Multi-tenant extensible billing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11288715-B2
Application number	US-201916523538-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 26, 2019
Priority date	Jul 31, 2018
Publication date	Mar 29, 2022
Grant date	Mar 29, 2022

Abstract

Receive, by a price calculation microservice, tenant user input from a particular tenant of a multi-tenant system. Generate, by the price calculation microservice, a particular charge model based on the tenant user input. Detect, by a usage microservice, a usage event associated with a customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system. Receive, by a rating microservice, a rating request, the rating request being received in response to the detecting the usage event. Calculate, by the price calculation microservice in response to the receiving the rating request, a usage charge for the usage event based on the particular charge model. Store, by the rating microservice, the usage charge. Generate an invoice based on the usage charge stored by the rating microservice. Provide the invoice to the customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computing system comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform:
receiving, by a price calculation microservice, tenant user input from a particular tenant of a multi-tenant system;
generating, by the price calculation microservice, a particular charge model based on the tenant user input received from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
detecting, by a usage microservice, a usage event associated with a customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
receiving, by a rating microservice, a rating request, the rating request being received in response to the detecting the usage event associated with the customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
calculating, by the price calculation microservice in response to the receiving the rating request, a usage charge for the usage event based on the particular charge model;
storing, by the rating microservice, the usage charge;
generating an invoice based on the usage charge stored by the rating microservice; and
providing the invoice to the customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system.

2. The system of claim 1 , wherein the tenant user input comprises a data definition and a logic definition, the data definition defining data requirements for calculating the usage charge, and the logic definition defining one or more operations capable of being performed on data corresponding to the data requirements when calculating the usage charge.

3. The system of claim 2 , wherein the data definition defines system data requirements and customer data requirements, the system data requirements corresponding to system data stored by the computing system, and the customer data requirements corresponding to customer data stored by a third-party system of the particular tenant.

4. The system of claim 1 , wherein the particular charge model is generated in response to the receiving the tenant user input from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system.

5. The system of claim 1 , wherein the particular charge model is generated from a template charge model.

6. The system of claim 1 , wherein the tenant user input is received through an interface microservice.

7. The system of claim 6 , wherein the interface microservice comprises a graphical user interface microservice.

8. The system of claim 6 , wherein the interface microservice comprises an application programming interface (API) microservice.

9. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the system to perform:
storing the particular charge model;
obtaining, by another tenant of the multi-tenant system, the particular charge model;
receiving, by another price calculation microservice, a modification input from the another tenant of the multi-tenant system;
modifying, by the another price calculation microservice based on the modification input, the particular charge model; and
storing the modified particular charge model.

10. The system of claim 1 , wherein the price calculation microservice is stateless and the usage microservice is not stateless.

11. A method being implemented by a computing system including one or more physical processors and non-transitory storage media storing machine-readable instructions, the method comprising:
receiving, by a price calculation microservice, tenant user input from a particular tenant of a multi-tenant system;
generating, by the price calculation microservice, a particular charge model based on the tenant user input received from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
detecting, by a usage microservice, a usage event associated with a customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
receiving, by a rating microservice, a rating request, the rating request being received in response to the detecting the usage event associated with the customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system;
calculating, by the price calculation microservice in response to the receiving the rating request, a usage charge for the usage event based on the particular charge model;
storing, by the rating microservice, the usage charge;
generating an invoice based on the usage charge stored by the rating microservice; and
providing the invoice to the customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the tenant user input comprises a data definition and a logic definition, the data definition defining data requirements for calculating the usage charge, and the logic definition defining one or more operations capable of being performed on data corresponding to the data requirements when calculating the usage charge.

13. The method of claim 12 , wherein the data definition defines system data requirements and customer data requirements, the system data requirements corresponding to system data stored by the computing system, and the customer data requirements corresponding to customer data stored by a third-party system of the particular tenant.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the particular charge model is generated in response to the receiving the tenant user input from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the particular charge model is generated from a template charge model.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the tenant user input is received through an interface microservice.

17. The method of claim 16 , wherein the interface microservice comprises a graphical user interface microservice.

18. The method of claim 16 , wherein the interface microservice comprises an application programming interface (API) microservice.

19. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:
storing the particular charge model;
obtaining, by another tenant of the multi-tenant system, the particular charge model;
receiving, by another price calculation microservice, a modification input from the another tenant of the multi-tenant system;
modifying, by the another price calculation microservice based on the modification input, the particular charge model; and
storing the modified particular charge model.

20. The method of claim 11 , wherein the price calculation microservice is stateless and the usage microservice is not stateless.

Assignees

• Zuora Inc

Inventors

• Wang Xinxin
• Lotito Steven
• Cui Song
• Pickering Pilar Loren
• Liu Xin Yu
• Magill David Kenneth
• Sit Kan Shun
• Lu Zhiguo
• Sun chen xin

Classifications

• G06Q30/0283 Primary

  Price estimation or determination · CPC title

• H04L67/10

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• H04L67/1097

  for distributed storage of data in networks, e.g. transport arrangements for network file system [NFS], storage area networks [SAN] or network attached storage [NAS] · CPC title

• G06Q10/0631

  Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations · CPC title

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title