Copying Reseller Subscriptions in Distributor BSS

Owned by Apostolos Karakaxas
Last updated: Jul 16, 2020 by Panagiotis Papanastasiou
4 min read

When a paid subscription is created in reseller's BSS and it's for a service the is offered by the distributor, it is copied automatically to distributor BSS. if this is the first paid subscription for reseller's end customer, we first copy the customer in distributor BSS before proceeding with subscription creation.

Creation of Reseller Subscription in Distributor BSS

There will always be an one-to-one relation between the subscriptions in distributor and reseller BSSs. The subscription we create in distributor BSS will have the following values:

  • Name: The Name of the subscription will be "End Customer Name - Product Name"
  • Customer (): The end customer 
  • Billing To (): The tenant reseller
  • Activation date and Start date (). They are copied from reseller's BSS
  • Status. If the start date is in the future, subscription's status will be inactive, otherwise it will be active.
  • Product, Billing Cycle, Quantity and Subscription characteristics, Renew Automatically option (): They are copied from reseller's BSS
  • Provisioning sync status (): It will be updated from reseller's BSS and the "retry" action is not available
  • Responsible User and Sharing rule. We set the options that have been defined for the account entity in "Use of API Options" section in setup area.
  • Subscription billing options: The subscription is billed using reseller's default pricelist or product's unit price if no pricelist found. No billing info is copied from reseller's BSS.
  • Related Add-ons. When an add-on is added in a subscription, this add-on must be added and in distributor’s BSS. Analogous with the subscription, this add-on will get it's price from reseller’s price list, the distributor will not be able to change quantity or cancel it. He will be able only to edit and change billing options except of course the unit (billing cycle).

For the distributor to easily understand that a subscription has been copied in his BSS from reseller's BSS, we display a ribbon with the note: “This subscription is managed by <RESELLER NAME> Tenant Reseller”


Subscription Update

When a subscription is updated in reseller’s BSS, the following actions will be applied in distributor's BSS. These changes happen simultaneously in both BSSs.

  • The subscription is cancelled / deleted / suspended. 
  • The subscription's Renew Automatically option is changed. 
  • The Subscriptions characteristics change. 
  • The quantity of the subscription changes. We'll update the quantity of the subscription in distributor's BSS with the same effective date.
  • The subscription is upgraded. The upgrade action might create and a second subscription (if we have partial upgrade) or updates the subscription product and create and a renewal entry (when we have total upgrade). All these actions (creation of a new subscription, quantity change) are also applied to distributor's BSS.
  • The subscription is downgraded. The same philosophy as for upgrades
  • The unit of the subscription changes. We update also the subscription in distributor's BSS following the option the reseller defined (e.g whether the change will be applied for the current billing cycle or for the next billing cycle)
  • The subscription is set to inactive. An existing subscription can be set inactive if it hasn't been setup to be renewed automatically.  In this case, the subscription in reseller's BSS will be set to inactive once the Billing Service runs the day that its billing cycle has ended. This day might be different for the tenant reseller and the distributor since the synced subscriptions do not necessarily have the same end date (because of potential differences between the billing day of the end customer in reseller's BSS and the reseller in distributor's BSS).
  • The subscription is re-activated.

For each of these actions, a history record will be added in subscription details page in distributor's BSS.


What Actions are not Allowed to Distributor

Below is a list of actions that the distributor is not allowed to execute:

  • Delete Subscription
  • Activate / Cancel / Suspend / Renew subscription
  • Add add-on or change subscription quantity.
  • Upgrade / Downgrade the subscription
  • Generate Invoices
  • Relate activities and emails

What Actions are Allowed to Distributor

Below is a list of action that the distributor is allowed to execute:

  • Edit Subscription. The distributor can edit the copied subscription but he cannot change any locked field. What he can do is to set values for any extra custom fields he may have setup for the account entity, change the responsible user etc, the "Bill to Contact" and the type of the subscription.
  • Edit Pricing Info. The distributor can execute this action and he can change everything apart the unit that is locked and is updated from reseller's BSS.





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