[Knowledge-sharing] Product walkthrough: Super Sonics
What is "Super Sonics"?
Super Sonics is the internal "codename" for a project that introduced several new subscription management capabilities, launched August 1, 2021. The changes introduced included:
- Quarterly subscription reconciliation - replacement for annual true-ups that allows for quarterly charging for overages on a go-forward basis for the remainder of the customer's subscription term
- Auto-renewal - introduced auto-renewal capability for SM
- Cloud licensing - we all know what this is
😉 - Operational data - SM instance will now share operating data with GitLab such as number of projects, issues, pipelines, and merge requests will be aggregated for each self-managed instance and will not contain any individual user's personal information or project-specific information.
Sid's blog post really does a great job outlining these changes: https://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/07/20/improved-billing-and-subscription-management/
This was a very cross-functional project that included updates in multiple systems, and by multiple teams. In addition to fulfillment, who built most of the core functionality to support these, there were a lot of other changes that had to happen.
Default Values & Standard Exemptions
By default, it was decided that all new and renewal customers should opt in to all 4 of these pillars. However, some customers, who met specific criteria, would need to be opted out of one or more pillars.
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/sales-team/field-operations/systems/-/issues/1644+ set up the initial default values of these fields, and then standard systemic criteria for automatic opt outs.
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/sales-team/field-operations/systems/-/issues/1636+ set up canned legal language to be added to order forms when opt outs were needed.
- https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/sales-team/field-operations/deal-desk/-/issues/101+ adjusted the approval matrix in SFDC for these opt outs.
SuperSonics in Systems
Additional Resources
- Blog post: ttps://about.gitlab.com/blog/2021/07/20/improved-billing-and-subscription-management/
- Fulfillment work links:
- Sisense dashboard tracking the current adoption of each of these pillars - SAFE access required_
- SFDC Automation work:
- Zuora automation work: