Subscription Plans

What are Subscription Plans?

Subscriptions control access to data products as governed by the permissions contained in a subscription plan. These plans are applied by data product owners and define the following:

General Information

• Plan name: The title of the subscription plan used for identification and selection.

• Description: An optional field to provide additional context or details about what the plan includes for potential producers using the template.

Scope

• Visibility: Defines who can see and discover the plan (e.g., restricted to Internal Org or open to Everyone).

• Subscription users: Determines the scale of the subscription, ranging from a Single user to Multi-user groups or Whole organizations.

Subscription and T&Cs

• Subscription method: Sets the "onboarding" flow:

  • Self-serve — users gain instant access.

  • Self-serve with Payment — requires completion of a payment before access is granted.

  • Request approval — access is granted only after a manual review by the product owner.

  • Managed — access is manually assigned by an administrator.

• Pricing: Controls whether plan pricing is Enabled or Disabled. If Self-serve with Payment is selected, pricing is always enabled and only the One-time option is available.

• Price: If pricing is enabled, defines the specific amount and billing frequency displayed to the consumer (e.g., £10 /month).

• Terms & Conditions: An optional dropdown to link specific legal or usage agreements that users must acknowledge before subscribing.

Usage and Duration

• Usage: Checkboxes to define specific permissions granted by the plan, such as Access, Data sharing, Export, Query, and Spaces.

• Data lineage: Whether a subscription to a data product or asset is required by users of derived data products or assets.

• Duration: Specifies how long the subscription lasts:

  • Perpetual — the subscription does not expire and remains active indefinitely. (Previously called "Renewable".)

  • Fixed duration — enter the number of days. Access will automatically expire after this period. (Previously called "Trial".)

• User re-subscription after expiry: Controls whether a user can sign up again once their current term ends, which is particularly useful for managing trial periods.

Data Filtering

• Enable: Filter the rows and columns of tabular data at the subscription level, allowing Producers to create multiple variations of a single product.

• Disable: If disabled, the plan will not allow for row and column filtering.

A user with an Organization Administrator role can create templates for Subscription Plans and Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) that are available for all product owners within the organization to apply. Alternatively, users with the Ecosystem Administrator role can create templates that are viewed and applied across all Organizations on the platform.

Information on how Subscriptions are viewed by Data Consumers can be found here.

Information on how Subscriptions are managed by Administrators can be found here.

Information on how they are applied by Product Owners can be found here.

Finally, information on how Product Subscription templates are created at the Organization and Ecosystem level can be found below.

Step-by-Step Guide: Creating a Subscription Plan Template

To begin, click on the Organization logo on the navigation bar, select the Plan templates tab, and click Create plan template.

Clicking a template name in the template list now takes you directly into edit mode, rather than opening a view-only modal.

Step 1: Identity and Description

• Plan name: Enter a name for the template.

  • Recommendation: Think of the outcome you want when the subscription is applied (e.g., "Full Access Internal").

• Description (Optional): Enter a description to provide context for the subscriber.

Step 2: Define the Scope

• Visibility: Select the default scope for the plan.

  • Internal: Only enables users inside your organization to use the template.

  • Everyone: Allows users inside and outside your organization to use the plan.

  • Custom: Allows producers to assign Plan visibility to specific organizations and users.

• Subscription users: Define how many users the plan applies to.

  • Whole organization — when a user subscribes, everyone in their organization gets a subscription.

  • Single user — the subscription is assigned to one user only and cannot be transferred.

  • Multi-user — the subscription provides multiple seats that can be assigned and re-assigned to different users.

Step 3: Subscription and T&Cs

• Subscription method: Select how a request to activate the plan is handled. The available methods depend on your platform configuration and any ecosystem-level restrictions set by your Ecosystem Administrator.

  • Self-serve — users gain instant access. Best for trials.

  • Self-serve with payment — requires selection of a payment configuration. The consumer clicks "Pay now" and is redirected to an external payment provider to complete the transaction. Best for end-to-end consumer transactions.

  • Request approval — requires selection of an approval configuration. The consumer clicks "Request now" and awaits approval from the product owner before gaining access.

  • Managed — access is manually assigned to users by an administrator.

• Pricing:

  • Select Enable pricing to define a default price and frequency (e.g., One-time). Note: if Self-serve with payment is selected, pricing is always enabled.

  • Select Disable pricing if the plan is free or you do not want pricing to be visible on the platform.

• Terms & Conditions (Optional): Select a set of terms from the dropdown list.

  • Note: You must create Terms & Conditions separately before they appear in this list.

Step 4: Usage and Duration

• Usage: Check the boxes to define the allowed actions for this plan: Access, Data sharing, Export, Query, or Spaces.

• Data lineage: Select Enforce or Do not enforce to define the required subscription lineage when creating new assets on the platform.

• Duration:

  • Perpetual: The subscription does not expire and remains active indefinitely.

  • Fixed duration: Enter the number of days. Access will automatically expire after this period, and subscribers will no longer be able to use the data in a Space or Export it.

• User re-subscription after expiry:

  • Allow re-subscription: Users can sign up again once the term ends.

  • Do not allow re-subscription (Trial): Prevents users from repeatedly signing up (typically used for trial restricted access).

Step 5: Data Filtering

• Decide if this plan will enable or disable row and column level filtering at the subscription level.

Configure Template Options

Ecosystem Administrators have configuration controls to disable certain options for subscription plan template configuration. When used, these controls apply to both Ecosystem and Organization level subscription plan templates. The options that can be disabled are:

• Request Approval Enabled

• Self Serve Enabled

• Self Serve with Payment Enabled

• Managed subscriptions

• Currency

To configure, Ecosystem Administrators must add the following in their Metadata section:

Key: subscriptionTemplateSettings

Values:

{
  "requestApprovalEnabled": true,
  "selfServeEnabled": true,
  "managedEnabled": true,
  "selfServeWithPaymentEnabled": true,
  "currency": "USD"
}

Note that any existing subscription plan templates and subscriptions already created will still retain their current settings — there will be no change in their behaviour. These should be archived and replaced by new subscription plan templates, or updated manually.

If an existing subscription plan template is edited, the disabled options will not be available and new options must be selected.

Enabling Custom Plan Visibility

To make the Custom visibility option available to producers, Ecosystem Administrators must enable it in the ecosystem settings panel:

1. Navigate to the Ecosystem Settings panel.

2. Under the Advanced tab, select Metadata.

3. Find the customPlanVisibility key and set it to true.

Subscription Lineage

To protect data from being redistributed without permission, Organization Administrators can configure subscription lineage rules. Subscription lineage determines whether usage restrictions will carry over when an asset is used to create a new, engineered, or automated data product.

When you add assets to a product, the platform checks the lineage of those assets to identify any enforced subscription requirements:

• No Enforced Lineage: If the assets (or products containing those assets) do not enforce lineage, subscribers can access the product without needing additional subscriptions.

• Enforced Lineage: If any assets in the product have enforced subscription lineage, subscribers will also be required to have access to the original source products. If they do not, they will be blocked from accessing the data in Spaces and Export.

How It Appears to Users

• When a user has permission to use an asset with enforced subscription lineage, the asset appears in their My Collection.

• If the user is missing a required subscription, a "subscriptions required" message will appear on the asset.

Important Considerations

Before publishing a product:

• Review the lineage of included assets to avoid unintended access restrictions.

• Be cautious when changing the lineage of a published product. Doing so requires all subscribers to:

  • Re-subscribe to a new plan.

  • Re-create any work associated with the previous product version in a new Space.

Proper planning of subscription lineage ensures controlled access and prevents unauthorized redistribution of valuable data assets.