trend data from the Insights user interface. The data now available for export includes:
  • Attribute and metric values for accounts and users
  • Event counts for events, accounts, and users
  • Session counts for accounts and users

  See Exports From the Insights User Interface for more information.

• If you use Marketo in addition to Insights, you can now use Zuora Connect to send data from Insights to your Marketo instance. Contact your Zuora representative for information about connecting Insights to your Marketo instance.
• Documentation enhancements. The new article Global Support Scope for Insights is now available.

January 18, 2017

If you manage access to Insights through your Zuora tenant, new users are now assigned the role Zuora Insights No Access. Users with this role cannot use Insights. Zuora platform administrators can grant users access to Insights through the settings of your Zuora tenant.

Additionally, the names of the Insights standard and administrator user roles in your Zuora tenant have changed to "Zuora Insights Standard User" and "Zuora Insights Administrator."

See Insights Roles for more information.

January 6, 2017

• Insights Export API. You can use this new API to export account and user fields programmatically from Insights. You can also use the Export API to list segments for accounts and users. See Insights Export API for more information.
• Several new account attributes are ready for phased customer rollout:
  • Account Billing Batch
  • Billing Contact ID
  • Billing Contact First Name
  • Billing Contact Last Name
  • Billing Contact Full Name
  • Billing Contact Email
  • Subscriber Status (replaces the Subscription Status account attribute that was available previously)
  • Zuora Parent Account ID
  • Zuora Parent Account Name

  See Insights Standard Fields for more information.

  The new account attributes will not be immediately available in customer tenants. They will be enabled in a phased rollout, and will become available in all customer tenants by January 20, 2017.

• Fixed a minor issue where popup descriptions would stay visible during scrolling, obscuring the user interface.

• Documentation enhancements. The following new articles are now available:
  • Customize Account Names and Avatars
  • Customize User Names and Avatars

December 8, 2016

• Minor fixes:
  • In Settings, the "Manage Account Attributes & Metrics" and "Manage User Attributes & Metrics" tables have been enhanced. The column headers now stay visible while scrolling.
  • On Account, User, and Event list views, the Account, User, or Event column now stays visible at all times to help identify the records being viewed.
  • Resizing of list view columns has been improved.

November 30, 2016

• Time-series trend charts are now available for numeric attributes. To view the trend chart for a numeric attribute, click Attributes & Metrics on the Trends tab of an account or user dashboard, then choose the attribute.

  

  See Using Account Dashboards and Using User Dashboards for more information about trend charts.

  Trend charts for numeric attributes are also now available in account profile headlines.

  Historical numeric attribute data in trend charts will not be available in some customer tenants, but will automatically start trending for all customers tenants from December 1, 2016 forward.

• Time-series comparison charts are now available for daily events. To compare event counts for multiple events, navigate to Events, select Chart, then select the Compare Events tab.

  

  See Compare Event History Across Events for more information.

• Two new columns are available on the Events page. For each event:

  • The value in the Active Account % column is the percentage of active accounts that performed the event in the selected time frame
  • The value in the Active User % column is the percentage of active users that performed the event in the selected time frame

  The existing Account % and User % columns contain the corresponding percentages for all accounts and users.

  

  Insights considers a user or account to be active if Insights has ever received an event for the user or account.

• Metric headlines on account dashboards now display the date when you hover over the chart.

  

  See Using Account Dashboards for more information about metric headlines.

• Insights administrators can now clear the descriptions of attributes and metrics.

  If an attribute or metric has a description, Insights displays  after the attribute or metric label on the Account Attributes & Metrics page or the User Attributes & Metrics page.

  See Manage Account Attributes and Metrics and Manage User Attributes and Metrics for information about editing attributes and metrics.

• Minor fixes:

  • "Actions" has been relabeled to "Events" in the segment query builder.
  • The settings menu includes an updated support link and adds a link to the Knowledge Center.
  • Fixed an issue in account profile layout headlines where long names would break the display.
  • Fixed an issue where an error would occur if all columns were removed from a grid component.
  • Fixed formatting issues with currency and % metrics in area and bar chart headlines.

• Documentation enhancements. The following new articles are now available:

  • User Segments in Insights
  • Exports From the Insights User Interface
  • Embed Account Profiles in Your Application

  The following articles have been enhanced with more detail:

  • Set the Layout of Account Profile Pages
  • Insights File Format Guidelines
  • Insights Streaming API

October 27, 2016

• Insights Add-On Application Is Now Generally Available.  All Zuora customers are now eligible to purchase the Insights Add-On. With Insights you can:
  • Understand subscriber behaviors as part of a holistic view that encompasses financial, demographic, and lifecycle data
  • Explore how your subscribers’ behavioral patterns map to renewal and growth outcomes
  • Leverage timely insights to take action using your existing systems
  • Learn more about Insights.
• New Insights Navigation Design. Insights introduces updated structure and functionality for navigating the application. Notable changes:
  • Insights now has the same navigation design as the rest of Zuora’s products. Learn more.
  • The terms “Actions” and “Moments” are relabeled “Events”, for consistency.
  • The “Setup” menu area is relabeled “Settings”, and the organization of that page is improved.
  • The “Feed” section is no longer part of the Insights navigation menu.  If you used Feed, you can still access the same data and more using the “List” view in “Events”.
  • “Exports” is now available on the primary navigation menu.  (Previously, “Exports” was located in the profile drop-down menu and labeled “My Exports”.)

• Centralized Zuora User Management and Login.  Insights Team Members and logins can now be managed from within Zuora tenants.  Previously, all Insights Team Members (both Standard Users and Admins) were always created within Insights and logged in to the Insights login page. Now, Insights customers have the option to create and manage their Insights Standard Users and Insights Admins from within their Zuora tenant, and to access Insights via the Zuora Login page. This is a new tenant-level setting and it is not enabled by default.  If you are interested in learning more or enabling this feature, please open an Insights support ticket.

September 12, 2016

• Type-ahead field search added to list view column selector component:

• Easier field sorting in panels in the Account Profile Layout Editor. Click and drag to reorder, or send straight to top or bottom of the panel:

• Include all or just selected fields in list data exports:

August 19, 2016

• Descriptions can now be added to fields and displayed on Account and User Profiles, the List View Column Selector, and the Segment Query Builder:

• Start of Insights Product Release Notes. Release notes will now be published for Insights for all notable new features, enhancements, and resolved issues.