| Term | Description |
|---|---|
| Product | A service, a physical item, or an accounting item that has its own identifier and must be considered separately. |
| Plan | A collection of products that defines billing parameters for distribution. |
| Product line | A group of products from one vendor with the same fulfillment parameters. |
| MPN | A Manufacturer Part Number provided by a vendor. |
| Fulfillment / Order fulfillment | The process of actual creation or providing of a product to a customer, which is initiated by placing an order and finishes with product delivery. For a subscription business, fulfillment may include creation of a new tenant for a customer, generation of a set of credentials, allocation of data storage, and so on. The list of actions depends on the product vendor. |
| Fulfillment parameter | Additional information that is required for subscription creation or using a product. The additional information for subscription creation is requested from a customer or reseller and used by a vendor. The additional information for using a product is provided by a vendor and used by a customer. |
| Fulfillment system |
A system that automates actions required to create a subscription. For the majority of products, CloudBlue Commerce requires integration with external fulfillment systems. For example, with CloudBlue Connect. When there is no fulfillment system for a product, or integration with a fulfillment system is technically impossible, CloudBlue Commerce may act as a fulfillment system for such products. |
| Portfolio / Product catalog | A set of products and plans configured in CloudBlue Commerce. |
| Operating unit | A reseller account that represents a division of a company. A company account is configured as the upper-level account in CloudBlue Commerce. Usually, operating units are configured for providers. However, each participant of a distribution chain (a provider or regular reseller) may have operating units. |