Multi-tenant extensible billing system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12333582-B2
Application number	US-202217707763-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 29, 2022
Priority date	Jul 31, 2018
Publication date	Jun 17, 2025
Grant date	Jun 17, 2025

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 multi-tenant computing system comprising:
one or more processors; and
memory storing pre-existing charge models for selection by tenants in the multi-tenant computing system, each of the tenants providing at least one subscription service to its customers, each pre-existing charge model being a model for calculating subscription charges based on customer use of a respective subscription service of a respective pre-existing type, the memory further storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the multi-tenant computing system to perform:
receiving, by a price calculation microservice, tenant user input from a particular tenant of the tenants of the multi-tenant computing system, the particular tenant providing at least one particular subscription service to its customers, the at least one particular subscription service being of a new type different than the pre-existing types, the tenant user input comprising a custom data definition and a custom logic definition, the custom data definition defining custom data requirements for calculating a usage charge for a subscription period of the at least one particular subscription service of the new type, and the custom logic definition defining a custom set of one or more operations capable of being performed on data corresponding to the data requirements when calculating the usage charge for the subscription period of the at least one particular subscription service of the new type;
generating, by the price calculation microservice, a particular custom charge model based on the tenant user input received from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system, the particular custom charge model being different than each of the pre-existing charge models;
making the particular custom charge model available to the tenants of the multi-tenant system;
receiving, by a usage microservice, a usage event associated with the particular subscription service and associated with a particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system;
receiving, by a rating microservice, a rating request, the rating request being associated with the particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system;
calculating, by the price calculation microservice, the usage charge for the usage event based on the particular custom charge model;
storing, by the rating microservice, the usage charge;
generating an invoice for a particular subscription period and based on the usage charge;
providing the invoice for the particular subscription period to the particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system; and
dynamically modifying any of the price calculating microservice, the usage microservice or the rating microservice based on resource demands to fulfill the rating request.

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

3. The system of claim 1 , wherein the custom data definition defines system data requirements and customer data requirements, the system data requirements corresponding to system data stored by the multi-tenant 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 custom charge model is generated from a template charge model.

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

6. The system of claim 5 , wherein the interface microservice comprises a graphical user interface microservice.

7. The system of claim 5 , wherein the interface microservice comprises an application programming interface (API) microservice.

8. The system of claim 1 , wherein the instructions further cause the system to perform:
storing the particular custom charge model;
selecting, by another tenant of the tenants of the multi-tenant computing system, the particular custom charge model, the another tenant providing at least one other subscription service to other customers, the at least one other subscription service being of a type different than the pre-existing types and the new type;
receiving, by another price calculation microservice, a modification input from the another tenant of the multi-tenant computing system;
modifying, by the another price calculation microservice based on the modification input, the particular custom charge model; and
storing the modified particular custom charge model and making the modified particular custom charge model available to the tenants of the multi-tenant computing system.

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

10. A method being implemented by a multi-tenant computing system including one or more physical processors and non-transitory storage media storing machine-readable instructions, the method comprising:
storing pre-existing charge models for selection by tenants in the multi-tenant computing system, each of the tenants providing at least one subscription service to its customers, each pre-existing charge model being a model for calculating subscription charges based on customer use of a respective subscription service of a respective pre-existing type;
receiving, by a price calculation microservice, tenant user input from a particular tenant of the tenants of the multi-tenant computing system, the particular tenant providing at least one particular subscription service to its customers, the at least one particular subscription service being of a new type different than the pre-existing types, the tenant user input comprising a custom data definition and a custom logic definition, the custom data definition defining custom data requirements for calculating a usage charge for a subscription period of the at least one particular subscription service of the new type, and the custom logic definition defining a custom set of one or more operations capable of being performed on data corresponding to the data requirements when calculating the usage charge for the subscription period of the at least one particular subscription service of the new type;
generating, by the price calculation microservice, a particular custom charge model based on the tenant user input received from the particular tenant of the multi-tenant system, the particular custom charge model being different than each of the pre-existing charge models;
making the particular custom charge model available to the tenants of the multi-tenant system;
receiving, by a usage microservice, a usage event associated with the particular subscription service and associated with a particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system;
receiving, by a rating microservice, a rating request, the rating request being associated with the particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system;
calculating, by the price calculation microservice, the usage charge for the usage event based on the particular custom charge model;
storing, by the rating microservice, the usage charge;
generating an invoice for a particular subscription period and based on the usage charge;
providing the invoice for the particular subscription period to the particular customer of the particular tenant of the multi-tenant computing system; and
dynamically modifying any of the price calculating microservice, the usage microservice or the rating microservice based on resource demands to fulfill the rating req

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

• G06F3/0482

  Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus · 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

• H04L67/306

  User profiles · CPC title

• G06Q10/0631

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