Get Started with the Channel Order App

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

• Describe the Channel Order App (COA) and how you can use it in your day-to-day business.
• Describe the License Management App (LMA) and how it relates to the COA.
• Demonstrate the relationship between your contract terms, product catalog, and order.

Introducing the COA

As an AppExchange partner, you’ve built an app, released it, and refined your marketing strategy. It’s an exciting time: Prospects are starting to notice, and orders are coming in. Now you need a tool to efficiently manage all those orders—one that makes it easy to report sales to us. What could that be, you ask? Hint: It’s not a pile of sticky notes.

We’ve created the Channel Order App (COA) just for this purpose. You use the COA to create, submit, and track all your AppExchange orders. Think of it as a window. Through the COA, we can see your orders, and you can see what we’re invoicing you for. 

Managing orders in the COA is straightforward, but it does require some preparation. Get ready to answer a bunch of questions from the COA about your customers, the products you sold them, pricing, and other terms from your partner contract. 

But guess what? You likely have all the answers at hand. Earlier on your path to becoming an AppExchange partner, you decided what kind of products to build and how to deliver them. Your partnership agreement with Salesforce documents those details. (And if that doesn’t ring a bell, stay with us. In Unit 2, we cover how to find that info in the COA.)

Why all the prep? It’s in the name of accuracy and efficiency. When you submit an accurate order, Salesforce processes it faster, onboards customers quickly, and invoices you accurately. So be ready to share all the juicy details. You’re about to become an order management superstar.

Channel Order Fundamentals

As an operations analyst, your company trusts you to submit your customer’s orders to the Salesforce Partner Operations (Partner Ops) team. Every time a customer purchases a product or requests changes (such as adding or reducing users), you submit an order to Salesforce. This keeps you up to date with your revenue-sharing agreement, and the COA is your tool to accomplish that. We look at your COA orders, factor in how you’ve agreed to share revenue with us, and generate your invoice.

What happens when you successfully submit an order in the COA? That depends on your partner type: ISVforce or Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM).

ISVForce partners sell apps that depend on certain existing Salesforce products such as Sales Cloud or Service Cloud that augment those clouds’ functions. ISVforce partners sell only to existing Salesforce customers. 

OEM partners sell a full, custom application experience that has no dependency on Salesforce Clouds. OEM partners are eligible to sell to both existing and new Salesforce customers. Existing customers install OEM embedded apps just as they would ISVforce apps. For new customers, the partner delivers an org with your app installed.

If you’re an ISVforce partner, order submission is the spark that sets billing and revenue sharing in motion. If you’re an OEM partner, order submission also sets provisioning in motion. OEM partners selling to new customers must provision a Force.com Embedded Edition license to all your app’s users, which gives your customer access to the Salesforce platform your app is built on.

As a member of the Salesforce community and the partner community, you build apps using Salesforce infrastructure resources, and we cheer you on every step of the way. As our partner, you’ve agreed to share your revenue with us. Take a moment to look at your orders and smile. They reflect your success and the success of our partnership. 

License Management App

Your package licenses are the gatekeepers that control access to your app. If you distribute your app in a managed package, you need a powerful tool to manage your customers’ licenses. Enter the License Management App (LMA). 

Note:

Regarding licenses, remember that what happens in the LMA stays in the LMA. The changes you make in the LMA do not propagate to the COA. It’s your job to keep the two in sync, so for every change you make in the LMA, submit a corresponding order in the COA.

The LMA is the source of truth about customer licenses. When your customers install a package in their org, that triggers creation of their license to access your app. You use the LMA to add or remove access. The changes you make in the LMA change the license record in the customer’s org. For a deeper dive into using the LMA, check out the App Licensing and Customer Support for AppExchange Trailhead module.

Contract Terms and Product Catalogs

The road to becoming an order management superstar is paved with golden contract terms and product catalogs. They identify the products you can sell and when and how you can sell them to your customers. Contract terms apply to all your company’s sales. Your product catalog contains the list of products you can sell under your contact, the associated revenue-sharing details, and any special terms. Product catalog terms apply only to products in the catalog. Your partnership agreement documents these terms, and you can view them in the COA.

Let’s start by looking at contract terms.

*For OEM partners: Per their agreement, the cancellation order must be submitted 30+ days in advance of the contract renewal.

For ISVforce partners: The cancellation order must be submitted 7+ days in advance of the contract renewal.

You can see that your partner contract terms dictate the terms of the sales contract, contract renewal, and billing. If your ISVForce end customer has cancelled their underlying Salesforce subscription, you’ll still need to submit a cancellation order within the COA to terminate the existing contract record. Partners will continue to be billed for these services until this action is complete. 

You’re off to a great start. Now let’s explore the product catalog terms that Salesforce uses to calculate your invoice.

To avoid bumps on the order management road, know your contract and product terms. They’re your maps to navigate the COA and keep your orders accurate. 

Feeling like you need a magic decoder to understand how to apply these terms to your orders? We decrypt everything starting in Unit 2. 

Resources

• ISVforce Guide: Manage Orders
• Trailhead: App Licensing and Customer Support for AppExchange
• Salesforce Partner Community: Channel Order App Guide (login required)
• Salesforce AppExchange Guide: Channel Order Application: Salesforce Pricing Guidelines
• Partner Field Guide: Become a COA Champion