Future Requests Merge Fields for Reports & Notifications
BSS users and operation teams can benefit from creating reports and custom notifications in order to better monitor the subscription history in terms of their future requests. On this page, you will find the guides for creating both via the use of the respective (future request) merge fields.
Analysis of the Future Request Merge Fields
The merge fields that are utilized for reporting the history of Future Requests of subscriptions (wherever applicable) are the following ten:
Created: Τhe date the future request was created.
Creator: Τhe first name and last name of the user who created the request.
Type: Τhe type of future request action to be performed (change in quantity, billing plan, or billing term).
Item: The subscription product name or the add-on product name.
RequestID: A unique identifier used by the system to recognize and track the specific request, including all changes requested.
CurrentValue: The original value of the property before the request is made. For example, if the request involves changing the quantity, the CurrentValue represents the existing number of licenses prior to the update.
RenewalValue: The updated (new) value of the property being requested. For example, if the request involves changing the quantity, the RenewalValue represents the new number of licenses desired after the update.
Last Update: The date the future request was last updated.
Last Update by: The first name and last name of the user who updated the request for the last time.
Revoked on: The date the request was revoked.
Revoked by: The first name and last name of the user who requested the revocation.
Submitted via Storefront: The value Yes if the request was submitted from the Storefront and No if the request was not submitted from the Storefront.
Status: The status of the external pricing (Canceled, Pending, Completed):
Canceled(status): This status means that the future request for the subscription is currently canceled, and therefore, no execution for that request will occur.
Pending (status): This status means that the future request for the subscription is currently pending execution.
Completed (status): This status means that the future request for the subscription is completed.
No Historic Levels are Kept for Merge Fields
The values of these fields contain only the current state of actions of future requests on subscriptions and not the changes or transitions of statuses. This means that, for example, if a user has created a future request in June, for a subscription quantity increase in order to be executed in August, but the user then decided to cancel it in July, the values of the merge fields will depict only the latest/current state of the future request and not the whole transition due to the cancelation action.
Creating Reports for Subscriptions with Future Requests
In order to create a report for subscriptions with a future request, you must choose at the 1st step of the report’s creation the Subscriptions data type, along with the checkbox Future Requests.
Then, at the 2nd step of the report’s creation, you can choose any of the ten column fields.
All ten fields are located under the Future Requests General Columns.
At the 3rd step of the report’s creation, you can specify the expected status for the field Status as illustrated below by setting the Operator as “is equal to“ and the value as “Pending“.
Creating Custom Notifications for Subscriptions with a Future Request
The above-mentioned fields are also available as merge fields when you wish to create a custom notification for subscriptions having a future request.
Therefore, in order to notify and inform a specific BSS user from your operations team of such data, please navigate to BSS Setup >Administration > Notifications > Customer Notification Details > Subscriptions, then click on the "New Notification" button, and apply the condition as indicated in the following example.
Highlighted in green color is the condition you can utilize for this custom notification:
Entry = "Future Requests", Field = "Status", Operator = "is equal to", Value = "Pending".
The main body of the notification email should contain inside the generic text all ten merge fields for a complete representation.
Merge fields related to Future Requests can be used for filtering, sorting, and can be included as informational content within a notification body. However, they do not independently trigger the sending of a notification.