Rate management manual

THE MANUAL ON THE RATE MANAGEMENT IS CURRENTLY BEING WRITTEN AND MAY NOT BE COMPLETE OR 100% UP TO DATE YET. PLEASE EXCUSE OUR DUST.

This table is used to configure Customer rate plans. Every record contains settings for unique pair Customer - Rate plan.

• Status - lets you easily enable/disable a record.
• Customer - choose a Customer from the drop-down Carriers table.
• Rate plan - choose a Rate plan from the drop-down Rate plans table.
• Amendment template - choose an Amendment template from the drop-down table. It is used to generate .xlsx files to send to customers in amendments.
• Email template - choose an Email template from the drop-down table. It is used to set the format and additional recipients (TO, CC, BCC) of emails with rate amendments.
• TO emails for Rate amendments - comma-separated list of emails to send rate amendments to, in TO field.
• CC emails for Rate amendments - comma-separated list of emails to send rate amendments to, in CC field.
• BCC emails for Rate amendments - comma-separated list of emails to send rate amendments to, in BCC field.
• Add Account manager - add an account manager email to one of the address fields.
• CSV template - choose an CSV template from the drop-down table. It is used to generate CSV files to upload to an external billing.
• Ext billing Customer - enter or choose from the drop-down table an external billing customer id for which to upload rates automatically (if supported).
• Ext billing Rate plan - enter or choose from the drop-down table an external billing rate plan id for which to upload rates automatically (if supported).
• Comment - just a comment.

The Change deck is a very working place where you start the Customer rate generation process. The table contains change actions that should be performed with Areas, Codes and Rates depends on the Change type.

• Status - let you easily enable/disable the record.
• Rate plans - choose one or several Rate plans from the drop-down table for which the Area RATE change should be done. It can be left empty.
• Rate plan groups - choose one or several Rate plan groups from the drop-down table for which the Area RATE change should be done. It can be left empty.
• Code deck - choose a Code deck from the drop-down table for which the Area or Code change should be done.
• Change type - choose one of the following change type:
• Area RATE - changes the rate of the area in the chosen Rate plans.
• Area name - renames the area in the chosen Code deck.
• Area add - adds an area to the chosen Code deck.
• Area delete - deletes the area from the chosen Code deck.
• Code add - adds one or several codes to the area in the chosen Code deck.
• Code delete - deletes one or several codes from the area in the chosen Code deck.
• Code replace - replaces codes in the area of the chosen Code deck.
• Codes - comma-separated list of codes. Required only for Change types: Area add, Code add, Code delete, Code replace.
• Area name in Code Deck - choose an area from the the drop-down table for which the change should be done.
• Area name NEW - enter a new area name for the changed or created area. Required only for Change types: Area name, Area add.
• Rate from added row - for info only: the rate in the Rate plan that was used to add this Area to a Change deck.
• Rate NEW - enter a new rate to apply to all chosen Rate plans. Required only for Change types: Area RATE.
• Increm. from added row - for info only: the increment in the Rate plan that was used to add this Area to a Change deck.
• Increm. NEW - enter a new increment to apply to all chosen Rate plans. Required only for Change types: Area RATE.
• Custom col 1, 2, 3 - custom columns that can be used for CSV/XLSX files creation during Amendments generation.
• Latest change, User - displays a user that made the last change in the Change deck table.

The Clear table button allows you to empty the Change deck table and start the process anew.



There are several ways available to populate the Change deck table with new records:

• The Add button of the standard Config menu as in the most of other config tables.
• The Add to Change deck option of the context menu in the RateCust module. New records with change type Area RATE will be created in a change deck on basis of the selected rates.
• The Add selected to Change deck and Add filtered to Change deck buttons in the Areas module.
• The Add selected to Change deck button in the Area groups module.
• The Add areas button. Actually this is an assistant to simply get one of two previous ways right from the Change deck module. Clicking OK opens a floating window with filtered by a code deck and an area name Areas or Area groups, from where you can add all filtered or just selected rows using the corresponding buttons.
• The Templates button in the Change deck module. It opens a window where you can load or save Change deck templates. If you frequently repeat the same actions in the Change deck table, it makes sense to save them to a template and load in the future as soon as required. It is possible to add new records from a Change deck to an existing template and vice versa - add new records from a template to an existing Change deck. You can manage it using the corresponding check boxes. You can even load one template to another and merge them. In fact a template is the same Change deck but stored in a separate table and can't be verified as is - you have to load it to the Change deck table before.
• Import changes - load your .csv file with code and rate changes to the Change deck table. In this case you should prepare a .csv file with changes. The following column headers are available:
  • code deck
  • rate plans
  • rate plan groups
  • change type
  • codes
  • area name in code deck
  • area name new
  • rate new
  • increm. new
  • increm. part 1
  • increm. part 2
  • increm. part 3
  For each header you can find the corresponding column in the Change deck table except increm. part 1,2,3. They allows you to substitute the increm. new field and load 3 parts of the billing increment x/y/z in separate columns. You should take into account, that all areas in the uploaded list should be present in the corresponding Code deck. The change type is mandatory for all change types except cases, when the file contains the rate new column. In this case the system automatically determines the change type as Area RATE.
  
  When the file is ready you should just drag-n-drop it to the Change deck table. By the way, you can drop your file to any module of the Rate generation screen, except the Code decks which allows to import codes to a Code deck by itself, and the system automatically will switch you to the Change deck module for the file importing. The system asks you what code deck to use for importing and inform you, if there are some errors detected. When it is successfully completed, you can edit the Change deck with loaded rows and then Verify it as usual.

There is also one additional special way to populate the Change deck table: Generate DEMO change deck. This is useful for learning and demonstration purposes. The system automatically generates records of each change type for a chosen code deck. It may insert several types of errors in order to better understand the way how the system handles them.

Sometimes it is needed to make similar modifications to a bulk of rates at the same time. The Modify rates button is to help in this case. The following options are available in the opened window:

• Apply modifications to - choose to apply modifications to all or only filtered areas.
• Delete chosen NEW rates - the chosen NEW rates will be set to blank, then the add/multiply actions will be applied.
• Add a fixed value to chosen NEW rates - this value will also be set for the chosen blank NEW rates. Negative rates will revert to 0.
• Multiply chosen NEW rates by this value - blank NEW rates out of all chosen will remain blank and will need to be set manually.
• Round final rates to - round final rates to this many digits after the dot (1-8 digits).
• Rounding method - choose one of the following methods: up, down and mathematically.

When you finish with the Change deck filling, you should verify the changes by clicking on the Verify changes button. The system will check correctness of each change record, and if there is an error it will give a pop-up message with a row ID of an incorrect record. Please fix it and click the button once again. If everything is ok, the floating window with the following options will appear:

• Rate plans for Rate changes - choose one or several Rate plans for which the changes will be applied.
• Rate plan groups for Rate changes - choose one or several Rate plan groups. Individual Rate plans and Rate plans in all selected groups are combined.
• If all codes in an area are deleted - what to do with an area if all codes of this area are included in the Code delete change type. Alternatively, you may use the Area delete type to remove an area completely.
• Change one Code deck per batch - allow changes to only one Code deck at each change cycle. If you make changes per each Code deck individually, it is recommended to keep this ON to get warnings if you try to change multiple decks incidentally.
• Dont add new areas/rates - don't automatically add new areas with new rates to a Rate plan if they don't exist in this Rate plan already.
• Active from, overwrite RP template - if not set - the Date template from the Rate plan is used.
• Active from, Date template - choose a Date template to overwrite RP template.
• Active from, Base date, GMT - enter a Base date/time manually or choose it from the drop-down table with preconfigured date presets to add X days to (numbers of days is set in a Date template). Format: 2014-10-24 or 2014-10-24 18:30:00.
• Active from, specific date, GMT - fill in if you want to replace any other date options with an entered value. Format: 2014-10-24 or 2014-10-24 18:30:00.

The Rate plans for Rate changes, Rate plan groups for Rate changes and Active from, Date template options contain a special pointer on the right. Clicking on it sets the previously used value. This is useful if you constantly work with the same Rate plan, Rate plan group or Data template.

Clicking the OK button starts the verification process. When it is completed the Verify module is opened with the verification results.

The Verify table contains the results of the verification of Customer rate changes made in the Change deck. It allows you to check each modification before applying them to the main rate table RateCust and uploading to an external billing system. Most fields in the Verify table are for viewing only allowing you to confirm the verification results, or discover some mistakes/misenters and fix them on the Change deck step. However some of the columns are editable, so that you don't need to come back to the previous step and easily could correct the changes directly in the verification table, if it is possible:

• Rate ID active - main rate table ID of the currently active rate.
• Rate ID future - main rate table ID of the rate that will become active in future.
• Batch active - import or change batch of the currently active rate.
• Batch future - import or change batch of the rate that will become active in future.
• Change batch - change batch ID from the Change log assigned after the first attempt to apply changes, if empty - changes were not applied yet.
• Change deck - Change deck that was verified: either a user change deck, or one of shared Change decks.
• Change deck row - Change deck ID of the row that was converted into this Verify table row.
• Status (Editable) - let you easily enable/disable the record.
• Apply results - results of applying the changes from the Verify table.
• Rate plan - a rate plan which the rate belongs to. It is applicable only if the change type is Area RATE.
• Code deck - a Code deck which the modified code or area belongs to.
• Change type - one of the change types as listed in the Change deck with exception of Replace. Such a record is transformed in the Verify table to either a row of the Code delete type, or a row of the Code add type, or a combination of both types depends on the nature of the code replacement.
• Verification result - result of the most recent Code deck change and comparison to current and future rates.
• Locked active - lock status of the currently active rate.
• Locked future - lock status of the rate that will become active in future.
• Locked NEW (Editable) - new lock status of the rate.
• Codes ADD / DEL - comma-separeted list of codes. Required only for change types: Area add, Code add, Code delete.
• Area name in Code Deck - name of the area in the Code deck for which the changes are made.
• Area ID - ID of the area in the Code deck for which the changes are made.
• Area name NEW - new area name for the change types: Area name, Area add.
• Rate active - currently active rate.
• Rate future - rate that is the latest to become active in future.
• Rate NEW (Editable) - new rate that will be added by this change.
• Rate diff - rate difference between the active and the NEW rate (if active rate dows not exist - the difference between the future and the NEW rate).
• Rate diff, % - rate difference in % between the active and the NEW rate.
• Increm. active - billing increment of the currently active rate.
• Increm. future - billing increment of the rate that is the latest to become active in future.
• Increm. NEW - new billing increment of the rate.
• Active from active, GMT - date/time in GMT from which the current rate/code is active.
• Active from future, GMT - date/time in GMT from which the latest rate/code is active (may be future).
• Active from this change, GMT - date/time in GMT from which this change will be active.
• Active till active, GMT - date/time in GMT which the current rate/code will be active till.
• Active till future, GMT - date/time in GMT which the latest rate/code will be active till.
• Active till NEW, GMT - date/time in GMT which this change will be active till.
• Policy 5g active - processing 5g policy assigned to the currently active rate.
• Policy 5g future - processing 5g policy assigned to the rate that is the latest to become active in future.
• Policy 5g NEW (Editable) - new processing 5g policy assigned to the rate during this change. By default the system sets the 5g policy value for deleted codes and areas to Block.
• Policy ext active - external billing policy assigned to the currently active rate.
• Policy ext future - external billing policy assigned to the rate that is the latest to become active in future.
• Policy ext NEW (Editable) - new external billing policy assigned to the rate during this change. By default, if MVTSII is configured as your external billing system, and you delete the codes via the Change deck table (operations Code delete, Code replace, Area delete), then after you make Verify there will be the parameter Policy ext NEW set to 1, that means yes for Reject calls to this rate.
• Custom 1, 2, 3 current - custom columns of the currently active rate.
• Custom 1, 2, 3 future - custom columns of the rate that is the latest to become active in future.
• Custom 1, 2, 3 NEW (Editable) - new custom columns of the rate.
• Change deck edit, User - displays a user that made the last change in the Change deck table.
• Verify edit, User - displays a user that made the last change in the Verify deck table.
• Latest change, GMT - displays date/time when the last change was made.

The Clear table button allows you to clear data in the table. In this case you have to go back to the Change deck module and verify a change deck once again in order to get data in the Verify table.

When you are done with the verification you can click the Apply changes + Upload button in order to change Customer rates massively for all selected Rate plans and upload rates to an external billing. There are the following options available in the opened window:

• Supersede future rates - disable all rates from the main table that have same codes as the newly loaded rates and that will become active in future. Always done in the current design.
• Include change results to amendments - include results of new to current rates comparison to rate amendments.
• Get a test .xlsx Rate amendment - generate one test .xlsx rate amendment file, no other actions are taken.
• Create .xlsx Rate amendments - generate .xlsx rate amendment files.
• Send emails with .xlsx to customers - send .xlsx rate amendment files to customers.
• Create .csv Rate amendments - generate .csv rate amendment files.
• Send emails with .csv to external billing - send .csv rate amendment files to your billing system.
• Upload new Customer rates to external billing - upload new Customer rates to your billing system (if supported).
• Clear table after this change - clear the Verify table applying the changes.

After clicking OK the system run the applying and generation process. If the system detects errors and misconfiguration, it will give a warning message with error description and abort the process. For example, if you choose Send emails with .xlsx to customers, but the Customer rate plan has a wrong email template configured, you will get the following notification: When the applying process is completed you will get a confirmation with information concerning the uploaded codes, areas and rates. Finally a new record will be created in the Change log table with history of the made changes.

The Change log table contains history of Customer rates changes successfully applied to the main table from the Verify module. So all actions with Customer rates are stored in this table and can be reviewed if required.

• Change batch - change batch ID assigned after the first attempt to apply changes from the Verify table.
• Change deck - Change deck that was applied: either a dedicated User chage deck, or one of the Shared change deck.
• User that applied changes - user that applied the changes in this change batch.
• Apply results - results of applying the changes from the Verify table.
• Change type - displays the list of all the change types that were applied from the Verify table in this change batch.
• Code decks - Code decks for which the changes were applied.
• Rate plans with rate changes - Rate plans for which the rate changes were applied.
• Rate plan count - number of rate plans changed.
• Rows - number of rows in the Verify table for this batch.
• Changes applied to the DB, GMT - date/time in GMT when the changes were applied to the main Customer rate table in the DB.
• All .xlsx files generated, GMT - date/time in GMT when all .xlsx files were generated.
• All .csv files generated, GMT - date/time in GMT when all .csv files were generated.
• All emails to customers sent, GMT - date/time in GMT when all emails were sent to customers.
• All emails to billing sent, GMT - date/time in GMT when all emails were sent to an external billing system.
• All uploads to billing done, GMT - date/time in GMT when all uploads were done to an external billing system.

You may view Change history of a certain change batch by clicking the result field or by double-clicking the row. The table of the floating window contains fields identical to the Verify table. Options View code in Code deck and View in Customer rates of the context menu allow you to easily review, how the changes affected codes and rates accordingly right from the change history.

If one of the following options is checked in the floating window of the Apply changes + Upload button in the Verify module or in the Create Rate amendments button of the current module: Create .xlsx Rate amendments, Send emails with .xlsx to customers, Create .csv Rate amendments, Send emails with .csv to external billing or Upload new Customer rates to external billing, then the system generates an amendment and creates a new record/records in the Amendments table where displays the results and the attendant information concerning the files generation, emails sending and external billing uploading process. A new record created for every combination of a Customer and a Rate plan.

• Request time, GMT - date/time when the amendment request was done via Apply changes + Upload button of the Verify module.
• User - user that initiated the Rate amendment generation.
• Change batch - change batch assigned after each verification.
• Gener ID - ID of a process plus a generation order within the process.
• Customer - Customer for which the amendment was generated.
• Rate plan - Rate plan for which the amendment was generated.
• XLSX generation status - result of the file generation in XLSX format.
• CSV generation status - result of the file generation in CSV format.
• Email to customer status - result of the email sending to the customer.
• Email to billing status - result of the email sending to the external billing system.
• Upload to billing status - result of the uploading to the external billing system.
• XLSX file - link the generated XLSX file which allows you to download it.
• CSV file - link the generated CSV file which allows you to download it.
• Rows count - number of rows (codes) in the Rate amendment.
• Changes applied to the DB, GMT - date/time in GMT when the changes were applied to the main Customer rate table in the DB.
• XLSX file generated, GMT - date/time in GMT when the .xlsx file was generated.
• CSV file generated, GMT - date/time in GMT when the .csv file was generated.
• Email to customers time, GMT - date/time in GMT when the email was sent to the customer.
• Email to billing time, GMT - date/time in GMT when the email was sent to the external billing system.
• Upload to billing time, GMT - date/time in GMT when the upload was done to the external billing system.
• Customer email TO - contents of the TO field of the email sent to the customer.
• Customer email CC - contents of the CC field of the email sent to the customer.
• Customer email BCC - contents of the BCC field of the email sent to the customer.
• Billing email TO - contents of the TO field of the email sent to the external billing system.
• Billing email CC - contents of the CC field of the email sent to the external billing system.
• Billing email BCC - contents of the BCC field of the email sent to the external billing system.
• XLSX generation time, sec - time of the .xlsx file generation.
• RAM, Mbyte - max RAM used for the .xlsx file generation.

Sometimes you need to generate an amendment without performing changes in the Change deck module. For example, if the process of uploading to an external billing system was not completed successfully, and you have to repeat it. In this case the Create Rate amendments button is available. It opens a window which allows you to choose certain Rate plans or groups for which to generate amendments with the identical options as in the Apply changes + Upload of the Verify module.

This module provides a feature when different users can work with the same Shared change decks, not at the same time, but one after another. Every user can view a shared deck simultaneously, but editing is only allowed to one user at a time. You are able to add a new deck and assign users that allowed or denied to view/edit it by means of the Users allowed viewing / editing and the Users denied viewing / editing fields. If you click on View deck or Edit deck - this deck will open in a separate window for viewing or editing correspondingly. You may open several decks this way, plus you have your individual deck in the Change deck module and can edit all of them at once if needed. Currently editing User displays a user that blocked this change deck for editing currently.