Setting Up Subscription Metrics

To set up subscription metrics, configure the components described below. For conceptual background, refer to KPI Metrics.

Subscription Metrics

Subscription metrics track changes to recurring or transactional items, like creation, termination, price/quantity modifications, to display the recurring revenue or growth/churn rates for individual subscriptions on a monthly basis, producing MRR values. Subscription metrics are related to the account and the subscription.

The main component is the Subscription Metric object. It holds the following information:

In addition, you can define summary fields on the subscription in order to calculate future MRR values. For details, see Creating Additional Subscription and Item Fields.

Setting up the Subscription Metric object and related functionality involves

• Configuring subscription metric permissions
• Enabling subscription metrics creation
• Creating additional subscription and item fields
• Optionally, enabling subscription metric list display
• Scheduling subscription metric generation
• Optionally, enabling additional subscription metric information for the metric records

Once set up, you can use Business Reports to display the resulting metrics in easy-to-understand formats, including graphs.

Configuring Subscription Metric Permissions

Because of the master-detail relationship with the account, you must manually configure the access to the Subscription Metric object.

1. Create a new permission set.

   For details, see Create Permission Sets in the Salesforce Help.

2. Assign Read, Create and Edit permissions for the Subscription Metric object to the new permission set.

   For details, see Edit Object Permissions in Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Enabling Subscription Metrics Creation

The global settings field Subscription Metrics Scope contains a comma-separated list of strings that controls which metrics data is produced. The possible values include:

If Subscription Metrics Scope is not set, JustOn falls back to Subscription and creates subscription metrics by default.

1. Click to enter Setup, then open Custom Settings.

   In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Custom Code > Custom Settings.

   In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Develop > Custom Settings.

2. Click Manage in the row of Global Settings.

3. Click Edit in the Default row.

4. In the field Subscription Metrics Scope, specify the intended scope.

   The value can be one of Subscription, Account or Subscription, Account.

5. Click Save.

Recreating Subscription Metrics

Some business uses cases require to create new subscription metrics from scratch. To do so, proceed as follows:

1. Delete all existing subscription and account metrics records.

   The individual subscription metric records are accessible via the corresponding related list on the subscription detail page if set up accordingly.

2. Clear the following fields on all items and – when using price tier groups – on all tiers (Price__c):

   • Previous Start Metric
   • Previous End Metric
   • Previous End Date

3. Execute the subscription metric builder job.

   For details, see Scheduling Subscription Metric Generation.

This forces JustOn to create new subscription metrics based on the current subscriptions and items.

Creating Additional Subscription and Item Fields

Subscription

Optionally, you can set up summary fields on the subscription in order to report future MRR values. The summary fields are not shipped with JustOn, but you can easily create them.

The MRR summary fields are refreshed when the MRR job is executed.

The summary fields must be of the data type Currency. The API name must use the pattern MRR_Zm__c or MRR_Zm_f__c, where

• Z is a positive number that represents months, like MRR_0m__c, MRR_12m__c
• f indicates that the field considers future contracted MRRs

The subscription field Last MRR Update holds the date on which the MRR fields were last calculated.

1. Navigate to the fields list of the Subscription object.

2. Create the MRR summary fields as required.

   For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

3. Allow the users who execute the MRR job write access to the MRR summary fields either by adding them to their assigned profiles or permission sets.

   For details, see Set Field Permissions in Permission Sets and Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Item

By default, JustOn aggregates all items of a subscription to one metric chain. In order to separate items based on a criterion (for example, product group), you create an additional criterion field on the item. Depending on your requirements, the field can be a formula or a writable field to be filled on subscription building. The API name of the field must be MRRCriterion__c.

Consider the following use case: You want to separate metrics by the product group as set for the item. To this end, configure the MRR criterion field as a formula and set the following content: ONB2__ProductGroup__c. As a result, each product group has its own metric chain, and the metric field Item Criterion specifies the product group.

1. Navigate to the fields list of the Item object.

2. Create the MRR criterion field as required.

   Label	API Name	Data Type
   MRR Criterion	MRRCriterion__c	Formula (Text) Text

   For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

3. Allow the users who execute the MRR job read access to the Item Criterion field either by adding it to their assigned profiles or permission sets.

   For details, see Set Field Permissions in Permission Sets and Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Enabling Subscription Metric List Display

Optionally, you can enable the display of related subscription metrics on the subscription page using Salesforce's related list functionality (see Work with Related Lists on Records in the Salesforce Help).

1. Navigate to the object management settings of the Subscription object.
2. Click Page Layouts.
3. In the Subscription Layout row, click Edit.
4. Select the Related Lists palette.
5. Drag the Subscription Metrics list to the Related Lists section.
6. Click Save to save the modified page layout.

For help about modifying page layouts, see Managing Pages.

Enabling Subscription Metric Generation

To create or update subscription metric records, you can

• schedule the subscription metric builder job (which is the preferred option),
• create a custom flow, or
• enable the Update Metrics button to allow users to manually start the metrics creation.

Scheduling Subscription Metric Generation

The preferred way to create or update subscription metric records is to schedule the subscription metric builder job.

The subscription metric builder job does not require additional parameters. That is, you can set up the job directly for the corresponding Apex class BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob. For details, see Scheduling Concepts.

To schedule the subscription metric builder job, you can use either JustOn's Scheduled Jobs page or Salesforce's Schedule Apex functionality. For details, see Scheduling a Job.

Via JustOn's Scheduled Jobs page:

1. Open the Scheduled Jobs page.

   Use the following URL https://login.salesforce.com/apex/ONB2__JobsSetup, or, if you are already logged in, append apex/ONB2__JobsSetup to your org's domain name.

   You can access the Scheduled Jobs page via the JustOn configuration app ( > JustOn Configuration > Jobs Setup).

2. From the Apex Job drop-down list, select Subscription Metric Builder Job.

   The Job Name field is automatically set to BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob.

3. From the Start Time drop-down list, select the preferred execution time.

4. Optionally, edit the displayed cron expression to adjust the execution time.

5. Click Schedule.

   This sets up the subscription metric generation to be executed at the specified time.

Via Salesforce's Schedule Apex functionality:

1. Click to enter Setup, then open Apex Classes.

   In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Custom Code > Apex Classes.

   In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Develop > Apex Classes.

2. Click Schedule Apex on top of the list.

3. Specify the details as required.

   • Job Name
   • Apex Class: BatchSubscriptionMetricBuilderJob
   • Frequency: Weekly or Monthly (with an according weekday or day of month setting)
   • Start
   • End
   • Preferred Start Time

4. Click Save.

   This sets up the subscription metric generation to be executed at the specified time.

For more details about job scheduling, see Scheduling a Job in the JustOn documentation and Schedule Apex in the Salesforce Help.

Creating Subscription Metric Generation Flow

It is possible to update or create the subscription metrics for a single subscription using a custom flow, which calls the Apex action BuildSingleMetricInvocable to trigger the metric generation. The Action requires the subscription ID as input parameter.

1. Click to enter Setup, then navigate to Process Automation > Flows.
2. Click New Flow.
3. Select Record-Triggered Flow and click Create.

4. Configure the Start element.

   Option	Description
   Object	The object whose record modifications are to update a source record, usually Subscription or Item
   Trigger	The type of record change that triggers the flow, like A record is updated
   Conditions	The use case-specific trigger conditions, one or more filter criteria for evaluating certain field values or a formula for evaluating records
   Optimize for	Actions and Related Records

5. Click and add the following Action element.

   Option	Description
   Action	The Apex class to call, must be BuildSingleMetricInvocable
   Input Values	Invocable variables for the Apex class Subscription Id: specifies the reference to the ID field of the subscription for which to create subscription metrics

   Specify a label and an API name as required.

6. Click Save.

   Specify a label and an API name as required.

7. Click Activate.

   When the defined conditions are met, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management triggers the flow and creates or updates subscription metrics for the relevant subscription.

   For help about creating flows, see Flows in the Salesforce Help.

Enabling Subscription Metric Generation Button

Certain business use cases may require users to create or update subscription metrics for a single subscription manually. To support this, you can add the button Update Metrics to the Subscription page layout.

1. Navigate to the object management settings of the Subscription object.
2. Click Page Layouts.
3. In the Subscription Layout row, click to open the action menu, then select Edit.

4. Add the Update Metrics button to the page layout.

   In Salesforce Lightning, drag the button from the Mobile & Lightning Actions palette to the Salesforce Mobile and Lightning Experience Actions section.

   In Salesforce Classic, drag the button from the Buttons palette to the Custom Buttons area.

5. Click Save.

   For help about modifying page layouts, see Managing Pages.

Enabling Additional Subscription Metric Information

For reporting purposes, you may wish to copy more values from an item to the resulting subscription metric record, for example, the product group in order to allow a corresponding grouping in the MRR reports.

1. On the Subscription Metric object, create new custom fields with the same API name and data type as the fields on the item.

   This copies the corresponding field values to the subscription metric upon record creation.

   For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

Enabling MRR Metrics on Account or Subscription Basis

By default, JustOn creates account metrics and subscription metrics for all accounts and all subscriptions. Certain circumstances may require, however, to exclude specific subscriptions or accounts, for example, archived accounts. To support this scenario, you can create a custom checkbox on the account or on the subscription that controls whether to include or exclude it on metric creation or update.

1. Navigate to the fields list of the Account or, respectively, Subscription object.

2. Create the following new field.

   API Name	Data Type	Description
   CreateMRRMetrics__c	Checkbox Formula(Checkbox)	Controls whether to include (true) or exclude (false) the account or subscription on metric creation or update. Using a formula, you can apply custom logic to have the checkbox selected automatically when certain conditions are met.

   For help about creating fields, see Managing Object Fields.

3. Allow the users who execute the MRR job read access to the CreateMRRMetrics checkbox field by adding it to their assigned profiles or permission sets.

   For details, see Set Field Permissions in Permission Sets and Profiles in the Salesforce Help.

Once created, this checkbox controls whether to include or exclude the current subscription or account on metric creation or update.

Configuring MRR Metrics Synchronization with Invoices

The global settings option Ignore Invoices for MRR Metrics decides whether subsequent metric records are set to the item's next invoice date or start from the original start date. If activated, item price or quantity changes update MRR metrics starting from the relevant start date, irrespective of the item's next invoice date. This way, it is possible to decouple the metrics creation from existing invoices.

1. Click to enter Setup, then open Custom Settings.

   In Salesforce Lightning, navigate to Custom Code > Custom Settings.

   In Salesforce Classic, navigate to Develop > Custom Settings.

2. Click Manage in the row of Global Settings.

3. Click Edit in the Default row.

4. Select or, respectively, deselect the checkbox field Ignore Invoices for MRR Metrics.

   With new installations as of v2.84, this option is activated by default. When upgrading from previous versions, this option is not selected, which keeps the previous behavior of using the item's next invoice date for subsequent metric records.

5. Click Save.