Order Management Handbook

Welcome to the Order Management Handbook

The Order Management page outlines the goals, tasks, and standard operating guidelines for each regional team. Here you will find more information about our KPIs, SLAs, and best practices for working with our team.

For an in depth overview of Opportunity Approval Booking Requirements, please review the Sales Order Processing page.

What We Do

The GitLab Order Management team is supported by several key internal teams, including Deal Desk, Billing, and Fulfillment:

• Deal Desk is responsible for the Opportunity Approval and Booking Process.
• Fulfillment manages the Initial License Delivery process.
• Billing and Deal Desk collaborate on Order and Subscription reconciliations.

This cross functional team serves as the primary point of contact for any inquiries related to opportunity booking requirements, our bookings policy, and the processes involved in fulfilling an order.

Daily Tasks:

• Approve in-region opportunities for booking (7-Closing stage)
• Resolve order issues to ensure deals are booked correctly and accurately
• Monitor license delivery status for newly closed opportunities
  • Where automation fails, work directly with Support Engineering to send licenses to customers
  • Catalog and detail systemic failures - work with Product to advocate for long-term resolution

Weekly Tasks:

• Review Renewal/Subscription Discrepancies
  • Reconcile duplicate renewal opportunities
  • Create missing renewal opportunities
  • Ensure ARR Basis is correct on renewal opportunities

Monthly Tasks:

• Bookings reconciliations as needed

Ad-Hoc/Ongoing Tasks:

• Partner with Deal Desk to improve/streamline quote to cash processes
• Partner with Billing Operations to improve/streamline Booking <> Billing processes
• Partner with Product + Support Engineering to improve/streamline License Fulfillment
• Partner with cross-functional teams to implement new routes to market

Key Processes & Documentation

• Bookings Policy
• Opportunity Approval/Booking Requirements
• Initial License Fulfillment & Delivery
• Subscription Management
• Sales Order Processing Handbook

Key Reports:

• DD + OM Cases / Average First Response
• Closed Won Opps Per Region
• Closed Won Opps Per Team Member
• Opportunity Rejections

Out of Scope

Order Management is focused on Opportunity Approvals, License Fulfillment and Subscription Management. The following tasks are outside the role and responsibility of our team. Please reach out to Deal Desk for assistance with the following:

• Assistance with building non-standard Quotes
• Troubleshooting Quote Configuration
• Complex/Non-standard Deal Structure
• Deal Structure Approval Guidance
• Month End / Quarter End Reconciliation
• Discount / Payment Term Approval Guidance
• Opportunities below Stage-5

Please review our Job Family for more information regarding the scope of this team.

Who and Where We Are

Regional Support

The Order Management team is located around the world and will be available during standard business hours within most regions. We operate under a Regional Support Model, meaning, each region (EMEA/APAC/AMER) will receive support from a dedicated regional team of Order Management Specialists.

During holidays, or when team members are on PTO, individuals located in a different region may step in to support and ensure appropriate coverage. This is reserved for End of Month/End of Quarter, or other times when the team is short-staffed.

Support will be provided based on the following business hours in the respective region. However, complex/non-standard opportunities that are submitted after 4:30PM local time may be reserved for the following business day.

Our regional teams do not operate on a 24/7 support model. If your opportunity or request is submitted after 4:30PM local time, or outside of standard support hours, it may not be reviewed until the following business day. The only exceptions for this are End of Month/End of Quarter. Support hours and availability will be shared in advance of high volume periods through #field-fyi.

Regional Structure

As noted above, the GitLab Order Management team is supported by several key internal teams, including Deal Desk, Billing, and Fulfillment. For more information on the regional structure of each of those teams, pleae refer to their respective Handbook pages.

Communicating with the Order Management Team

• If support for an Opportunity or a Quote is required prior to submitting for Approval, always use the “Request Support” workflow on the Opportunity Object to create a Case for the team you require support from (e.g. Deal Desk, Billing Ops, etc.) For general questions, please use the #sales-support Slack channel.
• Please note that Cases are not required when submitting an Opportunity or a Quote for Approval. Once an Opportunity or Quote is submitted for Approval, the approving team is notified and an Approval Queue is managed by the team to support processing the Approval.
• If a Quote or an Opportunity is submitted for approval and additional information or action is required by the Order Management team, the supporting team will Chatter the rep on the Opportunity and leave any necessary notes in the Approval Comment.

If support for an Opportunity or a Quote is required prior to submitting for Approval, this can be requested on the Opportunity Object in SFDC, by clicking on the “Request Support” button in the top right hand side of the page layout. Please reference the Requesting Internal Support section in the Handbook for detailed instructions.

For enablement on how to request support by creating a SFDC Case for Deal Desk or Billing, please reference the New Internal Support Request + Quote Approval Processes - 2024-11-21 in HighSpot.

Communication Best Practices

• Only @mention someone directly on a SFDC Case where they are the Case Owner. This ensures our team is working as efficiently as possible and that you are covered in Case the DD team member who replied first is unavailable.
• Direct Chatters on Account or Opportunities to team members will not create a Case in the Order Management teams’ Queues, and therefore will not be prioritized. You may experience a significant delay in response, or no response at all. Please always use the “Request Support” workflow on the Opportunity Object to create a Case for the team you require support from when a Case is required.
• If someone is working on a Case, they will continue to support until the Case is closed. If a Case has been resolved but needs further support from the supporting team, use the “Request Support” workflow on the Opportunity Object to create a new Case. The owning team will determine if the resolved Case should be reopened, or if the newly created Case will be used instead.
• If you add any @ mention tag on an existing Chatter post on a Case by editing it, that action may not generate a notification. If you fail to @ mention someone in your comment, just @ them in the thread instead of editing the comment. Please always use the “Request Support” workflow on the Opportunity Object to create a new Case when your request is not related to an existing open Case.
• Order Management team members monitor their respective Case Queues throughout the day.

Key Performance Indicators

1. Standard Opportunity Approval SLA

Opportunities will be reviewed for all booking requirements within 12 business hours of being Submitted for Approval (Stage 7 - Closing). Your opportunity will be Approved or Rejected by Order Management within 12 business hours of submission. Please note, ultimate closure of a deal is facilitated by the Billing team.

If there are missing booking requirements, or further confirmation is required from the Sales team, the Order Management specialist will tag you directly in Chatter to resolve any outstanding issues.

Please review our Sales Order Processing page for Opportunity Booking Requirements.

2. Regional Support Satisfaction

All regions will receive a Quarterly Customer Satisfaction survey at the beginning of each new quarter. Our team aims for a 92% satisfaction rating for their supported region. This survey is a valuable tool to provide feedback on areas of improvement related to the Quote to Cash lifecyle.

Results from the survey will be used to evaluate team member performance and to identify areas for improvement.

Measuring Regional Support Satisfaction:

• A positive satisfaction rating is determined by measuring the ratio of positive responses to the question: “How would you describe the level of support you received from Deal Desk during Q1?”
• Available responses include:
  • Excellent
  • Good
  • Neutral
  • Poor
  • Very Poor
• Satisfaction rating is determined by the percentage of Excellent, Good, and Neutral responses, as compared to the total number of responses. The outcome in percentage form is the Regional Support Satisfaction rating.

3. Opportunity Approval Accuracy and Efficiency

Our team aims for an Approval Accuracy of 95% or greater. Meaning, of all opportunities that we submit to Billing for final review / approval, 5% or less will be rejected for missing booking requirements.

Order Management Specialists will be responsible for taking action on feedback received in Quarterly CSAT surveys, as well as improving processes related to common opportunity rejections, whether it be through documentation, training, or system improvements. The goal is to reduce time to approval, improve efficiency and maintain a high level of accuracy for all approvals.

Key Performance Indicators: Results

To review quarterly KPI results, see: Deal Desk & Order Management KPI - Results

Opportunity Approval Process

Order Management reviews every Sales Assisted opportunity prior to booking. All opportunities must meet our standard opportunity booking requirements. An opportunity will be rejected if it is missing components necessary for booking.

Opportunity Prioritization

All opportunities in the Approval Queue are prioritized based on the following:

1. Start Date
2. Revenue Generation
3. Order of Submission

The Order Management team will make every effort to ensure all opportunities submitted at Month End and Quarter End are reviewed and approved in the same month. Please do not tag for urgent review during End of Month or End of Quarter.

Escalation Path for Opportunity Review

Approvals that are urgent, customer impacting, or critical to buisness may be prioritized upon request. If the opportunity has been submitted after Standard Support hours, you may escalate the opp for a different regional team to review in the #sales-support Slack channel. You may also tag regional Deal Desk Managers for review and assist in delegating the case.

Opportunities raised for urgent review must be business critical. Opportunities that are routinely escalated out of individual convenience instead of legitimate urgency will be addressed with Sales Management.

Opportunity Approval Workflow

graph LR;
    A[Signed Order Form/PO<br>attached to Opp] --> |Submit for Approval|B[Order Mgmt Reviews<br>Opportunity<br>Requirements];
    B --> |Order Mgmt<br>Approved|C[Finance Review];
    B --> |Order Mgmt<br>Rejected|D(Sales Resolves<br>Missing Opportunity<br>Requirements);
    D --> |Submit Opp<br>For Approval|B
    C --> F[Opportunity<br>Closed-Won!<br>Congrats! ];
    F --> G[License Fulfillment <br>Order Mgmt Ensures License Delivery<br> ] ;

License Delivery Review Process

As of FY23, the Order Management team confirms license delivery on all newly Closed Won self-managed deals.

Background

The License Delivery Review Process is a new process created to ensure that all self-managed deals result in license fulfillment. The goals of this process are to (1) Improve customer satisfaction by ensuring licenses are delivered in a timely manner, (2) Improve Sales efficiency by reducing time spent by sellers to chase license delivery, and (3) Prevent revenue recognition issues caused by delayed license delivery to customers.

In Scope:

• The Order Management team will review each Closed Won, sales-assisted self-managed deal to ensure initial license delivery after opportunity closure.
• If the Order Management team determines that the license was not delivered after initial opportunity closure, the team will open a ticket with Support Engineering to request manual delivery of the license to the customer.

Out of Scope:

• The Order Management team is not customer facing, and will not speak directly to the customer regarding order or license issues.
• The goal of this review is to ensure initial delivery is correct. The Order Management team will not handle requests relating to:
  • SaaS entitlements
  • Self-Managed licenses that fail when applied to the customer’s instance
  • Self-Managed licenses that were delivered, but are not accepted by the GitLab instance
  • Self-Managed license split requests
  • Self-Managed license re-send requests
  • Self-Managed additional license send requests

For assistance with Out of Scope license requests, please open an Issue with the Support Engineering Team.

Process Workflow

1. Order Management team member approves opportunity
2. Billing team member approves opportunity, resulting in Closed Won stage.
3. Each day, Order Management team members review regional self-managed opportunity report. For each newly closed self-managed opportunity, Order Management reviews license inbox to determine whether license was delivered via automation.
4. If a license has been delivered, Order Management populates delivery date into “License Delivery Date” opportunity field.
5. If a license has not been delivered, Order Management opens a ticket with Support Engineering to request manual delivery of the license to the Sold To contact from the opportunity’s primary quote.

(For full process documentation, visit the internal License Delivery Review Wiki)

Subscription/Renewal Management Process

As of FY23, the Order Management team proactively reviews and corrects bad renewal data.

Background

It is important to have clean, correct renewal data - both for forecasting purposes, ATR (Available to Renew, aka ARR Basis) analysis, and general data cleanliness.

Our goal is to maintain 1:1 ratio of Renewal Opportunity to Customer Subscription:

• Every Customer Subscription should link to one open or closed Renewal Opportunity
  • This would not be the case for: Legacy/bad data, automation failures, manual renewal opportunity creation, etc.
• Every Renewal Opportunity should be linked to a Customer Subscription object
  • This would not be the case for: Legacy/bad data, opportunities created prior to this automation’s creation, manual renewal opportunity creation, etc.
• Every Renewal opportunity’s ARR Basis should match the linked Customer Subscription’s Current Subscription CARR (Unless there is a known exception - i.e. Contract Resets)
• Every Renewal opportunity’s Start Date should match the linked Customer Subscription’s Current Term End Date (Unless there is a known exception - i.e. Contract Resets) Duplicate renewal opportunities should be marked as such and disconnected from any Customer Subscription.

Process Overview

On an ongoing basis, the Order Management team will review discrepancy reports to correct bad data as described above. (For full process documentation, visit the internal Subscription Management Wiki)

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