Order Flow and Customizations

Several different order flows can be configured in Billing; each vendor (provider or reseller) can use them independently.

Provider can view and manage all order flows in the system, while a reseller can only customize hisown order flow. Each vendor can view and create his own customizations of the order flow he uses: i.e., only transitions of current order flow can be customized.

Customization is created whenever any order flow transition is modified. Billing utilizes two types of Order Flow Customizations:

1. Vendor customizations.

   Each vendor (i.e., a reseller or provider) can create his own customization to the Order Flow; such customization only affects that vendor. To see the details of his order flow customization, a vendor should open System > Settings > Order Processing > Order Flow.

2. Global customizations.

   Global customizations affect all the vendors who use that order flow. Only provider has the ability to manage all order flows in the system, including creating new ones, changing and deleting existing order flows. Along with this, there is a Built-In Order Flow in the system, which cannot be edited by provider. Provider can only create a customization to it. These customizations are called global. The difference between vendors' and global customizations is that global customizations are visible to all the vendors using this Order Flow. To manage order flows in the system, a provider should open System > Settings > Order Processing > All Order Flows.

Example:

A provider goes to the All Order Flows screen, selects Default Order Flow and modifies it: he changes some transition so that the button 'Open' will be displayed instead of original 'Open Order'. As a result, the global customization has been created – all the vendors using that order flow will see the customized button labeled 'Open' (not original 'Open Order'). Since it is a global modification, a vendor will not be able to remove such customization; if any reseller or even provider opens the Order Flow screen, there will be no customizations to that transition made by his own.

Important notes

Creation of an order flow customization is a step that requires:

1. Detailed testing under different circumstances (e.g. for accounts with billing per subscription and per account, with credit limit, with default payment method and without it, each customized transition is to be tested, for both success and failure).
2. Regular maintenance. Any upgrade can bring some default order flow changes, which will not be propagated to the non-default (customized) order flow. This means that non-default order flows are to be tested each time on upgrades, as they potentially can stop working as expected ( especially the order flows which were created in Billing of versions 4-5.x are affected). It is strongly recommended to compare the non-default order with the default one after each upgrade and apply changes, if they are required.
3. The maintenance of a custom order flow is the provider's responsibility. The correct flow in CloudBlue Commerce is ascertained only with the default order flow.