Telecommunications services in Tariscope Provider 4.6
Content
Adding a service to a customer
Working with data on billed services
Formation of payment documents and other reports
Reprocessing of charges when duplicate calls are detected
Forecasting the amount of monthly charges
Purpose
This article is intended for operators of communication services using the billing system Tariscope Provider 4.6 or higher and who want to understand how to create, assign and charge services to customers (subscribers), analyze charged services, generate invoices or other payment documents or reports related to with services
Most of the information given in the article is in the 'Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide' and 'Tariscope 4.6. User guide'. In these documents, information on telecommunication services is divided into different sections, which can make it difficult to find it. This article brings this information together. In order to avoid duplication of information, in a number of cases, this article provides references to the above-mentioned documents.
The article is not relevant for users of the Tariscope Enterprise system.
Service types
Provision of telecommunication services is the main activity of telecommunication service providers (TSP) and, accordingly, the correct accounting of services is very important for them.
One of the criteria by which services are divided is the periodicity of their provision. Tariscope has the following types of services:
- Periodic services are provided at certain periods and their cost must be periodically charged to customers. Such services include: a subscription fee, call forwarding service, conference call service, server hosting, rental of any equipment, etc.
- Services for completed phone calls, the cost of which is calculated according to your rates (tariffs). Usually, such services are charged within a month. Such services also include services based on data imported from partner operator files, if any. They are usually accrued at the beginning of the next month.
- One-time services provided to subscribers once. These can be services such as cable laying, subscriber connection, equipment configuration, equipment sale, etc.
Parameters of periodical and one-time services are set in the Tariscope system on the Services page. Rate parameters for outgoing and incoming calls are set, as a rule, for each TSP whose rates are used for call pricing.
Periodic services are assigned to a specific customer either through a rate plan, if the service is included in this plan, or are added in the customer's options window on the Services tab. Recurring services can be charged manually by the TSP's manager for a specific subscriber when working with this subscriber's personal account, or at once to all subscribers on the Subscribers' accounts page, as well as automatically to all subscribers using the appropriate task in the Tariscope Tasks.
Services for completed calls are charged to the subscriber depending on the rates included in the rate plan assigned to this subscriber. Call services can be charged to the subscriber's account as a separate item for each type of call or grouped into one or more records.
One-time telecommunication services are charged to a specific subscriber manually in Subscribers accounts, in his personal account.
Payment information from subscribers can be entered in Subscribers accounts manually, imported from a file, or entered by a separate application or via API directly into the database.
Views for services or special reports can be used to analyze billed services for a specific subscriber, a group of subscribers, or all Tariscope subscribers.
Service settings
Before setting up periodic and/or one-time services, you should:
- Set the main currency in the Tariscope system.
- Specify the list of taxes, if taxes are to be charged for each separate communication service.
- Determine whether one or more rate plans will be used and whether these plans have services that are billed to all subscribers.
Currency
A detailed description of currency settings in the Tariscope system is provided in article 4.3 Currency rates, document Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide.
It is in the currency specified as the main one that services will be charged to subscribers' accounts.
Taxes
If any taxes or additional payments are to be added to the cost of each of the services, it is necessary to specify their list in the Tariscope system. To do this, select Services → Taxes in the Tariscope settings. Tariscope will look like the one shown in Figure 1, where the tax list will be empty when initially opened.
Figure 1
To add a tax or some additional payment, click the Add (+) icon on the toolbar. The Add Tax window shown in Figure 2 will appear.
Figure 2
In the Full name box, enter a full tax name.
In the Short name box, enter a short tax name.
If you want to use a code for a specific tax, enter it in the Code textbox. This code can be used, for example, in reporting.
In the Percentage box, enter the percentage of this tax on the value of the service. For example: 20 which means 20%
Click Save.
Repeat the steps above to enter other taxes or additional charges.
Rate plans
Rate plans in Tariscope are such a concept that combines a group of rates for making calls in certain directions. Also, the rate plan may include services that must be charged to all subscribers with this rate plan.
By default, the Tariscope system includes a rate plan called 'Base'. The user can create any number of rate plans with arbitrary names.
When the user creates rates and introduces a cost, this cost is tied to a specific rate plan (Figure 3).
Figure 3
You can create, for example, a rate with the name "Mobile providers", which will have a cost equal to 0.20 USD for the "Basic" rate plan, and a cost equal to 0.10 USD for the "Preference" rate plan. That is, depending on which rate plan will be assigned to the subscriber, the cost of a call to the same phone number belonging to the mobile provider may be different. In addition to the cost of the call, a rate includes a number of other parameters, which, accordingly, can also be different in different rate plans.
As mentioned above, a rate plan, in addition to rates, may include services that will be charged to all subscribers with this rate plan. For example, all subscribers with the same rate plan are charged the same subscription fee. In order not to create separate services for each rate plan, you can create a single service where you can set the corresponding cost for each rate plan. This will allow all subscribers to use a single name of the service, for example, Customer fee (Figure 4), but it may have a different cost in each plan.
Figure 4
In addition, the assignment of services in a rate plan allows you not to assign the service to each subscriber, since it will be assigned together with the plan. This can save a lot of time when setting up a Tariscope system.
The description of the creation of a rate plan is given in article of '4.4 Rate plans' of 'Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide'.
Services
Let's return now directly to the creation of periodic and one-time services. To add these services, in the Tariscope program, select in the settings: Services → Services list. The Services page appears. It may contain examples of different services. You can use them as examples. If not needed, all pre-installed services can be removed.
On the toolbar of the Services page, click the Add (+) icon. The New Service window will appear, an example of which is shown in Figure 5.
На панелі інструментів сторінки Послуги натисніть на значок Додати (+). З'явиться вікно Нова послуга, приклад якого показано на малюнку 5.
Figure 5
The description of the parameters of this page is contained in article of '4.7 Services', 'Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide'.
In this article, we will note only the fields that are necessary for filling.
Active service. Mandatory parameter. If the switch is not enabled, you will not be able to assign this service to subscribers.
Charging period. This is also a mandatory parameter. The default value is Every Month, but the Tariscope administrator can specify any value from the list. For periodic services, you can also set the value of the Every box. For example, if Every Month was selected and Every is set to 2, this means that the service will be billed once every two months. For a one-time service, select the Manual option from the list.
In the Rate list, by default, the Fixed rate option is set, which means that the cost of the service is set in this window in the Fixed cost section. As mentioned earlier, in the case when you need to specify a service with the same name, but different cost of different rate plans, it is recommended to perform the following actions:
- In the program settings, select Additional options → Service-Rate. Click Add (+) on the toolbar. Enter the name, for example, Customer Fee. Choose the desired rate plan. Specify the date from which this service-rate will be applied. Enter the cost of the service. An example of such a window is shown in Figure 6. Next, you need to set another rate plan in this window and set the cost of the service-rate for this rate plan. Repeat these steps for all required plans.
- In the menu, select Services → Services list → Add (+) a new service. In the Rate list, select the name of the service-rate created at the previous stage. Set other necessary service settings. An example of the configuration window is shown in Figure 7.
- On the Rates plans page, select the desired rate plan and add this service to it.
- Assign this rate plan to subscribers.
Figure 6
Figure 7
These subscribers do not need to specify the service that was included in the rate plan. But it should be borne in mind that the rate plan includes any service in the fixed quantity. Therefore, when it is necessary to assign a another number of services to subscriber, the option using the service in the rate plan is not suitable.
Other parameters of the New service page (Figure 5) are set as needed.
Service bundles
If you have service bundles (packages), then to facilitate the assignment of these services to subscribers, you should create appropriate service bundles in Tariscope. Before creating a bundle of services, you should create each of the services that should be included in this bundle. To do this, use the above recommendations.
To create a service bundle, select the Bundles list item from the menu. The Bundles page appears, an example of which is shown in Figure 8.
Figure 8
Click the Add icon on the toolbar. The New bundle page is opened, an example of which is shown in Figure 9.
Figure 9
In the Name textbox, enter the name of the service bundle and click on the Add icon in the Services section. The Add service to bundle window will appear, an example of which is shown in Figure 10.
Figure 10
In the Service list, select the service to be added to the service bundle.
In the Quantity box, specify how many such services are included in the bundle.
If this service has a time limit for their use, then set this date in the Connection date and Disconnection date calendar boxes.
Save the settings by clicking the Save button.
Repeat these steps for other services that are included in the service bundle.
Adding a service to a subscriber
If the service is not included in the rate plan, to add the service to the subscriber, in the program settings, select Communication Nodes → required node → Subscribers → select/or create (+) the required subscriber. In the subscriber edit window that is opened, click the Services link on the toolbar. The window will look similar to the one shown in Figure 11. In this figure, the subscriber already includes the Customer fee service.
Figure 11
To add a new service to a subscriber, press the Add (+) button. The Services window will be opened, an example of which is shown in Figure 12.
Figure 12
In the Service list, select the required service.
In the Quantity box, enter the required number of services.
If the service should not be assigned to the subscriber in general, but to a specific extension (telephone number) or IP address of the subscriber, then select the desired value in the Extension/IP list.
If necessary, in some comments to the given service, they can be entered in the Description position.
Be sure to pay attention to the date from which the service begins to operate (the From calendar lbox). By default, the switch here is on and the current date is set. This means that the service of this subscriber will be charged only from this date. If the switch is off, the service can be billed for any period starting from the date the subscriber is connected.
If the service stops being provided to the subscriber, turn on the To switch and set the date to which the service will be charged.
On the Subscribers page, it is possible to assign parameters to several subscribers at the same time. But this does not apply to services. Services must be assigned individually to each subscriber, except for services included in the rate plan.
Adding a bundle of services to the subscriber
To add a service bundle to a subscriber, go to the settings page of this subscriber in the Services section. Click on the Bundles icon on the toolbar. A corresponding window will appear, an example of which is shown in Figure 13.
Figure 13
In this window, click on the Add icon, which will lead to the appearance of a new window called Select a bundle (Figure 14).
Figure 14
In the Bundles list, select the required bundle. If the service bundle should be tied to a specific extension (telephone number) or IP address of the subscriber, select it in the Extension/IP list.
If the bundle of services should be applied only at a specific time, then specify this period using the From and To calendar boxes.
Click Save.
Charging services
One-time services are charged on the Subscriber accounts page. This process is described in section 3.9.1 of the 'Tariscope 4.6. User manual'.
Recurring services can be billed both manually on the Subscriber accounts page and automatically using the Tariscope Tasks.
How to manually charge periodic services to one subscriber is described in section 3.9.2 of the 'Tariscope 4.6. User manual'.
In order to automatically charge the cost of periodic services to all subscribers, you need to create a corresponding task in the Tariscope Tasks settings branch and select the Charge periodic services option in the Action type list of the task parameters setting window. Other Tariscope Tasks task settings should be performed as described in section 4.17 of the 'Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide'.
Charging of the cost of calls
Tariscope charges the cost of calls automatically during call data processing. All necessary settings must be completed before processing call information in Tariscope.
Let's list the main steps of setting up Tariscope so that calls are charged and their cost is charged to subscribers' accounts.
- Main currency assignment. If there are rates in different currencies, it is necessary to enter the exchange rate either manually or automatically using the Tariscope Tasks. (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, Section 4.3. Currency Rates).
- Creation of a communication node. A description of all the steps can be found in the Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, Section 4.10. Telecommunications node.
- Entering information about TSPs, according to the rates of which the tariffing should be performed (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, section 4.9. Telecommunications service providers). The following should be taken into account when setting rates. The cost of all calls per month, made according to a specific rate, is entered into the subscriber's account in one entry. For example, there is the "Eastern Europe" rate. All calls for the month that were made to phone numbers belonging to Eastern Europe will be recorded in the subscriber's account as one line with the corresponding name. If desired, all international calls can be recorded in one line in the subscriber's account. To do this, when editing international rates, on the Accounts tab, in the Description textbox, enter a name, for example, "International". A similar combination of calls during the recording of their cost to the subscriber's account can also be made for other directions of calls: Long distance, To mobile operators, etc. After processing the first of the calls of a certain rate, a service with the name specified on the Accounts tab of this rate will be automatically added to the Services settings branch.
- Binding operators to routes (groups of lines) or gateways (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, section 4.11.49. Routes and gateways).
- Creating a number plan (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, section 4.11.48. Numbering plan).
- Entering the parameters of the subscriber indicating the extensions (telephone numbers) belonging to him, the rate plan, the date from which he is active (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, section 4.12.2. Subscriber data input from an external file, or section 4.12.4. Manual input and editing of subscriber data).
- If calls are to be processed automatically, you need to create a Tariscope Observer profile. Tariscope Observer is a service that will receive and process calls (Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide, section 4.13. Tariscope Observer).
A detailed description of setting up pricing is given in the article "Setting up call pricing in the Tariscope system".
Initial balance of customers
When you first set up Tariscope, if you already had subscriber accounts, you need to enter the initial subscriber balance into Tariscope. The initial balance, like a number of other subscriber parameters, can be imported into Tariscope from a number of files. These actions are described in section 4.12.2. Subscriber data input from an external file of the Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's Guide.
It is possible to manually enter the initial balance for subscribers. To do this, you should create a one-time service with an appropriate name and some specific value. Next, charge it for a specific subscriber, and then adjust the charged value to the required value.
Re-rating calls
Sometimes there are situations that require re-rating of calls. This can be, for example, if some rate was incorrectly set; extensions (telephone numbers) of subscribers not specified or incorrectly specified; subscribers were not assigned a rate plan or were assigned incorrectly and in other cases.
In these cases, call charges should be reset and re-rated. A description of these actions is provided in the Tariscope 4.6. User guide, Section 3.7. Calls rating.
Work with customers' accounts
Work with subscriber accounts is performed in the Subscribers accounts section available in the Tariscope program. A detailed description of this is given in the section 3.9. Accounts of subscribers, Tariscope 4.6. User guide.
Let us briefly remind you that in this mode you can view the account of any subscriber, charge for one-time and/or periodic services, delete charged services, enter payment data from subscribers, create payment documents, for example, invoices or receipts, as well as any other reports are available in the Tariscope system.
Working with data of billed services
To analyze the services charged to subscribers, to form certain samples, reports are designed to provide services. How to create this view, the list of its fields is described in article 2.2.5, View for service, Tariscope 4.6. User guide.
View for services, as well as view for calls, allows you to filter, sort, group data, export them to external files.
To create a view for services or open an existing one from the Tariscope menu, choose Views → Views list. The Views page will be opened, an example of which is shown in Figure 15.
Figure 15
To create a new view for services, click the Add icon on the toolbar. A menu appears. Select the Create a view for services item. The New view for services page is displayed, an example of which is shown in Figure 16.
Figure 16
In the View name textbox, enter a name that will reflect the purpose of the view. This is a mandatory parameter.
The Rows limit box is intended for entering the maximum number of rows this view can contain. If you do not want to enter restrictions on the display of rows in the view, enter 0 here. But it should be borne in mind that with a significant number of records that will meet the requirements of this view, as well as depending on the parameters of the server where your SQL server is running, the display of data may take some time to render.
The Groups box allows you to display the accrued services of only those subscribers who belong to the selected groups. All subscriber groups are available to system administrators. Users can access only those groups with which they are allowed to work. To select a group, click on the button with three dots to the right of this box.
Most often, not all services charged in Tariscope are needed, but only for some of the months (periods). To do this, use the Period list. This list contains the following values:
- No filter.
- Today.
- Yesterday.
- This week.
- Previous week.
- This month.
- Previous month.
- This year.
- Previous year.
- Selected month. Allows you to select the desired month.
- Selected year. Allows you to select the desired year.
- Custom period. Allows you to select any arbitrary period.
If you want to choose the services of one of the subscribers, click on the "..." button, located to the right of the Subscriber box. In the Subscribers window, select the desired subscriber.
You can also create a view that will contain data only for a particular service. To do this, select the required service in the Services list.
If you have already created a view for services and created and stored some data filters there, then they can also be added to limit the view data. To do this, they should be selected in the Combine with filter list by adding a logical operator (OR, AND, AND NOT) that will bind this filter with other view parameters.
If no filtering parameters are specified for the view, then data on all services contained in the Tariscope database and available to the current user will be displayed.
Like other views in Tariscope, the view for services provides the user with a number of functions that facilitate the search and analysis of information:
- Information search. To search for information in the view, you should use the search function that is used in your browser. Usually, the search window is called after pressing the keys Ctrl-F on the keyboard.
- There are various options for filtering view data, which are described in the Tariscope 4.6 document. User guide, in articles: 2.2.8 Data filtering, 2.2.9 Filter by selected and Exclude selection, 2.2.13 Edit SQL filter.
- How to sort data is described in the above document, in article 2.2.15 Sorting data.
- If you need to get summary results for services, this can be done quickly using the grouping described in the same document, in article 2.2.16 Grouping function.
- Any view for services can be printed or exported to an external file.
Formation of payment documents and other reports
Usually, the charging of services for a month ends with the issuing of payment documents to subscribers.
You can generate payment documents and/or other reports related to subscriber services in several modes:
- On the Subscribers accounts page.
- On the Reports page.
- Automatically with the Tariscope Tasks service.
To generate, for example, an invoice or a receipt for a specific subscriber on the Subscribers accounts page, you need to select the desired subscriber, select the desired period and click on the New report icon on the toolbar. The Report page appears, an example of which is shown in Figure 17.
Figure 17
In the Report group list, select the required group, for example, 'Provider'. A list of reports for this group will be displayed. Select the required report and click the Run report icon. The report settings page will appear, an example of which is shown in Figure 18.
Figure 18
As you can see in this figure, the user can choose the format, size, orientation of the report, and also set the values for the variables. Then click the Create button. A message will appear that the report is queued for generation. When it is ready, a mark will appear at the top of the page on the bell icon, for example, "1", which means one message. Click on this mark, as a result of which a message will appear that the report has been generated. Click on this message, which will display the generated report.
On the page with the created report, you can change the scale, print the document or save it to a file.
Tariscope comes with a set of report forms, but the user can edit any of the report forms to suit his needs or create his own report form. Microsoft Report Builder should be used to create reports. This is free software that can be downloaded from the Microsoft website.
If necessary, you can contact the SoftPI company to develop the report forms you need.
Service payment accounting
The Tariscope system includes the subscriber's Personal area, one of the functions of which is the possibility for the subscriber to pay for communication services through payment systems. Payment through the following payment systems is supported:
- Liqpay.
- PayPal.
- Privat24.
For these payment systems, payment information is automatically received by the Tariscope system.
If the subscriber paid for services through another payment system or bank, it is possible to create a special script for importing such data into Tariscope, if there is an API for obtaining such information from the bank (payment system). The development of such a script is not included in the price of the license, and can be performed by SoftPI for a separate fee. The cost of such development depends on the specific costs of its implementation.
In subscribers' accounts, it is possible to enter payment data both for one subscriber and for a group of subscribers.
Reprocessing of charges when duplicate calls are detected
Sometimes it happens that the user discovers that there were two or more times the cost of the calls. This can only happen if calls are processed multiple times on the CDR Processing page, or if the Tariscope Observer is given the same data for processing multiple times.
In this case, the following actions should be performed:
- Remove duplicates. To do this, open the View page, click on the Find duplicate records icon. In the window that appears, select options for searching for and removing duplicates.
- Go to the Subscribers accounts page. On the toolbar, select the Recalculate month icon. Set recalculation parameters.
- Check the results.
If you do not know whether there are duplicate calls or not, you can:
- Search and remove duplicates as above.
- Use forecasting of monthly charges to subscribers.
Forecasting the amount of monthly charges
One of the tasks that telecommunications service providers face before generating invoices or receipts for subscribers is to check the correctness of the charging of services to subscribers. With a large number of subscribers, this task can take a long time. Therefore, in Tariscope there is an opportunity with the help of artificial intelligence to create billing models for subscribers and identify a list of subscribers in which the amount of billing for the current month is significantly different from the usual (projected) billing. Cases where the current amount of accruals is significantly different from the projected amount do not yet mean accrual errors. Because, for example, the subscriber could purchase some new service, make an unusual international call or something else, so the current charge is different from the usual one. But such charges are recommended for verification before sending the bill to the subscriber.
