As of January 2021, you can use the Cloud Channel API to create customers, entitlements, and Cloud Billing subaccounts. If you currently use the Cloud Billing API to handle these tasks, we recommend that you use the Cloud Channel API instead.
This guide introduces the basics of customer and entitlement creation using the Cloud Channel API.
Before you begin
Complete the Cloud Channel API codelab before you continue. This will make sure your development environment is set up to follow code samples and other codelabs.
Summary of changes
If you currently use the Cloud Billing API
billingAccounts.create
endpoint to create a customer's Cloud Billing subaccount, you must
start using the
customers.create()
endpoint, followed by the
entitlements.create()
endpoint, to create a new Cloud Billing subaccount for a customer.
To manage IAM roles, you must use existing Cloud Billing API endpoints.
Creating a customer
When you're ready to create a new customer with the Cloud Channel API, use the
customers.create()
endpoint. Make sure to have the following customer information before you start.
- Primary domain
- Organization name
- Address
- Postal code (if applicable)
- Country code
After you create a customer, you need to keep the response's name
field secure as it is a unique identifier for your customer.
Creating an entitlement
After you create a customer, you can provision entitlements for them by
specifying an offer with the entitlements.create() and operations.get()
endpoints. The Cloud Billing subaccount's name, returned as
provisionedService.provisioningId, can be used with Cloud Billing API
and BigQuery export.
Creating an entitlement with a Google Cloud offer will also create a Cloud Billing subaccount.
For more detailed instructions on customer and entitlement creation, including code samples in multiple languages, complete the Google Cloud end-to-end-provisioning codelab.