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Community Announcement: Updates to the Zuora Community Ideas Forum

  • 1.  Community Announcement: Updates to the Zuora Community Ideas Forum

    ZUORA
    Posted 10-07-2024 07:09
    Edited by Lana Lee 10-09-2024 12:42

    Back in 2016, we embarked on an exciting journey by launching the Zuora Community where our vision was to create a vibrant space for our customers to connect with each other and with Zuora experts. Part of the community is our Ideas forum where your voice could shape the future of our product. It quickly became a hub of innovation, powered by Zuora users like you.

    As Zuora's functionality expanded, so did your incredible ideas. While we've done our best to review as many suggestions as possible, we recognize that many of them have been overlooked. Today, we're here to change that.

    Throughout October 2024, we will begin revising the Ideas Forum with your latest feedback, new product categories and new idea statuses. We anticipate this update to be complete by November 2024.

    Ideas Forum Cleanup

    To reduce the bulk of ideas and improve forum visibility we will do the following:

    • Any ideas older than 2 calendar years old that have received no status update as of January 1st will be respectfully marked as “Legacy” ideas, including those marked as “Under Consideration”, “Duplicate”, “Unlikely”, “Accepted”, and “Coming Soon”. 
    • Ideas marked as “Delivered” will remain untouched.

    We know that some older ideas have gained in popularity and we will continue to monitor and review the votes and comments of Legacy ideas. If Product Managers reconsider a Legacy idea, its status will change accordingly.

    New Product Categories

    We will update the Ideas Forum product categories to align with our product lines:

    1. Admin, Settings, & Security - User Settings, Configuration, Zuora Protect
    2. AI - All Things Ai, Copilot, Machine Learning
    3. Billing And Invoicing - Document Generation, Billing, Invoice Presentment, Credit/Debit Memos, Account Set-Up
    4. CPQ - Zuora CPQ, Quotes, Salesforce CPQ, Other CPQ
    5. Finance & Revenue - Finance, Journal Entries, Close, Revenue Accounting
    6. Integrations & Extensibility - Workflow, Custom Objects, Integration Hub, Dev Tools
    7. Metering & Rating - Metering, Mediation, Rating, Togai
    8. Orders & Subscriptions 
    9. Payments - Payment Gateways, Payment Methods, Retry Logic, Hpm, Fraud Protection
    10. Product Catalog - Commerce Catalog, Product Catalog, Product, Rate Plans, Rate Plan Charges, Entitlements, Attribute Based Pricing
    11. Reporting & Analytics - Reporting, Dashboards, Forecasting Views, Data Query, Zoql
    12. Zephr - Zephr, Paywall, Dynamic Offers

    While some ideas remain in the same category (CPQ), others will be moved to their new category. 

    New Idea Statuses

    In addition to the new Legacy status, we will implement the following statuses to add more transparency to the process:

    1. Submitted - These ideas are ones that have not yet been categorized.
    2. Duplicate - This idea is similar to one that has already been accepted.
    3. In Review - The product team needs further investigating for it to progress.
    4. Planned - Ideas have been reviewed and accepted and are currently waiting to be scheduled for development within the next 1-2 fiscal years.
    5. In Development - Our product and engineering teams are actively working on the idea’s development.
    6. Delivered - The idea has already been developed and you can begin using this feature.
    7. Not Planned - The idea is not on the short-term product roadmap.
    8. Legacy - Ideas that have received no update in 2 calendar years. These ideas can still be viewed, commented upon, upvoted and have its status updated to any of the above.

    Future Ideas Review Process

    We are working with Product leadership on a new review process to ensure that ideas “In Review”, “Planned”, and “In Development” are regularly updated and aligned with our product releases.

    Please see the process below for more details:

    • Every quarter, Product Managers will review ideas that are “In Review”, “Planned”, and “In Development” and update their status accordingly.
    • Every 6 months, the Community Manager will send ~10 ideas to Product Managers that have received the highest engagement based on comments and upvotes. Product Managers are required to respond to the selected ideas.
      • Selected ideas will include a wide range of products and time ranges within the 2 year limit to ensure equal visibility.
      • Ideas marked as “Not Planned” and “Delivered” will not be updated as their review is considered complete.

    Our hope for these improvements is to establish a strong relationship between Zuora Community members and our Product teams who are constantly looking for ways to make Zuora better. We value your feedback and if you have any questions as we make our improvements, please let us know in the comments below.

    Thank you,



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    Lana Lee
    Zuora Community Senior Community Manager and Strategist
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