Quantity / Optional Services Component
- Mahnoor Khan (Deactivated)
- Greg Walsh
Summary
This article details the configuration and use of the Quantity component. The Quantity component allows you to add multiple services of to packages at the account level
Note:Â services added using the Quantity Component are also referred to as 'Optional Services' as these user-services can be configured to be optional if desired (e.g. permit the user to have from zero to five of a particular service).
The Quantity component allows you to reduce the number of packages you have to configure within the system. For example, you would not have to configure different packages because the quantity of a particular common service needs to vary depending on the package. There is no limit to the number of Quantity components each package can have.
Scenarios are listed below for when would you use this component.
Quantity Component Configuration
This component is available when configuring packages on the Setup page, it is not available when editing user-packages on accounts.
Note:Â Required fields are marked in RED. Validation is applied to these fields, if the field remains red the value entered is not valid and the form cannot not be saved. All other fields are optional (black label field names) and may be left blank.
Click on Setup
Under the Packages and Services section select Packages
Select the package from the list
Scroll down to the Components section and click the Add button
Select Quantity from the drop down list
Enter appropriate information in the fields provided as outlined below:
Package Service Connector - select the service which you have added to the Package that will become an optional service
Maximum - limit the total number of instances of this optional service. If not specified there is no limit to how many they can add. A value of zero will be treated as 'nothing' or no maximum for this field as well
Minimum - this is the minimum number of services that must be present in the user-package at any one time. For instance if this value was set to 5, and the user-package contained six optional services, you would only be able to remove one of the optional services
Default - this is the number of optional service that will be added automatically when the user-package is added to an account. If there are profile questions on the optional service it will only add them if the answers have been provided. The default setting doesn't impose limits, it simply dictates that a user-package should include x number of optional services when the user-package is added to an account. You can add or remove these optional services as needed provided you don't exceed the maximum or drop below the minimum
Threshold - this setting indicates when to charge for optional services, i.e. charge for each optional service that exists beyond the threshold. If no threshold value is specified then every instance will be charged. If you set the threshold to 3 then the customer could have three 'included' optional services and not be charged for them. If the same customer added a fourth optional service the base fee for the fourth service would be charged
Inactive - if this is checked, the connected service will be considered inactive and you will not be able to add any optional services to the user-package. However, if you have the min and defaults set it will still assign the default number of the optional service in question and observe the minimum value, you simply won't be able to add more of the inactive optional service. The optional services that are added by default can still be canceled if inactive is set but you will not be able to add them back again. If you do not want the optional service in question being added to the user-package going forward when the package is added to the account, you should check the inactive box AND set the 'Default' value to zero. When the package is added the optional service will not be present nor will it be available to be added to the user-package after the user-package exists on the account
Click Save
Example Configurations
Single Package Multiple Offerings
Instead of creating multiple packages to offer multiple service variants you could configure a single package with multiple optional services. For instance if you wanted to offer data services with several included usage options (10MB, 20MB, 50MB and 100MB) you could setup multiple optional services with varying bucket sizes in a single package. When the package is added to an account the account representative would simply choose to add the optional data service that suits the user's usage requirements. As each service has its own price the singular 'data package' can be adapted to offer a variety of services with user-package prices which adjust based on which optional service is added.
The configuration example below has none of the user-services added by default when adding the user-package to an account and only allows a service to be sold once (e.g. you cannot sell the customer two of the same services in the user-package).
Configuration:
Service A: Data Service with a 10MB bucket
Quantity Component configuration on the user-package:
Package Service Connector: Service A
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 0
Threshold: 0
Service B: Data Service with a 20MB bucket
Quantity Component configuration:
Package Service Connector: Service B
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 0
Threshold: 0
Service C: Data Service with a 50MB bucket
Quantity Component configuration:
Package Service Connector: Service C
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 0
Threshold: 0
Service D: Data Service with a 100MB bucket
Quantity Component configuration:
Package Service Connector: Service D
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 0
Threshold: 0
This configuration is suitable for products that offer the consumer many a la carte or add-on options, as attempting to create the variety of packages needed to provide all of the offering combinations would be burdensome. For example if you were offering video services where the consumer could pick any single channel or channel pack they wanted then optional services would greatly reduce the number of packages you would need to configure in the product catalog.
Optional Fees
The quantity component allows you to configure an optional fee in an opt-in or opt-out fashion (i.e. the account representative can either waive the fee or apply it as needed).
Opt-Out Fee Configuration (default value is 1)
Example: an 'Installation Fee' service on the package that will be applied unless the install fee optional service is removed from the user-package when adding the user-package to the account
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 1
Threshold: 0
Opt-In Fee Configuration (default value is 0)
Example: a '3rd Party Charge' service that needs to be added (passed along to the user) when another party (e.g. a wholesaler) applies a charge/fee
Minimum: 0
Maximum: 1
Default: 0
Threshold: 0
Included and Optional Email Addresses
If you have EngageIP configured to provision email accounts on any third party mail server, the quantity component can be added to a package and connected to an email service so that you are not required to add a fresh package every time a new email address is requested. The example below allows a max of 50 emails to be configured, a minimum of 1 must always be on the account, by default when adding the package one of these services will be in the list (but you can add more) and the threshold is set to 5. The threshold will allow the customer to have up to 5 email address under the package and once the 6th is added, EngageIP will start charging the base fee per email service added.
The promotional offer might be 'Get 5 emails free, unlimited number of emails allowed. After the first 5, email addresses are only an additional $1.99 each per month'
Configuration:
Minimum: 1
Maximum: 50
Default: 1
Threshold: 5
DIDs
DIDs (i.e. WTNs, or phone numbers). This example is one for a telecom provider where they are assigning DIDs to a user underneath a package. Similar to the first example you would not want to add and remove packages for each DID added or removed. Quantity can be used in this case to ease the management of the DIDs where you would assign one DID per service. In this case there is no maximum so you could import 100 DIDs as needed here. It will add one DID service by default, there is no threshold set so all DIDs would bill out at their base fee value (example $2.00 each per month). Setting minimum as zero or empty would allow user-packages with no DIDs in them if desired
Configuration:
Minimum: 0
Maximum: empty (null, unlimited/no maximum limit)
Default: 1
Threshold: empty
Adding Optional Services
Optional services can be added when you add a package or after when you edit a user package.
Adding during User Package add:
Add package
On screen click 'Add Service' link below the package - NOTE if the minimum or default is 1 or greater, there may already be optional services reflected under the package you're adding. From here you can add more.
select the optional service as needed
Finalize date setting, etc. on screen
Click Save
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Adding after the user package has been created on account:
Click the user package name to edit the user package.
Under service list click add
Select the optional service as needed
Optional Service Date Definitions:
During add:
Effective Date - this is the initial bill date of the Optional Service, which can be different than the Effective Date of the User Package.
Transaction Date - this is the date you would like stamped on the transaction when it bills on the account using the Bill Now option.
Posting Date - this is the date you can set for reporting purposes, the date as of which revenue is reported when using the Bill Now option
On user package or after billing:
Effective Date -  this is the initial bill date of the Optional Service. Once the Optional Service has been billed, this field is simply for reporting purposes.
Transaction Date -Â this isn't used when billing using Bill Account or Billing Service, the actual date on the transaction when the optional service does bill out is the bill date
Bill Date - this is the date which is stamped when the optional service bills out for the first time. Voiding an invoice will blank out this value so it can be set again during the next billing process
Billing of Optional Services
If you add an optional service with 'Bill Now' on a user package a transaction will be added right away according to Effective Date
If you do not use bill now and the effective date is greater than the next bill date of the package, when the package bills, the optional service will not bill during the same period. It will bill when the package recurs for the second period of billing
If the effective date of an optional service matches the effective date of the unbilled user package, the optional service will bill out at the same time as the package.
Example:
User package next bill date = Oct 1
Optional service is added to it with effective date of Oct 15, without bill now
Bill the package using bill account using a range of Oct 1 through Oct 17th
The user package will bill, the optional service will not
Bill the user package again for November 1 and the system will bill the user package and the optional service will be caught up from Oct 15th all the way through to Dec 1 as a single transaction
Cancelling Optional Services
Optional services can be cancelled with options provided to prorate as is seen below.
Note: the DATE field can be used to stamp an arbitrary date on the optional service for the date you want to recognize that the optional service was canceled on, however the date entered is not used in the calculation of the prorate. The Service simply prorates out AS OF TODAY, there is no relation in the calculation to the date entered. To cancel services in a user-package and have them calculate out a prorate as of a date, you need to cancel the package as a whole and use the 'as of specific date' options.
Editing Optional Service Effective Dates
This feature is new in EngageIP 9.3.0 and is explained in the managing user-packages article along with the rules for editing optional service effective dates.