Configure Share Plans

Overview

Share plans provide a fixed or variable pool of usage which can be utilized by specified services (devices). To be active share plans must have at least one bucket sub element 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.

When share plans are added to accounts they will take effect immediately so long as buckets are configured on the plan. Services/service types that are specified in the share plan configuration participate (contribute usage and/or consume usage) in the plan. Usage buckets that exist on a service/account/parent account with usage left to consume will be used up first before usage is applied to a share plan (e.g. account-service buckets, account buckets and buckets shared from a parent account are prioritized for use before usage is applied to a share plan).

Prerequisites

• Services need to be configured before share plans can be setup

• Base Buckets need to be setup in order to configure share plan buckets

Share Plans Panel

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
	Clones the selected share plan
	Deletes the selected share plan if not in use (added to an account)
	Adds a new share plan

Share Plans List

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

Share plan buckets under the plan are also displayed in this list. The  icon next to the share plan name allows you to add additional buckets to the share plan. When you select a share plan or a bucket the details of the selected plan/bucket will be displayed in the Edit panel to the right. These details are explained below.

Edit Share Plan Panel

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).

Share Plan Fields and Options:

• 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)

• Default Service Status Type: this is a back end setting that should not be in the UI (will be removed)

• 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/service types that are permitted to the participate in the share plan)

• Selling Service: the service that needs to be added to the account in order to activate the share plan

• Usage Billing Frequency & Unit: defines how frequently non-bucketed usage against the plan is billed (e.g. every 3 months). Depending on the plan configuration this interval will also determine how frequently usage contributions from services are replenished (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 after billing for share plan usage a total of 10 MB will be contributed to the plan from the ten participating services)

Participating Services tab

The Participating Services tab allows you to view, add, remove or services that can participate in the share plan. Services can be specified by selecting a particular service from the product catalog or by selecting a service type that can participate in the plan. Depending on how granular your service type configuration is you may be able to easily include many devices in a share plan. For instance if you have a service type called 'cellular' you could opt in all cellular services into a share plan regardless of the hardware that the sim card resides in (meter, sensor, phone, etc.). If sharing at such a broad level is undesirable you can simply define a service type scheme that can classify services into more distinct categories/subsets.