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Bill Run Changes:
The 'Billing' option on bill runs is now named 'Bill Packages'. Unlike the old 'Billing' option 'Bill Packages' will not bill usage, only one-time or recurring user-package charges will be billed when this option is set
The 'Bill Usage Only' option is now named 'Bill Usage'. This option will observe the usage bill day defined on the 'Usage Billing Frequency' account component. See Usage Billing Changes below for more information on this component
Added the options 'Start Email Message' and 'End Email Message' to the bill run screen which allow you to send notification emails to an owner contact when a bill run starts or finishes
See the Bill Run Configuration article for more information on these settings
Usage Billing Changes:
Every account in EngageIP will display a 'Usage Billing Frequency' component
The Usage Billing Frequency component determines when usage will be billed and by default will be configured to 'OnMyBillDay' to bill usage when user-packages are billed
The Usage Billing Frequency component prior to this release was known as the 'Usage Billing Type' component. Any account setup with the 'Usage Billing Type' component will maintain their component configuration when they are updated to the Usage Billing Frequency component in EngageIP 8.6.0
For more information on usage billing changes and configuration see the Usage Billing Configuration KB article
Added a new option to the Configuration page called 'Maximum Unbilled Usage Period'. This setting restricts which usage records will be processed based on their age, preventing old usage from being accidentally processed. The system default for this value is 3 months, but it can be modified as needed. See the EngageIP Configuration Page Overview for more information
Alert: Usage Next Bill Date is not reset when voiding an invoice. If you need to reset the the Usage Next Bill Date you will need to edit the Usage Billing Frequency component on the usage invoicer account and manually change the date. For more information on voiding invoices see the Managing Transactions – Debits, Credits, Refunds, Void / Voiding Invoices on Accounts article
Bill Group and Invoicer Changes:
Accounts must be in the same bill group as their invoicer and usage invoicer
New accounts will be set to the same bill group as their owner if the owner's 'OwnerParentAccountBillingType' is set to a 'Bill Owner.../Bill Branded Owner...' option
Invoicer options on an account's tools tab will be read-only if the account is under an owner that is setup to be billed (i.e. 'OwnerParentAccountBillingType' is set to a 'Bill Owner.../Bill Branded Owner...' option)
See the Bill Group Configuration and Invoicer Configuration articles for more information
Bill Day Changes:
An account's bill day must be in sync with the bill day of the account's invoicer
An account's bill day will be a read-only value if that account is not its own invoicer
Changing the bill day of an account setup as an invoicer will update the bill day of all accounts configured to use that invoicer. This bill day change is propagated down via an EngageIP job
UDR Bucket Changes:
UDR Bucket and UDR Biller Creation Changes:
A new EngageIP job called 'UDRBillerBulkInsert' will create all buckets and back-end billing objects (UDR Billers) as needed in EngageIP
The UDRBillerBulkInsert job will run each day at 1:00 am but can be rescheduled to run at a different time if desired
When the scheduled UDRBillerBulkInsert job runs it will determine if any billers or buckets need to be created over the next two days, if so those billers and buckets will be created
The UDRBillerBulkInsert job is also triggered when creating a UUIH. Typically UUIH.Create events occur when adding a user-package, although where UUIH creation happens depends on your particular EngageIP implementation
Buckets will no longer be created during billing, the UDRBillerBulkInsert job will handle this task before billing runs
Bucket effective and expiration dates have new restrictions to prevent invalid configurations. See the Enhancements section below for details on specific changes
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Time period specific buckets:
Added the ability to configure a time period on buckets. Buckets configured to a specified time period will only be deducted from during the specified time period (e.g. evenings, weekends, etc.)
See the UDR Buckets article for more information
Connection charges:
Added the ability to configure a connection charge on rates. This charge is applied before the minimum charge (if any) is calculated
See the Setting up UDR Rate Groups, Rates and Rate Plans article for more information
Rating/bucketing past usage for canceled packages/services:
Modified the rating engine to rate and bucket past usage for canceled packages and optional services. Usage found which occurred prior to cancelation will trigger biller/bucket creation if required. Buckets created for this purpose will expire quickly (61 seconds) so that only past usage is bucketed
Added Job to create future buckets:
Removed restrictions that did not allow user-packages and user-buckets to be set with future effective dates. A new job called FutureUDRBillerBulkInsertJob will run daily evaluating user-packages and creating billers and buckets for user-packages/user-buckets if their effective dates are three days into the future
File upload and custom processing:
Added the ability to upload files in the AdminPortal and execute jobs (custom code) to process the file. This feature can be used to execute any file processing you require, e.g. as another method to process usage files. The upload interface can be found under the Tools tab > 'File Processing Upload'
Reports with file upload details can be found under the Reports tab > FileProcessing heading (if the proper role permissions are enabled to view them)
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