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Usage Buckets are configured in Settings / Usage Rating / Bucket & Share Plans / Share Plans

Overview

Share plans provide a fixed or variable pool of usage which can be utilized by specified services (devices). Before a share plan can be activated it must have at least one share plan bucket configured under it. Share plan buckets determine the type of usage that will be shared (data, messaging, airtime, etc.) and other usage contribution, usage consumption, and usage tiering options. Multiple buckets can be configured under a share plan allowing you to share various classes of usage all in one plan.

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The Share Plans panel on the left of this screen allows you to select existing plans to view and edit on the edit share plan panel to the right. Actions are also available in this panel which are shown as icons above the Filter text box. The available actions are described below.

Actions

Icon

Description

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Deletes the selected share plan if not in use (added to an account)

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Adds a new share plan

Share Plans List

The list on the left of the screen shows share plans that are currently setup.

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The information in this panel reflects the currently selected share plan. From here you can change plan details (fields will display a red left border if a value is required and purple text if the field is read-only and cannot be modified).

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  • Name: the name of the plan. This can be for internal plan description or a customer facing name (e.g. displayed on invoices if desired)

  • Active: if set this plan can be added to an account, if disabled this plan won't be available when adding a share plan to an account. Deactivating a plan here will not affect accounts which are already setup with the share plan

  • Description: a description of the plan for internal purposes or for presentation on reports and/or invoices (depending on your report and invoice configuration)

  • Share Level: allows you to enable sharing at an account level or shared at a usage invoicer level. If set to 'Account' only services on the particular account will be able to participate in the plan. If set to 'Usage Invoicer' then all accounts that are configured to pass usage charges on to the usage invoicer account will be able to participate in the plan (assuming the accounts in question have services that are permitted to the participate in the share plan)

  • Participating Type: the type of entity (service or package) which can participate in (be configured on) the share plan. For instance, if you select the type 'Package' here then you could configure the plan so that services within Package X are permitted to consume up to 1 GB of data from a share plan bucket. Additionally, you could have 100 MB of usage added to the same share plan bucket each time that Package X gets added to an account under the share plan. Only the type selected in this field can be added to the plan, you cannot configure both service and package entities to participate in the same share plan

  • Selling Service: a service that needs to be created, added to a package and then added to an account in order to activate the share plan

  • Usage Billing Frequency & Unit: defines how frequently rated usage applied to the plan is billed (e.g. every 3 months). Depending on the plan configuration this interval will also determine how frequently share plan buckets are reset (e.g. if a 1 month variable share plan with a recurring data bucket has ten services contributing 1 MB each to the plan, then when a new month is reached (new share plan period) a total of 10 MB of bucketed usage will be set on the share plan bucket for the ten participating services to use)

  • Convert Data to Binary: When this setting is enabled the share plan bucket's tier units will be configurable as binary units (kibibytes, mebibytes, etc.). When this setting is disabled a data bucket's tier units will be configurable in decimal units (kilobytes, megabytes, etc.). This setting will be disabled when configuring buckets that do not support data usage (i.e. buckets configured with a Unit Type of ‘Time’ or ‘Count’). This also affects how the data units are shown on the Account Share Plan screen.

Participating Services tab

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The Participating Services tab allows you to view, add, remove or services/packages that can participate in the share plan. Services/packages can be specified by selecting a particular service/package from the product catalog.

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Guides

Adding Share Plans

  1. In the Share Plans panel click the (blue star) icon

  2. Under the Add Share Plan heading on the right specify the plan details

  3. To add participating services/packages click either in the Service or Package field, select a service/package and click the Add+ button to the right of the field

  4. When you have finished adding participating services/packages click the Save button

  5. To finish configuring your share plan add a bucket to it by clicking the (blue star) icon next to the share plan name. The help on the share plan buckets screen will walk you through the share plan bucket setup process

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Editing Share Plans

  1. Under the Share Plans heading on the left click the share plan you wish to edit

  2. Under the Edit Share Plan heading on the right modify the plan details

  3. Click Save when finished making changes

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Deleting Share Plans

Info

Note: Share plans that have been added to accounts are in use and cannot be deleted. If you need to disable a share plan so that it can no longer be added to accounts simply uncheck the 'Active' option on the plan and save the change.

  1. Select the share plan you wish to delete in the list on the left under the Share Plans heading

  2. Under the same Share Plans heading click the (blue star) icon

  3. On the confirmation dialog click Yes to confirm that the selected plan should be deleted

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Adding Buckets to Share Plans

  1. Under the Share Plans heading on the left click the plan you wish to add a bucket to

  2. To the right of the share plan name click the (blue star) icon. Reference the help on the bucket screen for further details on share plan bucket configuration