Getting set up to sell services

Video transcript

By building, onboarding, and selling your product on IBM Cloud, you can grow your business and expand your reach to clients globally. You'll have the advantage of accelerated time to market, along with flexibility and security options that are available across open source technologies as well as computing resources in the cloud.

Onboarding your product involves four major steps:

• Registering in Partner Center
• Customizing your product details
• Building a service broker and validating your pricing plan
• And, finally, publishing your product

Get started by heading to Partner Center - your one-stop shop for onboarding your product. First, register your product by providing the name of your company and then creating your test environment. [On the Get started dashboard, enter your company name, and click Save. In the Create your test environment section, click Create]

Next, if you want team members to help with the onboarding process, get them set up with access to your account. For example, add a technical team member to create and add your broker. [In the Assign access section, click Assign to create an access group. Then, click Let's go.]

Confirm your legal agreement with IBM. Or, you can upload your own custom agreement. [Go to the My company page to confirm your legal agreement]

Go back to the My products page and click Create. Enter the name of your product, select the product type, and click Add.

First, confirm your product's programmatic name, which is automatically generated for you. Your programmatic name must be approved in order to add a pricing plan or register your service broker. [Click Edit to change your programmatic name, save it, and click Confirm.]

After your programmatic name is approved, IBM generates a service ID, which is used to identify your service when communicating with other IBM Cloud services. You’ll need to create an API key for authentication as well.

Now you’re ready to customize your product for the catalog. The information that you provide on the Product details tab is displayed in two places: your catalog tile and your detailed product page. For your catalog entry, provide a logo and a description of your product, along with a category and keywords to help users find your product in the catalog. Next, provide the URL to the end user license agreement that users must agree to in order to use your product. Finish your product page by adding a detailed description and features that highlight your service’s attributes and the benefits to users. Finally, provide links to high-quality images or videos, and your official documentation. [Click Product details. Then, click Add logo to add a link to your logo. Then, click the Edit icon for the Short description field to enter a description of your product. Then, click Select category and select Developer tools. Click Provide the end user license agreement URL customers must agree with to use your product and enter the URL to your license agreement. Click the Edit icon for the Detailed description field and provide a more detailed description of your product. Click Add a list of product features and add your product features. Click Add your documentation URL to add a link to your documentation.]

Head over to the Support tab to define your support experience. You can start by selecting how your product is supported, and completing the support statement field. It’s important to explain how users can get self-help, open support cases, and engage directly with your support team in real time. Next, explain how IBM Cloud Support leaders can contact your product’s support team leaders. [Click Support and select Third party as the support provider for your product. Click the Edit icon for the Statement of support field and provide your statement of support. Click the Edit icon for the support site URL to add your support site. Click the Edit icon for the service status URL and add URL. From the Add support details drop down, add an email address, phone number, or other details that your users can use to reach out to you for support. In the Support escalation process section, provide the number of hours that customers must wait before escalating a case. Add the support contact information so IBM Cloud can escalate support cases as needed.]

Define your pricing model on the Pricing tab. First, add the Export Control Classification Number and the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code that applies to your product. Next, define your pricing plan. Currently, you can choose a free or usage-based pricing plan. If you’d like, you can add multiple plans for your product. [Click Pricing then click Add ECCN to add your Export Control Classification Number. Click Add UNSPSC to add the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code for your product. Click Add plan, select the plan type, add a name, select how resource instances should be deployed, and click Save.]

For usage-based plans, you must submit your tax and EFT information to set up and receive payment disbursements for usage. You’ll also want to add metrics to determine how customers are charged, and submit your updates for approval. [The Payments to me page is highlighted. Click Add metrics to add your metrics to the pricing plan. In the Metering approval section, click Request approval.]

Building one or more service brokers is needed to manage the lifecycle of your service and metering integration. A broker must be added to complete your pricing plan. Your technical team member can get started with our sample broker. Add your broker by entering a name, a URL, a username, and a password. Or, you can import brokers from your account. After you add your broker, link it to your pricing plan. [Click Brokers. In the Onboard brokers to IBM Cloud section, click OK to open the sample reference broker. Click Add broker to add your broker. Click Pricing, click the actions icon for your pricing plan, and click Edit plan to link your broker to your pricing plan.]

Now that you’ve defined your pricing model, review how customers would understand and experience it. After your metering updates are approved, validate that your metered plans are correctly configured by enabling and submitting a usage test. This usage test includes creating your metering JSON, calling the Usage Metering API, and submitting metering evidence. [Click Add metrics for the pricing plan you added. Click Test estimation and metering to submit your metering evidence for review.]

The next step is to add features that uniquely identify your product’s attributes and differentiate this pricing plan from others. [Click Add feature to add more information about your pricing plan.]

Check your progress in the Onboarding checklist to make sure you’ve completed all the required tasks. At this point, you’re ready to submit your product for publishing approval. Submitting your request automatically notifies our onboarding team. The team will review the product details you provided to approve it for publishing, or they might request additional updates. [Click the name of your service in the breadcrumb menu, and click Checklist to open the Onboarding checklist. Click Request approval to request publishing approval for your product.]

You'll get an email with details about any changes that you might need to make.

After your product is approved, return to Partner Center and publish it to the IBM Cloud catalog. Congratulations, your service is now ready and available to all users in the IBM Cloud catalog! [Click Publish to publish your service after you receive approval to do so.]