To sell your software as a service (SaaS) product in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace, you
must publish it in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace first. After a customer purchases your
SaaS product, Alibaba Cloud Marketplace instructs you to produce an SaaS instance
in service provider interface (SPI) or license mode. This topic describes how to publish
an SaaS product.
Prerequisites
- Produce SaaS instances in SPI mode
If you use this mode, make sure that the SPI operations are developed and debugged.
- Produce SaaS instances in license mode
If you use this mode, make sure that the product activation page is developed.
Background information
Production is an important step of selling SaaS products. After customers place orders,
Alibaba Cloud Marketplace sends customers' purchase information to independent software
vendors (ISVs) to produce SaaS products.
SaaS products can be produced in the following modes:
- SPI
The SPI mode is applicable to SaaS products that are activated immediately after customers
purchase them.
To use the SPI mode, an ISV must develop SPI operations based on the SPI specifications
provided by Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. The ISV must provide the endpoint of the SPI
when publishing an SaaS product. After a customer purchases or renews the SaaS product,
Alibaba Cloud Marketplace calls the SPI provided by the ISV to instruct the ISV to
produce or renew the SaaS instance for the customer. After the ISV produces or renews
the SaaS instance, the ISV returns relevant information to Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.
SPI-related documents and links:
- License
The license mode is applicable to SaaS products that must be activated by customers
themselves at the official websites of the SaaS products after purchase.
To use the license mode, an ISV must develop a product activation page. The ISV must
provide the URL of the product activation page when publishing an SaaS product. Alibaba
Cloud Marketplace generates a license for each SaaS product that a customer purchases,
and displays the license to the customer in the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace console.
After obtaining the license, the customer can go to the product activation page and
enter the license. Then, the ISV calls the license query and verification operations
provided by Alibaba Cloud Marketplace to verify the validity of the license. If the
license is valid, the ISV activates the SaaS product for the customer.
For more information about the license query and verification operations, see DescribeLicense and ActivateLicense.
Create an SaaS product
- Log on to the ISV portal of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace.
- In the left-side navigation pane, click . On the page that appears, click Create Product in the upper-right corner.
- Enter information about the SaaS product to be created in the configuration wizard.
- Enter access information about the SaaS product and click Next.
Parameter |
Description |
Choose Your Product Type |
Select SaaS.
|
Product Name |
Enter a custom product name. |
Provisioning Model |
Select a production mode for the SaaS product as required. |
Product URL |
You must set this parameter when the Provisioning Model parameter is set to SPI.
Enter the endpoint of the SPI that you have developed based on the SPI specifications
provided by Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. Alibaba Cloud Marketplace uses this endpoint
to call the SPI. If the endpoint is incorrect, the SaaS product cannot be activated.
|
License Active URL |
You must set this parameter when the Provisioning Model parameter is set to License.
Enter the URL of the product activation page.
|
- Enter basic information about the SaaS product and click Next.
Parameter |
Description |
Product Logo |
Upload product images to show on the product list page and product details page. The
recommended image size is 200*150 pixels.
|
Short Description |
Enter the short description of the SaaS product. This description appears on the product
list page in Alibaba Cloud Marketplace. We recommend that you enter no more than 200
characters.
|
Product Highlights |
Enter the detailed description of the SaaS product. This description appears on the
top of the product details page. We recommend that you describe your SaaS product
as detailed as possible.
|
Product Description |
Describe your SaaS product in detail with rich text. If you want to use an image in
the product description, drag the image to the rich text editing box.
|
Product Certifications |
Optional. Upload certificates of the SaaS product, such as the intellectual property
certificate, patent certificate, and special certificates, to increase customers'
trust in the SaaS product.
|
User Guide |
Upload the help document of the SaaS product. The operational staff of Alibaba Cloud
Marketplace will check the user guide when reviewing your SaaS product. The user guide
must be in PDF format and cannot exceed 10 MB.
|
Refund Policy |
Enter the refund terms and contact information. |
Support Offered |
Enter after-sales support information, such as the support that you can provide and
the time period during which the support is available.
|
- Enter business information about the SaaS product and click Next.
Parameter |
Description |
Product Category |
Select the category of the SaaS product.
|
SEO for Your Product |
Specify the search keywords and description for the SaaS product. This increases the
visibility of the SaaS product in search results of third-party search engines such
as Google.
|
- Enter sales information about the SaaS product and click Next.
Parameter |
Description |
Sales Mode |
- Package: The SaaS product is sold in a one-off manner and does not require renewal
in the future. Within the validity period of the SaaS product, customers can log on
to the Alibaba Cloud Marketplace console to use the SaaS product.
- Subscription: Customers subscribe to the SaaS product and are billed periodically.
They receive renewal notifications before their subscriptions expire. If a customer
wants to continue using the SaaS product, the customer must renew the subscription.
|
SKU Name |
Enter a custom name. |
SKU Price |
Enter a price based on the pricing policy. |
Duration of Validity |
You must set this parameter when the Pricing Plan parameter is set to Package.
Enter a validity period based on the validity policy.
|
Free Trial |
You must set this parameter when the Pricing Plan parameter is set to Subscription.
Specify whether to allow users to try the SaaS product for free based on the sales
policy.
|
- Enter the user agreement and click Next.
Customers must agree to this agreement before purchasing the SaaS product.
Review an SaaS product
After you enter the product information and submit the SaaS product, the operational
staff of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace review your SaaS product. The review process includes
category review, ISV self-test, and feature review.
- The operational staff of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace review the category selected for
the SaaS product.
The operational staff of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace check whether your product information
is configured properly, whether the price is reasonable, and whether the category
is correct.
- You self-test the SaaS product.
After the category review is passed, the SaaS product enters the Hiding state. Alibaba Cloud Marketplace sends you an email, instructing you to self-test
the SaaS product. For more information, see Self-test SaaS products.
- The operational staff of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace review the features of the SaaS
product.
After you self-test your SaaS product, the operational staff of Alibaba Cloud Marketplace
review the features of the product. After the feature review is passed, the SaaS product
is published.