Synchronization of Products and Plans between Vendor Portal and ActivePlatform

Vendor Portal is a part of the ActivePlatform ecosystem. Using Vendor Portal, a cloud service Vendor can manage the cloud services sales via the Distribution network, that is based on the ActivePlatform Distributors and Resellers.

'Vendor' term in ActivePlatform context has a meaning, that differs from the meaning 'Vendor' term within the Vendor Portal.

In this article, the 'Vendor' term is used as it is understood in the context of Vendor Portal.

Comparison of the 'Product' terms in Vendor Portal and ActivePlatform

The Product concept in Vendor Portal is interpreted wider than in ActivePlatform. Within the Vendor Portal, Product includes equivalents of following ActivePlatform entities:

Product AP (see Managing Product);
Product category (see Managing Product categories);
Plans (see Managing Plans);
Plan Category (see Managing Plan Categories);
Application template (see Managing Application Templates);
Plan Class (see Managing Plan Classes);
Vendor Service Settings (see Vendor Service Settings).

To avoid ambiguity, within this article:

Product, as it is understood in Vendor Portal, is referred as Product VP;
Product, as it is understood in ActivePlatform, is referred as Product AP.

Automatic creation of Products and related entities in ActivePlatform

Products AP, that were received from Vendor Portal, appears only at the Distributors, that were selected by Vendor in Vendor Portal.

Product AP and related Plans are unpublished by default. Before starting to sell, you should make them public (see Plan Information).

The synchronization process between Vendor Portal and ActivePlatform starts after the Vendor created a Product VP in Vendor Portal, and it was moderated by the Vendor Portal administrator.

As a result of synchronization, the following entities are created in ActivePlatform:

Product AP (see Viewing the List of Products);
Product Category with the title set to Default, key set to default and priority set to zero. If a Product Category with the key set to default already exists, then the received Product AP is attributed to that Product Category (see Viewing the List of Product categories);
Application Template of the Vendor Service type (see Viewing the List of Application Templates);
Plan with configured Plan Periods and Plan Resources (see Viewing the List of Plans and Viewing and Updating a Plan);
The Plans in Operator Control Panel can be created in several ways, see Managing Plans.
Plan Category with the title set to Default and key set to default. If a Plan Category with the key set to default already exists, then the received Plans are attributed to that Plan Category (see Viewing the List of Plan Categories).
Plan Class (see Viewing the List of Plan Classes). The name of Plan Class is created by joining the Product VP name and its billing type name, that were specified in Vendor Portal. Plan Class with the default settings is created automatically for each Plan that was received from Vendor Portal. If required, change the Plan Class settings (Viewing and Updating a Plan Class) or assign a different Plan Class for the received Plan (see Editing general information about the Plan).
The Plans that were received from Vendor Portal can be delegated to the child Resellers (see Delegating Plans to the Reseller).
The Plan Class, that was created for the received Plan, is not created automatically for the child Resellers.

Generally, the created Product VP is fully configured, except for the situation when Vendor creates additional Distributor attributes. In the latter case, the Distributor needs to submit the values of the Distributor attributes in the Vendor Service Settings plugin.

The Plans, Products AP, and Application Templates that were received from Vendor Portal cannot be deleted.

Synchronization of the Product changes between Vendor Portal and ActivePlatform

When Vendor edits the Product VP, and then publish it again, these changes apply to the Product AP and related entities in ActivePlatform (see the picture above). After the synchronization, all the changes that were made in Product AP and Plans by Distributor (for example, in general or marketing information etc) are discarded.

When Vendor edits the Product VP, and then publish it again, you don't have to make Product AP public again.

Vendor can change the following:

Product VP general information: name, description, type, category of the product;
Product VP marketing information: marketing name, marketing description, logotype, screenshots etc;
Product Plans: to add new and to delete existent Plans, to change prices and Plan Resources, to add and to delete Plan periods;
Distribution network: to attach new Distributors, to detach and to re-attach existent Distributors;
Product VP status: to deactivate and to re-activate a Product VP.

Vendor can't change the following parameters when at least one Distributor is attached to the Product VP:

Charging model (billing type);
Usage model (multitenancy).

Deleting of the Plans by Vendor in Vendor Portal

When the Vendor deletes a Product Plan in Vendor Portal, the following operations are carried out in ActivePlatform:

The Plan receives the Inactive status. The Plans that were delegated to the child Resellers get the Deactivated by provider status;
The ordering of the new Subscriptions to the Plan is blocked;
Old Subscriptions are still active, but Distributor can stop them manually after the approval from Vendor.

The Product Plans with the Inactive status in ActivePlatform can be activated manually. The Plans with the Deactivated by provider status can be activated manually only if the parent Reseller activates the corresponding Plan (see Activating a Plan).

Product status changing by Vendor in Vendor Portal

When the Vendor deactivates a Product in Vendor Portal, the following operations are carried out in ActivePlatform:

All Product Plans receive the Inactive statuses;
The ordering of the new Subscriptions to the Product is blocked;
Old Subscriptions are still active, but Distributor can stop them manually after the approval from Vendor.
If the Vendor re-activates the Product in Vendor Portal, the Product Plans with the Inactive statuses in ActivePlatform should be activated manually. The Plans with the Deactivated by provider status can be activated manually only if the parent Reseller activates the corresponding Plan (see Activating a Plan).

Detaching and re-attaching of Product Distributors by Vendor

When Vendor detaches the Distributor in Vendor Portal, the same operations are carried out in ActivePlatform as in the case of Product deactivation by Vendor.

If the Vendor re-attaches the Distributor in Vendor Portal, the Product Plans with the Inactive statuses in ActivePlatform should be activated manually (see the paragraph above).