Managing User-Packages - Adding / Modifying / Canceling

Summary

This article describes adding, updating and canceling/disabling user-packages on users/accounts and how user-packages are billed. If you wish to create packages that can be added to accounts see the Setting up Packages and Services article.

Overview

The packages page will give you a quick overview of active packages as shown below:

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The Packages list by default will contain the following columns:

• Select - allows you to select the package to perform actions on it (the buttons in the lower left affect selected items in the list, the buttons in the lower left affect all items displayed in the list)

• ID - the user-package ID. This value will increment as user-packages are added to users/accounts

• Package - the name of the package

• Status - the current user-package status, enabled, disabled, suspended etc.

• User Package Status Type - (hidden on screenshot) reflects the base or back-end EngageIP status that the 'Status' is configured to use. See the Creating and Configuring Packages and Services in the Product Catalog article for more information

• Next Bill Date - the date on which the package will bill next. If the user-package is non recurring then no next bill date will be displayed. On package initial add, this field is labeled as 'Effective Date' but switches to next bill date after save and Effective Date then becomes a secondary field on the user-package for use to determine when the usage should bill as of associated to the user-package

• Amount - the price of the user-package (includes price changes triggered by package discounts)

• One Time Amount - If there is a setup fee, or other one time amount that remains to be charged, it will show here

• Account - the account the user-package resides on
  Note: the following date fields are optional and not necessarily used by EngageIP logic. For prorating or billing specific calculations, the next bill date is the key date to be concerned with

• Created Date - the date the package was added to the account

• Effective Date - the starting date of the user-package from a billing standpoint. The effective date is used to determine when usage related to the services in the package is valid (i.e. usage dated before the effective date of user-service's in the package is not applicable). After the user-package is added the effective date will have no effect on when the user-package bills or how it is prorated going forward

• Canceled Date - (hidden on screenshot) the date on which the package was canceled. This field is used by the system to note the cancelation date of a package. This field is NOT used to cancel a package, rather it records when the package was canceled

• Bulk Quantity - provides the total number of packages that were added in bulk, in order to apply a billing multiplier. E.g. if Bulk Quantity is '4' and the package price is $20.00, then $80.00 will be applied at time of billing. For more information on billing user-packages in bulk see the Bulk Package Component article

• Count - this field will list all values in the list as a single line item provided no list items contain unique data. For instance if five 'Package A' user-packages exist on an account and you hide all unique fields (created date, effective date, ID) the list will show a single 'Package A' item and the count will display '5'

Adding Packages to Accounts/Users

Required fields include RED field label names. Validation is also applied to these fields. If the label remains red the value entered is not valid and the form will not be saved. All other fields are optional (black label field names) and may be left blank.

To Add Packages to accounts:

1. Load the Packages page

2. Click the Add button under the packages listing (lower right)

3. On the Select a Package window that appears, click the name of a package you want to add from the pick list

4. The add user-package screen will appear, populate the fields as desired:

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   • Effective Date - defaults to today, this sets the date of the transaction (the 'starting date' from a billing perspective). The user-package can still be enabled right away if desired, this depends on what you select in the 'User Package Status Type' field

   • Posting Date - this can be used as the operational date on reports if you want to post any transactions as of a specific date (e.g. a specific financial period). If unset this value will default to the current date. for more information on financial settings see the Financial Period / Posting Dates article

   • Bill Now - this option will apply the user-package charge to the account balance immediately, it will also open an invoice on the account if an invoice does yet exist yet. The customer will not be invoiced, nor will payment be collected if Bill Now is selected, Bill Now simply applies user-package charges to the balance and invoice. If this option is unchecked, the balance, invoice and ultimately amount collected will be handled by the Bill Run that the account falls under
     Note: for Postpaid scenarios, the 'Bill Now' check box will not do anything, the package will simply bill as of the date you specify once the package is billed at a later date

   • User Package Status Type - allows you to add the user-package in the status you desire (enabled, pre-active, etc.)

   • Related To - this option allows you to connect services so that UDR (usage) buckets on a user-service can be shared with user-services within the same user-package. Relate To is only relevant when the UDR Bucket Pool Type is set to 'User Service' (see 'UDR Bucket Pool Level Type' on the UDR Buckets page for more info on how pooling levels work)

5. Additional options may appear on the add-user package screen based on your configuration:

   • If user-services have user-service profile question components on them, these questions will also be displayed on the add user-package screen (provide the profile question is not configured as 'hidden')

6. Multiple user-packages can be added simultaneously, click the ADD PACKAGE hyperlink and repeat the steps above to configure additional user-packages. Note: If you add a package by mistake and would like to remove if before saving your settings. Click the (Remove) link found to the right of the package name

7. Click Save to add the user-package to the account

User-Package Billing

When you add a user-package with 'Bill Now' checked, the system will add a transaction which is either a full period amount or prorated. It's prorated if you add a user-package with an effective date that is different then the bill day of the account. If the dates are the same, the full user-package amount will be charged.

If you do NOT check 'Bill Now' the system will add the user-package and will wait for the automated billing process (bill run) to bill the user-package and add a full period transaction or prorated transaction using the same logic as above.

The 'Bill Day' on the account can be found on the left sidebar when an account is loaded. You can click on the Bill Day value if you need to change the account bill day.

User-Package Status Changes

To change a package status:

1. Load the Account

2. Load the Overview or Packages page

3. In the Packages list locate the user-package you wish to modify

   • If the package you wish to modify is not shown, ensure the Status column isn't filtering it out. Click on Status and, erase the filter text and hit enter

4. Check the box beside the desired user-package(s)

5. Click on the Status button on the lower right of the list

6. In the UserPackageStatusType list select the new status you wish to change to

7. Click Save

8. On the change status screen that loads different options will appear depending on the option you select here (prorate, cancel, reactivation date, etc.), see the appropriate section below for details on the options that are available

Enabling User-Packages

The options below appear when switching a Disabled/Suspended package to Enabled

Scenario: a user-package is enabled on the 15th of the month, users bill cycle and bill day are the 1st of the month, and the package is a monthly package.

• Immediately - enabling using this will bill the package from TODAY until the accounts 'bill day'. So a prorated transaction will be applied. The prorated transaction in this scenario will be from the 15th of this month to the end of the period. The next bill date (the 1st) will then be used for the user-package going forward. It will not back bill any periods that may have elapsed since its status was changed

• Immediately With No Transaction - this will enable the user-package and the next bill date is not changed. If the package had been sitting for 6 months, the next bill date on it will be 6 months old. You will need to manually catch those months up or edit the next bill date to bill them from a NEW date going forward, for example, you could set it to the first of next month to bill going forward

• Period End - this will schedule the package to be enable at the end of the period and it will bill going forward, based on scenario, next bill date would be set to 1st of next month

• Specific Date - the system will schedule enabling the user-package to the date you specify. Proration will occur if the date selected is not equal to the account bill date. On the Overview page you will see 'Change User Package Status' components present which will handle enabling the user-packages on the specified future date. If you choose a date in the past (less than today's date) the user-package will be enabled immediately and proration will occur if the account bill day doesn't match the date in the past that you specified

Disabling/Canceling User-Packages

User-Package Cancelation Options

• Immediately With Prorated Transaction - this option will add a prorated transaction from today up to the bill day on their account and the user-package will not bill going forward

• Immediately With Full Transaction - this option will bill the full amount of the user-package and the next bill date will be updated to the next bill day to occur (i.e. next month or the bill day of the current month if the bill day is greater than the day the status was changed). The user-package will not bill again

• Immediately With No Transaction - this option will cancel the user-package immediately without an update to the next bill date and no transaction will be added
  Note: when canceling a package with a contract using the option 'Immediately With No Transaction' contract transactions (Penalty Fee and Charge Remainder) will still be charged (i.e. not refunded). If the fees should not be charged then you will need to reverse those transactions. For additional information on canceling contracts see the article: Contract Configuration and Usage

• Period End - this option will schedule the package to be cancelled at the end of the current period. It will automatically bill up until that date if there are one or more periods between now and the cancellation date and it will provide a prorated refund as needed if the cancel date does not equal the bill day of the account. It will not bill after the end of period

• Specific Date With Prorated Transaction - this option schedules the cancelation of a package according to the date selected. A prorated refund will apply if the cancelation date is not equal to the bill day on the account. It will not bill after this date

• Immediately With Prorated transaction as of a Specific Date - this will cancel the package immediately (it will not stay active until a date as with the 'Specific Date' option), it will however also add a prorated refund calculated with the specific date you enter and that date does not have to be today. It will not bill again

• Cancel - this option allows you to specify the dates individually, the AS OF date which determines when to schedule the status change for. The prorate date determines the date the refund will be calculated from, and the 'release resource as of' will determine when the resource should be released. The release of the resource determines when we stop rating against the resource for the customer, i.e. the day on which we determine that the user account no longer owns or should be billed for the resource. The resource will be detached from the account and will be available for other accounts to use at that time

Changing User-Package Cancelation Dates

If a package has already been canceled (reached/passed the cancelation date) it cannot be reactivated. However, if the package is set to be canceled at a future date you can set a new date and remove the old one following the steps below.

1. As detailed in the 'Package Status Changes' section above, load the Packages page and click the check box next to the appropriate package(s) in the Select column

   • Note: the package set to be canceled will have a info icon next to it which when hovered over with the mouse will indicate when the status change is set to occur (shown below)

2. Click the Status button and set the User Package Status Type as Cancel and click Save

3. Set the new cancel date and options (as detailed in the 'Disabling/Canceling Packages' section above) then click Save

4. Load the Overview page and under the components section click Delete next to the old cancelation date ('Change User Package Status' component)

5. The package will now be set to be canceled based on your new cancelation date

Changing User-Package Effective Dates

Editing the user-package effective date will not affect:

• The user-package next bill date (this can be manually updated if desired)

• Contract start dates

Editing the effective date will automatically:

• Update non-optional services in the user-package to the new effective date

• update optional services in the user-package to the new effective date provided the optional service effective date matches the original user-package effective date. If the dates do not match then optional service effective dates will not change

• update the effective dates of UDR buckets so long as the bucket dates match the original user-package effective date. Otherwise bucket effective dates will not change

• re-rate any usage related to the user-package based on the new effective date (UUIH start date)

Restrictions:

• * User-package effective dates cannot modified once the related package/optional service has been billed (note: held charges are still considered billed)

• * User-package effective dates cannot be set to a date prior to the most recent closed invoice date. It will be necessary to void the invoice if you need to move the user-package effective date back to this time period

• * User-package effective dates can be set to a date prior to the most recent invoice date if the invoice is open. However all transactions on the open invoice will need to be reversed before the user-package effective date can moved back

• Optional service effective dates cannot be set to a date earlier than their user-package's effective date

• * Bucket effective dates cannot be set to date earlier than the effective date of the user-service that the bucket is attached to

• * An effective date cannot be set back further than the 'Maximum Unbilled Usage Period' value (configured on the EngageIP Configuration Page)

Manually Billing a User-Package

To manually bill an account, see the article How to Manually Bill Accounts.

Package Discounts

Package discounts can be configured on packages in two locations:

• At the package level: when creating or editing packages on the Setup page (discount component on the package)

• At the user-package level: when editing a user-package on a user/account (discount component on the user-package)

User-package discounts will be indicated on the Packages or Overview screen of the account. The price shown in the Packages list includes any and all discounts applied to services within the package. It reflects the sum total of all services including their discounts.

For more information on package discounts see the Package Discount Configuration article.