Getting set up to sell managed professional services

Lifecycle management of an engagement

Onboarding your professional services to IBM Cloud involves eight major steps. Check out the following workflow for a walk-through of the complete process.

1. The Business Partner registers the service in Partner Center
2. The client selects the service from the catalog and creates an instance
3. The Business Partner reviews and approves the professional service engagement request
4. The service engagement becomes active
5. The Business Partner manually bills the client for the service
6. The client submits a request to complete the engagement (optional)
7. The Business Partner approves or marks the engagement as completed
8. The engagement is complete

Business Partner role: The Business Partner uses Partner Center to onboard and configure managed professional services. This process involves setting up the service offering, defining custom parameters, adding contact and support details, creating pricing plans with relevant metrics, and managing resource provisioning. For more information on how to manage published engagements as a Business Partner, see Administering managed professional services as an IBM Business Partner.

Client role: Clients access the IBM Cloud catalog to explore and select published managed professional services. They can review the available offerings and engage with the service as configured by the Business Partner, ensuring a streamlined experience for consuming professional services. For more information on how to manage published enagagements as a client, see Consuming managed professional services as a client.

Before you begin

• Verify that you're using a Pay-As-You-Go or Subscription account. To check which type of account you're using, go to Manage > Account > Account settings in the IBM Cloud console.

  It's recommended that you use an account that was created with a functional ID to help ensure your continued access to the products that are onboarded in the account.

• Verify that you're assigned as the administrator role on all account management services and all IAM-enabled services. See Assigning access to account management services and Managing access to resources.

Onboard your product

The Business Partner starts the onboarding process. Creates and onboards managed professional services in the IBM Cloud console.

1. In the IBM Cloud console, click the Navigation Menu icon > Partner Center > My products.
2. On the My products page, click Create.
3. Click Create a product, and click Next.
4. Click Start now.
5. Select Managed Professional service and click Next.
6. Enter a display name for your product.
7. Enter a programmatic name for your product, and click Next. The programmatic name is used when you want to use CLI to manage a service.
8. Review your product details and click Create.

Set custom parameters and contact information to your product

The Business Partner sets custom parameters and contact information, and specifies the email address to route the request to. Define the team and brand identity as part of the onboarding process.

On the newly created product page, click Product listing > Catalog entry and enter the required details in the Your catalog entry and Your product page sections to preview the catalog tile.

Set up new pricing plans for your product

The Business Partner creates a new pricing plan. When a managed service is onboarded, pricing is defined through plans. Each plan represents a specific offering, such as Standard or Premium, and includes details like features and cost. For every plan, you can associate a set of usage metrics to track consumption and billing. This structure allows flexibility, enabling multiple plans under the same service to meet different client needs.

1. Click Product listing > Pricing and click Add plan > Usage-based.
2. Enter a name for your plan.
3. Enter a programmatic name.
4. Enter a description.
5. Click Save.

Add metrics to your pricing plan

The consulting Business Partner then adds metrics to measure usage with usage-based pricing plans.

1. From the Pricing plan table, click Add metrics.

2. In the Usage metrics section, click Add metrics.

3. Enter a value to state the charges per unit.

4. Select the unit for measuring metrics.

   • Hours: Represents the amount of time spent delivering the service during the engagement.
   • Implementation: Captures a one-time agreed upon cost for setting up or configuring the service.

   The Hours unit is the most frequently used measurement.

5. Optionally, specify the unit in which the value must be displayed.

6. Select the unit that the client is charged for.

   • Per unit: Price per single unit.
   • Tiered: Price varies based on the quantity. The more the quantity, the lesser the price.

7. Enter the price per unit based on the unit that is selected.

8. Click Done.

9. In the Pricing approval section, click Request approval. An IBM approver approves the request.

Provide support information

As part of onboarding, it’s important to provide support information so clients can easily reach out when they have questions or need assistance. It includes specifying contact details, support channels, and response expectations. Clear support information helps ensure smooth communication between Business Partners and clients throughout the engagement.

1. Click Product listing > Support and enter the details in the Customer support information section.
2. Enter the details in the Support escalation process section.
3. Add support contact information.

Next steps

Now that you completed the onboarding tasks, you're ready to manage published engagements.

• To manage published engagements as a client, see Consuming managed professional services as a client.
• To manage published engagements as a Business Partner, see Administering managed professional services as an IBM Business Partner.

To get an overview of all the tasks involved in the process, see the Checklist for selling managed professional services on IBM Cloud.