Introduction to Salesforce Revenue Cloud

Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a platform designed to manage the entire revenue lifecycle, from CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) to billing, contracts, and revenue recognition, all within the Salesforce ecosystem. It streamlines operations and provides a unified view of revenue processes. Goodbye RLM, Hello Revenue Cloud! This rebrand happened around Dreamforce 2024 – you may see references to Revenue Lifecycle Management or RLM in official documentation or in the community until the rebrand is complete.

What is Salesforce Revenue Cloud?

Salesforce Revenue Cloud is a suite of products offered by Salesforce. Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) is a new CPQ + Order Management product that integrates with Salesforce Contracts and potentially other products in the future. To keep it simple, we’ll refer to all the products that could be used with RLM, like Salesforce Contracts.

What is Revenue Lifecycle Management?

Revenue Lifecycle Management! RLM is officially Generally Available (GA) as of 13 Feb 2024. The press release on 17 Jun 2024 mentioned customers in the Professional Services and Software industries.

Industries CPQ & Salesforce CPQ

	Industries CPQ	Salesforce CPQ
Founded	2014 by David Schmaier	2009 by Godard Abel
Focus	Industry-specific CRM solutions, tailored for sectors like telecommunications, insurance, health, energy, and utilities	Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) solutions, designed to streamline the quoting and billing processes for sales teams.
Functional Modules	Product Catalog, CPQ, MACDs, Order Management, Contract Lifecycle Management, Document Generation, Feature-rich APIs, OmniStudio, Industry-specific Data Models	Product Catalog, CPQ, Contract Amendments, Document Generation, Basic APIs
Acquisition by Salesforce	In 2020, Salesforce acquired Vlocity for $1.33B.	In 2015/2016, Salesforce acquired SteelBrick for $360MM
	Vlocity has been rebranded as a major part of Salesforce Industries, enhancing Salesforce’s vertical-specific offerings with deep industry expertise and tailored solutions	Now known as Salesforce CPQ, SteelBrick’s functionalities are available as an add-on on top of Sales Cloud, providing robust CPQ capabilities to enhance sales efficiency and accuracy

RLM & Industries CPQ

Many features or modules are similar between Salesforce Revenue Cloud RLM and Industries CPQ – in the below table we can see a comparison:

RLM Module / Functionality	Industries CPQ Module / Functionality
Product Catalog Management (PCM)	Enterprise Product Catalog (EPC)
Salesforce Pricing	Enterprise Product Catalog (EPC)
Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator (DRO) Design-Time	Enterprise Product Catalog (EPC)
Configure Price Quote (CPQ)	Configure Price Quote (CPQ)
Product Configurator	LWC Cart, ESM Cart, AngularJS Cart
Business Rules Engine (BRE)	OmniStudio (Calculation Procedure & Calculation Matrices)
Salesforce Contracts	Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM)
Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator (DRO)	Order Management (OM)
Amend, Renew, Cancel (ARC)	Move, Add, Change, Disconnect (MACD)

Product Catalog Management (PCM)

1. Catalogs

Catalogs organize products by category and allow for easy browsing. Catalogs are an important part of managing product data and ensuring that customers can easily find what they are looking for.

2. Attributes & Categories

Define an attribute once and use it with multiple products in the catalog.

Accelerate Configuration

Assign complementary attributes to Attribute Groups to speed up product configuration.

Organize Attributes

Attributes can be organized into logical groups called attribute categories.

Attributes can be of various types: text, number, date, datetime, checkbox, picklist, currency, and percent.

Attributes can be assigned individually or through attribute categories to product classifications.

Example

Mobile Phone: Attributes like size, weight, storage capacity, display size, and camera specifications.

Television: Attributes like display type, connectivity, sound output, and smart TV features.

3. Product Classifications

A product classification is a template that you can use to quickly define and create products. Product classifications hold a collection of dynamic attributes. They can be reused to create multiple products that are similar yet different.

Example:

TechStore sells various models of laptops and tablets. These products share characteristics such as operating system, processor, RAM, storage, and screen size.

TechStore has a large number of laptop and tablet models. Creating each model one by one can be time-consuming. Let’s see how TechStore can quickly create all their models by using Product Classifications.

TechStore can create two product classifications: Laptops and Tablets. Each classification can have these attributes:

• Operating System
• Processor
• RAM
• Storage
• Screen Size
• Battery Life
• Connectivity Options

4. Products

Items and services sold to customers, which can be sellable or non-sellable.

Types:

Simple Products: No associated product hierarchy.

Bundled Products: Group of products sold together as one unit.

Sub Types:

Static Products: Cannot be configured during runtime.

Configurable Products: Can be configured during runtime.

Product Types and Configuration

Simple Products:

• Static Simple Product:
• Example: Hazelnut flavored instant coffee.
• Configurable Simple Product:
• Example: French roast coffee grounds (medium or dark roast).
• Field Indicators:
• Product Type set to ‘None’.
• Configure During Sale indicates if configurable.

Bundled Products:

• Static Product Bundle:
• Example: Travel kit with fixed components.
• Configurable Product Bundle:
• Example: Laptop with optional components (extended warranty, wireless headphones).
• Field Indicators:
• Product Type set to ‘Bundle’.
• Configure During Sale indicates if configurable.

Product Selling Models

Product selling models define how products are sold and billed. They can be configured as one-time, term-defined, or evergreen, depending on how the product or service is offered to customers. This feature is optional but crucial for managing different sales approaches.

Types of Product Selling Models

One Time:

Sell a product once without recurring charges.

Example: A phone sold with a one-time payment.

Term-Defined:

Sell a product or subscription with a fixed end date.

Example: A 12-month phone contract.

Evergreen:

Sell a subscription that recurs until cancelled by the user. Example: A monthly cellular data plan

5. Qualification Rules

Purpose:

Define customer eligibility and product availability using qualification rules based on criteria like location and account attributes.

Default Behavior:

Products or categories are qualified by default.

Qualification depends on meeting defined rules.

Types of Qualification Rules:

Qualification Rules:

Products or categories are qualified if they meet specified criteria.

Example: A premium dining table is available only to accounts in Alaska.

Disqualification Rules:

Products or categories are disqualified if they meet specified criteria. Example: A product category is unavailable in New York but available in other states

Building Blocks for Qualification Rules

Objects: Define rules within objects. You can build custom objects or extend out-of-the-box qualification objects provided by Product Catalog Management.

Decision Tables: Decision tables are based on the object and contain the criteria fields used to qualify or disqualify products and product categories.

Function: Facilitate faster lookup and criteria matching for rule application.

Qualification Rule Procedures: Sales channels use these procedures to invoke qualification rules during the selling process.

Integration: Revenue Lifecycle Management integrates these procedures for product discovery.

Note: Product discovery doesn’t support product category qualification.

PCM – RLM & Industries CPQ

Many PCM entities are similar and have the same names between RLM and Industries CPQ – in the below table, we highlight the differences:

RLM Entity	Industries CPQ Entity
Category	Child Catalog
Product Selling Model	Pricing Frequency
Product Classification	Vlocity Object & Object Type & Product Specifications
Product Component Group	Virtual Product
Qualification Rules	Context Rules

Salesforce Pricing

Salesforce Pricing for Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) is a comprehensive solution designed to streamline and optimize pricing strategies. It empowers businesses with the ability to create customized price adjustment methods, define precise formulas for calculating final net prices, and gain complete visibility into the pricing calculation process. By leveraging context mapping, customizable pricing procedures, and decision tables, Salesforce Pricing ensures accurate and dynamic pricing tailored to unique business needs.

This robust solution supports various roles involved in the pricing process:

• Price Management: Involves Pricing Admins, Designers, Analysts, and Demand Managers.
• Price Optimization: Handled by Revenue Growth Managers, Demand Managers, and Pricing Analysts.
• Price Monitoring: Conducted by Sales Reps, KAMs, and the CFO’s office.
• Price Execution: Managed by Sales Reps and Buyers.

Context Service

All business applications require real-time execution of rules or procedures to fulfill requests. These procedures rely on input data to process a request and generate results for their respective applications. In cases where a procedure involves multiple steps, multiple requests are sometimes made to a database to fetch similar data.

Context Service acts as a layer between the application and the rules or procedures, providing the requested data during both the configuration (design-time) and execution (run-time) stages.

Context Definition

Provides a common canonical layer to connect various pricing elements and data sources. Ensures consistent and accurate pricing across different channels and transactions. Defines the inputs used for pricing

Context Mapping

Context mapping in Salesforce involves defining the data sources for specific nodes and attributes within a context definition. This ensures that the context is populated with accurate and relevant data from Salesforce objects or other context definition objects. For example, in a sales order process, nodes like customer information and product details are mapped to corresponding Salesforce objects, ensuring that the latest data is used during the process.

By connecting these nodes and attributes to the correct data sources, context mapping enhances data accuracy and application performance. Once the context definition and mapping are activated, applications can efficiently utilize the mapped data for optimized operations.

Decision Tables

Decision Tables in Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) are a structured approach to defining business rules and logic for pricing and discounting decisions. They consist of input conditions and corresponding actions, enabling clear and efficient rule implementation.

For example, a Decision Table can specify volume discounts based on purchase quantities, such as offering a 10% discount for orders of 100 units or more.

Pricing Recipes

Pricing Recipes in Salesforce Pricing enable users to create and manage detailed pricing strategies. These recipes are essential for associating data from selected objects with lookup tables to develop comprehensive pricing procedures.

Key Elements:

• Predefined Pricing Recipe: Salesforce provides a standard pricing recipe to streamline the creation of pricing procedures.
• Standard Lookup Tables: Utilize these tables to fetch and associate data, ensuring accurate and dynamic pricing calculations.
• Customization: Users can add and modify pricing recipes to fit specific business needs.

Pricing Procedure

Customizable, ordered stacks of pricing elements used to calculate the final net price. Uses the Pricing Procedure Builder to create and manage complex pricing rules

Pricing End-to-End Flow

Pricing – RLM & Industries CPQ

Many PCM entities are similar and have the same names between Salesforce Revenue Cloud RLM and Industries CPQ – in the below table, we highlight the differences:

RLM Entity	Industries CPQ Entity
Product Selling Model	Pricing Frequency
Price Adjustment Schedule	Promotions / Discounts
Attribute Based Adjustment	Attribute Based Promotions
Bundle Based Adjustment	Promotions / Discounts based on Bundle Products
Price Adjustment Tier	Volume Based Discounts / Promotions
Pricing Procedure	Pricing Plan

Getting Hands On

If you are a Salesforce Partner or employee, spin up a “SDO” Demo Org from Partner Learning Camp.

Note that this demo org will expire in 1 month – you can raise a support case on the Partner Community to extend for 1 year. This demo org has RLM enabled, but it is mostly not configured, so you will have to follow the steps in the Salesforce Help documentation to create products and attributes, enable and configure Salesforce Pricing, and so on.

Optionally, use the Trialforce ID to spin up an org that has some of the setup already completed. See RLM Partner Pocket Guide on Partner Community.

Product Configurator (CPQ)

The Product Configurator for Revenue Cloud empowers you to customize products to meet specific business needs. Whether you’re adjusting components or fine-tuning attributes, it helps you create a product that aligns with customer expectations. The user-friendly interface simplifies the process of selecting the right combination of features, whether for simple bundles or complex configurations.

 Sales teams benefit from instant validation of product selections and real-time pricing updates, making the configurator an invaluable asset for businesses offering complex products. It not only saves time and reduces errors but also significantly enhances the overall customer experience by delivering tailored solutions efficiently and accurately.

Salesforce Revenue Cloud

Summary

Check out the Salesforce Help documentation. Check out the Revenue Lifecycle Management Foundations module on Trailhead (note the listed industries – interesting!)

Thanks Georgii Saveliev, Anuj Vaishampayan, and Stratus Carta for Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) content!