Service Management
Understanding The Onboarding Process
While choosing the best IoT ecosystem to develop and offer robust IoT solutions, companies often seek for a partnership that allows them to avail services tailored according to their needs. Businesses look for plans or packages that they can fully leverage without worrying about all the unnecessary modules that come along with the package that the company can’t use or redeem.
Partner Program understands that each partner has different needs. Hence, instead of creating “one-size-fits-for-all” plans, we consult with each partner to get better insights on their requirements. Based on their needs, our dedicated account managers provide them with options for plans that they can choose from.
To learn more about Partner Program Service, read the user guide.
Key differentiators of My Services
We understand that our hardware partners might not want services related to IoTConnect platform as their core business is entirely based on hardware products. Similarly, our software partners might not want plans that include services related to hardware. They might want limited services to test their solution before offering it to their customers instead of a yearly package.
Another key benefit of our services module is that instead of a mandatory yearly subscription of packages, you can avail any module on a quarterly basis. This allows you to check whether you require services related to that module. Moreover, if you are a hardware partner and would not like to use modules like DevLab, which is a testing environment for our IoTConnect platform, you can opt out of the services related to that module.
Now, let’s take a look at the modules available:
Software products: you can avail this service if you are a software partner.
Hardware products: if you are a hardware provider, you can leverage this service.
IoTConnect DevLab: if you want to get access to the testing environment of our IoTConnect platform, DevLab, you can avail this service.
ExpressConnect: if you want to get a detailed device design to onboard your devices on IoTConnect and send or receive data, you can leverage ExpressConnect services.
AppConnect: to get access to our ready-to-deploy, customizable solutions, you can leverage this service.
Solutions Hub visibility: to market your solutions on our Solutions Hub, you can use this service.
Support: to get support related to any of the modules, you can avail this service.
You can also check the validity and status with the following functionalities:
Services validity
The services availed by our partners come with validity date. Once the validity is over, you will be able to avail the modules specified in the service deal. However, those modules would be in read-only mode. They would not be able to customize or leverage them in their solutions.
Services status
If the status for any services that you avail is active, it means that you can leverage that module as required. If the status is inactive, you will not be able to access that module even in read-only mode. You’ll have to subscribe or renew to continue using that service.
Let’s get a better understanding of services management with the help of a use case:
Suppose a partner, Company A is a software and hardware provider. They want to avail services for both software and hardware. Hence, the appointed account manager will allow them access to your Products (software and hardware), ExpressConnect, Solutions Hub and Support modules.
Partners can avail these services for 3 months, 6 months or for a year, depending on their requirements.
Scenario 1
Suppose Company A has availed these services for 6 months, they will be able to access these modules for that period. They can create/add solutions and hardware devices in Partner Program using My Products. They can design data flows using ExpressConnect and list their products for 6 months on the Partner Program marketplace using Solutions Hub. Company A can renew their services after 6 months. However, if they do not renew it after 6 months, then they will not be able to access these modules to their full capacity. Hence, they will not be able to add/create solutions or hardware products in the My Products module. As explained earlier, the services that they have already added will be accessible to them in read-only mode. This means, Company A will be able to see their already added products in the list but will not be able to edit or leverage them. The consumers associated with these products will be released too. Therefore, Company A’s consumers will not be able to leverage their products.
In such cases, partners can consult with their account managers and renew their services that they want to avail and continue offering their solutions to their consumers.
Scenario 2
Suppose Company A does not require all the services for 6 months. They avail software and hardware services for 6 months and other services for 3 months. They will be able to access the My Products module for 6 months. However, they will not be able to avail other services. Hence, if they want to display their products on Solutions Hub for other consumers to leverage their products, they will have to renew their Solutions Hub services. When a service expires, Company A can view that module in read-only mode. In this case, they will be able to see their products listed in Solutions Hub but the consumers will not be able to add those products into their cart.
Scenario 3
This example is particularly for software, hardware. Suppose Company A has availed all the services mentioned above for 3 months. There are different plans available for software, hardware. These plans are based on the environment type (sandbox/production). There are a certain number of messages or devices associated with each of the packages. After the services expire or get exhausted, there is a cap, or limit, that can be set by the account manager to offer those services for a longer period. Suppose Company A has availed a service with 100 messages and all of them have been consumed or the service has expired, they can still leverage the service if the account manager has provided them with a cap up to some percentage. The cap can be 10%, 30% or more, depending on the requirements.
Conclusion
Partner Program provides an account manager to have an in-depth understanding of your business needs. So, based on your requirements, the account manager will tailor all the plans related to different modules like software, hardware, support, etc.
You can also read about IoTConnect DevLab.