Usage Rate Plans are configured in Setup / Usage Rating / Usage Rates / Plans
Overview
Rate plans can be attached to various entities in the system (accounts, packages, services, etc.) and are used to determine the rates charged for usage. Rate plans contain rate groups and rate groups contain rates, by selecting from the available rate groups you can quickly create rate plans with all the included rates desired.
Below is a simple example of two rate plans and the groups within them.
Plan A contains only voice and sms rate groups, making the plan suitable to attach to a mobility package that does not include internet/data service. Plan B has all three rate groups attached making it applicable to cellular packages that offer the customer voice, messaging and internet services. By simply choosing from the rate groups configured you can very quickly create new rate plan offerings.
Rate Plan Selection
When the system finds multiple rate plans the lowest level rate plan will be selected in favor of a rate plan that exists on a higher level entity. The order of entities that rate plans can exist on from lowest to highest is:
price plan service usage rates - rate plan configured on account > price plan > service > usage rates
Package service - rate plan configured on a package-service in the product catalog
Account-package - rate plan configured on an account-package (under the profile menu > packages tab)
Package frequency - rate plan configured on a package frequency under a package in the product catalog
Account - rate plan configured on an account (account > overview > settings > account screen)
Usage invoicer - rate plan configured on an account setup to be invoiced for usage charges
Owner - rate plan configured on an owner (setup menu > users & accounts > owners > mediation & rating screen)
Note: Rate plans can also be attached to usage tiers on usage buckets. Usage applicable to a bucket tier configured with a rate plan will use the tier's rate plan to rate the usage (for instance, charge a specific rate per megabyte for the first gigabyte of usage). So long as usage buckets are available the rating engine will not attempt to find a rate plan elsewhere to rate usage. When buckets available to the usage service are consumed (the threshold of the last usage tier of the bucket is exceeded) the rating engine will attempt to locate a rate plan following the lowest to highest order laid out in the 'Rate Plan Selection' list above.
Rate Selection Within a Rate Plan
After a rate plan is selected by the rating engine it will search for a rate within the rate groups under the plan. The rating engine will work through the groups in the rate plan observing the order that the groups have been configured in. If rate groups in the plan have conditions or time periods set on them which are not met then those groups will be ignored by the rating engine. When the rating engine finds a rate that matches the mediated usage details it will use that rate to calculate the usage charge and halt further processing of rate groups in the rate plan (i.e. only the first matching rate found is applicable when rating usage).
In the event that the rating engine does not find a matching rate in the groups under the rate plan the engine will generate a usage exception. The exception type and message will indicate the reason for the rating failure. When the issue that caused the exception to occur is resolved you will be able to reprocess (trigger rating again) for the usage that went into exception. For more information on rating exceptions and how to resolve them see the usage exceptions help.
Prerequisites
Rate groups and rates need to be configured before rate plans can be setup.
Usage Rate Plans Panel
The Usage Rate Plans panel on the left of this screen allows you to select existing rate plans to view and edit on the Edit Usage Rate 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 rate plan |
 | Deletes the selected rate plan if not in use |
 | Adds a new rate plan |
Edit Usage Rate Plan Panel
The information in this panel reflects the currently selected rate plan. From here you can change rate 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).
Usage Rate Plan Fields and Options:
Name: a unique name for the rate plan
Display Name: the name that will appear on invoices and reports
Amount Precision: the number of digits to round the amount up to after the decimal place. This rounding occurs during rating. If this value is left empty the rate plan will use the amount precision configured under the owner's mediation & rating configuration. A maximum precision length of eleven digits is supported
Group tab
This tab shows rate groups that have been configured on the selected rate plan. From here you can add and remove rate groups as well as define the order/priority which the rate groups will be processed in during rating. See the guides section below for rate group configuration instructions.