1.6.3 Plans

Plan is a billing entity which allows an operator to offer the same voice calling service at discounted price if purchased together. For example, your end user rate to a particular destination, say UK mobile is $0,03 per minute. In pay as you go service the client balance is charged this amount for every minute of connection. To make the service more attractive the obvious solution is to reduce the rate significantly, for example to $0,02. The problem is however that at this price you probably cannot make any profit if not incur losses.  To help it you should wrap up the new offer into a plan and add two new factors into the equation namely expiration time and plan’s selling price.

Expiration time and plan’s price

There are two conditions that come with a plan:

• client has to pay the plan’s price regardless of whether he will have used up the included minutes or not
• the plan expires at certain date and whatever number of minutes remains unused they are lost then

Example:

Let’s say a plan called “Cheap UK Mobile” has the following parameters:

• number of minutes included – 500
• total cost of the plan - $10
• expiration date – 1 month

For $10 a client will get 500 minutes which agrees with $0,02 per minute offer. If a client talks a lot and uses up the 500 minutes he will be better off. It is because if he talked the same amount of minutes, i.e. 500 at a regular tariff rate $0,03 he would pay $15.

What is the provider’s cost? You need to calculate the number of minutes in the plan by the cost rate which you pay to your suppliers (carriers). You should do that before setting a price for a plan. For example if your cost per minute is $0,02 your total cost for all minutes in the plan would be $10. So you are just at breakeven point if a client uses up the whole plan. This is only a simplified example and in reality you may need to set a plan price which is actually making loses if fully used up.

The principle of the plans is that you take an assumption that the average usage of all clients that subscribed to the plan is less than the total amount of minutes.

For example if someone has used up only half of the amount, i.e. 250 minutes your cost will be $5 and thus make $5 profit.

The time factor is extremely important as it narrows the chance that the undesired out-of-money point of usage will be reached before the expiration date.

Plans are usually offered on monthly, weekly or quarterly basis. You can set any other duration as there is no limit in the system.

The plans can be one time occurrence or recurring.

Before we can proceed and create a plan we will have to learn first about another yet billing entity that is a bundle.

Bundles

The building block of plans is a bundle. This entity cannot be explicitly assigned to client. Instead they have to be added to a plan first. A plan can contain one or many bundles.

Bundles can be seen as sub-tariffs with a special property that allows to assign to a client account a new type of balance – so called bundle balance. The bundle balance’s initial amount is defined through the plan. When a plan is added to client account the bundle’s balances are created.

The bundle balances are separate from the account balance. The billing system will use first the bundle balance and if the balance is exhausted will switch to the account balance. The call is not interrupted when the balance switching occurs.

Bundles are managed from the Billing\Tariffs\Bundles menu. When adding a new bundle you have to set its name, minimal duration and resolution.

Note: Bundles names are shown as the details of a plan in the Account menu in the dialers and in the user portals (VUP and VUC).

Next, in the edit view set the other settings and populate the rates list.

Settings

A bundle, as a tariff extension, has the same settings which are present in a tariff’s definition except for the reseller’s assignment and time spans. There is no need to assign bundle to reseller as there is already reseller-tariff relation and if you want to limit a reseller to certain bundles only you can do it by not assigning them to his tariff.

Rates

In the Rates tab add prefixes which cover the country/areas you want to include in the bundle and then set a voice rate for the prefix. The Description is the name of the destination which will be visible to clients in the Portal and softphones, for example “United Kingdom Mobile and Landline”.

Prefixes, which are defined in Rates section, allow you also to limit the bundle to certain destinations only. For example if you add 44 prefix the voipswitch will be charging from the bundle’s balance only for calls with matching dialed number.

Because the bundle’s balance will not be related to the account balance the rates you set in the bundle’s definition do not have to be in money. Instead you can represent them in time units, for example in minutes, which is most often the case.

Below examples should help to explain the difference in these two approaches.

Examples 1: bundle with rates represented by money value

The bundle includes prefix 44 which is the UK country code. The voice rate is $0,02. When adding the bundle to the plan we assign the balance of $10. It will give a client 500 minutes of calling to UK.  It is in fact as if you gave a client extra $10 in form of a plan.

Note: in fact the bundle’s rates and balance are not associated with any currency, the dollars are used only to emphasize that we use money approach

Example 2: bundle with rates represented by time units - seconds.

The voice rate is 60. When adding to the plan we set the bundle’s balance to 30 000. The voice rate is always per minute. In this case for every used minute of the call the system will deduct 60 from the bundle’s balance which is the number of seconds in one minute. If the resolution (billing step) is set to 1, for every second of a call one will be deducted from the balance. Thus we can treat the balance as the amount of seconds which are included in the bundle. Using seconds makes sense only if you want to keep the one second billing step in the bundle.

Example 3: bundle with rates represented by time units – minutes.

Set the voice rate to 1. Set the resolution to 60. When adding to the plan we set the bundle’s balance to 500. In this case for every used minute of the call the system will deduct 1 from the bundle’s balance. Because the billing step is 60 seconds the system will always round up to the full minutes so even if a call lasted only 1 second the system will deduct 1 from the balance. One unit is now equivalent of a minute and the balance is the amount of minutes included in the bundle.

Since the bundle’s balance is free from any descriptive associations we can use money or time interchangeably. All the three examples above represent the same value, just expressed differently. What you have to remember is that the bundle’s balance can be shown in the user portal or softphone GUI so it is important to stick to the same type as per your service offer.

Another type is an unlimited calling bundle. In fact you should always set a limit which can be explained in policy of fair usage document. Also you do not have to show the remaining bundle’s balance when you advertise it as unlimited.  

A bundle can have one or many prefixes added. If you add two prefixes, e.g. 1 for USA and 44 for UK then the amount assigned to the bundle will be shared among both prefixes 44 for UK and 1 for US. You cannot set different balance for each of the prefixed in one bundle.

If you want to offer 1000 minutes to UK and 10 000 minutes to US you need to create two bundles and group them in one plan. Then in the plan assign the initial amounts to the bundles.

Managing rates in bundle is same as in tariffs (check …..)

Assigning bundle to a tariff

Bundles are always associated with tariffs. Only these bundles which belong to the plan’s tariff can be added to the plan.

To associate a bundle with a tariff follow these steps:

1. Go to Billing\Tariffs, choose the tariff and in its edit view go to the Rates tab.
2. Search for the prefix you want to connect with the bundle and click on it
3. Click on the Bundle input field, the list of available bundles will appear
4. Select one or many bundles and save the changes in the rate

The available bundles are those which contain a prefix that match the tariff prefix.

If you want to assign a bundle to multiple prefixes you have to tick the checkboxes in the first column to select the rows and then click on More button and select Add bundle option. Or select all rows by clicking on the header’s first column checkbox.

Assigning bundles to tariff’s prefixes allow to combine various bundles together within one tariff.

For example the bundle Premium includes five prefixes:

• 44 UK
• 1 USA
• 34 Spain
• 48 Poland
• 32 Belgium

When you sell it in a plan connected to your international tariff for clients coming from various countries you want to have all the prefixed assigned to corresponding prefixes from the tariff.

For the clients from UK however, which use a different tariff named UK offer, you do not want the UK 44 prefix to be associated with the plan as the pay as you go rate is already low.

You can also limit prefixes included in the bundle through the tariff and keep the bundle’s list of prefixes simple and short. For example you can have a bundle for all Europe with just two general prefixes 3 and 4 as the country codes in Europe begin with either of those numbers.  At the same time you do not want some of the mobile networks and premium services to be included. So instead of building the long list of more detailed prefixed in the bundle’s rate list and then blocking them, you can just select desired prefixes in the tariff and left the others (undesired) without the bundle assigned.

Creating a plan

Plans are managed from the Billing\Plans menu. You can search a plan by name and by reseller.

When adding a new plan you need to specify its name, minimal duration and resolution first. Remember that the name as well as description will be shown to the customers in the web portals and the dialers GUI.

The other settings are configurable through the Plan’s edit view.

In the next step there are few additional options:

Do not show account balance – when turned on the remaining balance for each bundle will not be shown to customers (in the dialers and VUP). It is useful if you advertise the plan as unlimited and do not want to disclose the limit

Available to – allows to limit the availability of the plan to either Retail or UC/PBX clients.

Reseller – assigns plan to a reseller. Only clients of that particular reseller can have the plan.

Use time limits – the plan is offered to clients only within the time span set using this option; if the end date passes the plan will not be shown in the user portal or the dialers.

Next you need to decide how you want to charge for the plan – it can be onetime payment or recurring.

Onetime charge

For onetime leave the Recurring checkbox unchecked. From the drop down list choose the period which can be one of the predefined choices: day, week, month, quarter and year. Period is a duration through which the plan is valid, starting from the moment when it was added to client’s account. When plan expires the bundles account are zeroed, even if there was still amount.

If you want to offer a plan without any time boundaries choose the Not applicable option. The system will keep using the bundles balances until they are emptied.

The cost defined in the Initial charge field is deducted from the client’s account on the purchase of the plan.

Recurring

Alternative method is that clients are charged automatically at the end of each period. The plan is then renewed for next period. To enable this mode tick the Recurring checkbox.

Besides the initial charge, which is incurred on the purchase, here is another parameter periodic charge which is charged at the end of each period. If you want a user to pay in advance you have to set the amount which you charge every period also as the initial charge, so the user will be charged when he orders, this will be for the first period, and then on the end of each period.

The payments can be made from the client account, in this case the amounts (both initial and periodic) are deducted from the current balance.

Another option is to use an external payment system and create a subscription. To enable this option tick on the Subscription checkbox which is visible only when Recurring mode is on. This charging function works only if the payment system supports subscriptions, i.e. automated payments realized on behalf of the client. Subscriptions are supported by Paypal, mobile inApp systems (iTunes and Google Play) and some of the credit card providers (check for details in the Online Shop chapter).

On the plan’ due date the Event Manager service tries to execute the payment, from the account’s balance or through an external system, and depending on the result the plan is either renewed or cancelled.

Tariff and bundles

Plan can be assigned to a client only if they use the same tariff, thus limiting it to a group of clients which use certain tariff.  Also, the choice of tariff determines which bundles can be added to the plan.

To add a bundle click on the bundle’s drop down list, select the desired one, set the bundle’s balance and click add button. Repeat this for each bundle which should be contained by the plan.

If you want to offer a shared amount for many destinations you should create one bundle with the destinations’ prefixes in it.

If you want to offer a certain amount to each destination, for example 1000 minutes to each country in the plan, then you should create separate plans each covering only one destination and assign the same amount to each bundle.

Settings

Settings menu allows to define actions related to charging procedures. The settings are global and apply to all plans. Click on the Settings button above the list of the plans to enter the configuration panel.

The main tab allows to define the description which will be shown on invoices for the payments related to a plan. The Payment description allows to add more specific information using variables such as date of payment and payment name. To enter a variable click on the extended menu button on the right to the Payment description input field.

The Payment states tab is divided on four sections corresponding to possible states of the Event Manager periodic charging function.

Incoming – you can specify how many days before the payment due date the state should occur and which actions should be triggered by then.

The actions include email and sms notification. You can compose the mail’s body and other parameters like subject, sender and reply to. For the body and title fields there are variables which can be used in the text. Click on the extension button on the right of these input fields to see the list of variables.

Similarly for SMS, you can define the sender name and the message’s body.

This state’s actions allow you to warn the client about the imminent payments so he can make sure that there is enough balance on his account.

Approved- this state is at the moment when the client has been charged successfully. You can use email or sms to notify the client about the event.

Non-sufficient funds - this state is entered when the Event Manager detects that there is not enough balance to execute the payment.

Declined – when the charging fails, either there is no enough balance or the subscription has not been prolonged.

Besides notifications you can:

• deactivate client’s account
• modify call’s prefix:
  • change FROM and Display name
  • change the Dialing plan prefix
  • change the Tariff prefix

  Modification of the prefixes allows you to send all the calls from the client to a particular entry in the dialing plan, for example to an IVR scenario playing a wave with information that the calls are blocked and offering contact with a support agent.

Adding plan to account

Plans can be added to all types of clients except for wholesale. They are also available for Resellers. When the plan is added the bundles balances are instantiated and assigned to the client’s account. To add a plan from the VSM go to the particular client’s edit view and click on the add button above the Plans and products table.

Choose the Plan menu and a new dialogue will appear with plans selection. As the plan’s price is already defined per plan the only parameter which you can set when adding the plan to the client account is the initial charge.

When you enable the Show as unlimited option the clients will not be presented with information on the remaining bundles balances in the portal or softphones. It is the case when you offer a plan as unlimited but in fact there is some limit in the bundles included in the plan, just you do not want the client to know it.

When the system receives a call from the client the flow is as follows:

• the system checks if there is a bundle associated with the tariff’s entry used for the call
• If there is a bundle, the system checks its balance and calculate max block of seconds for the call based on the bundle’s account.
• When the time block elapses the system deducts the amount from the bundle’s balance and asks the charging function for the max block of seconds for the call based on the tariff.

Plans can be offered through the VUP or the RCS dialers.