Co-terming Subscriptions

In CloudBlue Commerce, subscriptions can be co-termed so that they expire on the same date and, optionally, their billing periods become aligned. This makes it possible to cancel the main subscription and supplementary ones of the same vendor on the same date, and can help optimize accounting efforts.

Note: If calendar billing is configured for the service plan of the co-termed subscription, its billing will be aligned according to the calendar billing configuration.

Requirements and Limitations

Co-terming requires core components to be updated to version 21.9 or later.
You can only enable co-terming for plans managed by PLM.
Trial subscriptions cannot be co-termed.
You can only co-term subscriptions from the same domain.
Co-terming must be supported on the vendor side.
Co-terming of the existing subscriptions can only be scheduled for their renewal.
Monthly subscriptions cannot be co-termed with an annual, 2 or 3-year subscriptions.
Currently, billing periods cannot be aligned with subscription start date.

Configuration

For a plan managed by PLM you can set co-terming configuration in UX1 or using the Excel file. For this purpose, these columns were added in the ServicePlan section: CotermingPossibilities, ExpirationDateAlignedWithEndOfMonth, ExpirationDateAlignedWithSubscription.

Co-terming configuration includes the following:

Co-term all subscriptions of a customer within a product line. In this case, the expiration date of the co-termed subscriptions will match the first one purchased under that account in a specific product line.
Allow customers to choose which subscriptions to co-term and how to align their expiration dates: with a selected subscription or with the end of calendar month.
Align billing periods of the co-termed subscription with expiration date.

Depending on the vendor, co-terming configuration of the plans can be different. Currently, there are two main co-terming cases supported in CloudBlue Commerce:

For Microsoft NCE products.
For Adobe products.

Microsoft NCE Sample Co-terming Configuration

For Microsoft NCE, it is possible to co-term subscriptions of the same tenant with an existing subscription or to calendar months.

Plan configuration in this case can be one of the following:

Option 1	Option 2

Important: If there are changes scheduled for the renewal of the subscription that you want to co-term, you first need to cancel your changes and place another scheduled change order with all required modifications, including co-terming.

Adobe Sample Co-terming Configuration

For Adobe products it is required that all subscriptions of a customer have the same expiration date. For such a case, subscriptions of an account must be co-termed automatically. This can be achieved with the following configuration:

Note: As Adobe subscriptions are billed annually, billing alignment configuration will not have effect.

Enabling and Disabling Co-terming for Existing Subscriptions

By default, existing subscriptions cannot be co-termed. To enable co-terming for existing subscriptions system-wide, complete the following steps:

Configure API access for a user.
1. Log in to the PCP.
2. Go to Settings > Users and click on a user to use for performing API request.
3. Switch to the APS Bus Access tab.
4. In the OAuth Credentials section, click Create.
5. Copy and store securely key, secret and the base URL.
6. In the Allowed Operations, click Add.
7. Specify the following in the APS Type field.
```
/aps/2/resources?implementing(http://www.parallels.com/ux1-ui/1)
```
8. Select GET HTTP method and click Submit.
Get the APS identifier of the UX1 Subscription Management application. Perform the following call in an API client of your choice, for example, cURL:
```
GET /aps/2/resources?implementing(http://www.parallels.com/ux1-ui/1)
```
Copy the aps.id value from the response to use in the next step.
```
PUT <base_URL>/aps/2/resources/<aps_ID>
```
with the following in the request body to enable co-terming:
```
{"cotermingEnabledFlag": "COTERMING_ENABLED" }
```
To disable it, use this as the request body instead:
```
{"cotermingEnabledFlag": "FALSE" }
```
Where:

<base_URL> is the OAuth Base URL that you saved in step 1,

<aps_ID> is the APS ID of the UX1 Subscription Management application obtained in step 2.

Examples

Example 1:

Configuration

Co-terming type: Automatic.

Existing subscription's period: 1 month.

Billing period: 1 month.

Existing subscription's expiration date: March 14, 2023.

Billing alignment: To subscription expiration date.

Order type: Sales order.

New subscription's start date: February 20, 2023.

Outcome:

Expiration of the newly purchased subscription will be March 14, 2023 and the sales order total will be prorated.

Example 2:

Configuration

Co-terming type: Automatic.

Subscription period: 1 year.

Billing period: 1 month.

Existing subscription's expiration date: March 14, 2023.

Billing alignment: To subscription start date.

Order type: Sales order.

New subscription start date: January 20, 2023.

Outcome

The newly purchased subscription expiration date will be March 14, 2023. The last billing order for this subscription will be prorated because the billing period will be less than one month: from February 20 to March 14. After the renewal, the next billing period of the new subscription will be from March 15, 2023 to April 14, 2023.

Example 3:

Configuration

Co-terming type: By customer, to a selected subscription.

Subscription period: Annual.

Billing period: 1 month.

Existing subscription's expiration date: March 14, 2023.

Billing alignment: To subscription expiration date.

Order type: Change order.

Changed subscription expiration date: January 20, 2023.

Outcome

Option A: Change order is placed before changed subscription expiration date, for example, on January 5, 2023.

After renewal, the changed subscription will have March 14, 2023 as the expiration date.
Option B: Change order is placed after the subscription expiration date, for example, on January 25, 2023.

Current subscription period will not be affected, these changes will be scheduled for the next subscription renewal. The expiration date after the next renewal will be March 14, 2024.

After the renewal in March 2024, the subscription will have the expiration date on March 14, 2025.