In our Zuora Central Platform Series, we are excited to share with you the new functionality and how it’s being leveraged across subscription businesses.

As the Subscription Economy continues to expand, so do the complex needs of subscription businesses as they grow and scale.

Zuora customers who started on our platform five years ago are experiencing five to ten times the amount of accounts and subscriptions. This translates to an exponential increase in rate plan charge tiers, invoices, adjustments, and more!

Data Query, part of the Zuora Central Platform, has adapted to help customers achieve performance at scale.

In the Summer of 2019, Data Query’s first Beta customer adopted the tool with a set of queries, a SQL editor, an API endpoint, and Zuora’s command: “Select * and Go!”. A couple of months later, as Zuora customers were slowly introduced to sneak peaks of the tool in Workflow and Early Adopter enablement, an API was no longer enough for our power-hunger SQL users. Developers were in need of a user interface with the power of SQL and the transparency into Zuora’s databases; treating Zuora’s system like their very own to customize all data access to fit their every need.

Zuora’s microservice architecture has allowed customers to extend their business and scale like never before. In order to accommodate this architecture, the Zuora Central Platform needed a robust query engine to blend data across the system. Data Query is built with PrestoDB: a distributed SQL engine for big data. This strong foundation allows users to query data fast, scanning millions of records, and exporting hundreds of thousands of records in minutes.

Let’s take a look at how businesses are leveraging Data Query to understand their Zuora tenant and unlock their data across three areas:

• Usability: Exposing the tool on Zuora’s user interface improved usability across the board, giving the non-API user a look into their Zuora data with SQL-grade queries.

• Queries: Where users were downloading three to five Data Sources, calculating vlookups on data in Excel, and then finding their insights, users can now write one query to access all of their data across Zuora.

• Function Library: In combination with the available JOINs, SQL’s function library is another driving force. Users are able to write on the fly data transformations to accomplish tasks like running Workflows for Custom Revenue Recognition or building reports that their Billing team is running 15+ times a day!

We continue to make improvements to the features. In the coming months, look for features like saving and sharing queries, enhanced UI visualizations, and improved limitations for large scale tables. By extending the functionality of the Zuora Central Platform we are providing our customers with a solid technology foundation so they have the agility to extend subscription management capabilities at scale.

To learn more about Data Query visit our Knowledge Center, Developer Center, and Community Forums, and read our latest Zuora Central Platform press release here. Check out other blogs from our Zuora Central Platform Series: Custom Objects, Audit Trail, and Zuora Central Sandbox.