Tariscope 4.6. Administrator's guide
Chapter 4 Tariscope configuration
4.8 Rates
Tariscope Provides a powerful and flexible call rating that takes into account a currency, day type, time of day, different types of rounding, free seconds, and many others. Tariscope supports separate rates for outgoing and incoming calls. Therefore, you should set rates separately for outgoing and incoming calls that were made through the specific telecom provider.
To create rates in Tariscope, in the menu, select Providers and rates → a required provider → Outgoing (for outgoing calls) or Incoming (for incoming calls) → Rates. The Rates page appears as shown in Figure 4.8.1. If you do not have the required telecom provider, create it as that is described below.
Figure 4.8.1
The page contains the toolbar, the Search box, a list of rate plans, and the rate table.
To create a new rate, click the Add icon on the toolbar. As a result, the New rate page appears as shown in Figure 4.8.2.
Figure 4.8.2
In the topmost list, select the desired rate plan for which you will set the rate data. For users of the Tariscope Enterprise edition a concept of rate plan is usually not used. As a rule, for the Tariscope Enterprise edition is enough to use only the Base rate plan.
In the Name box, enter the rate name.
Click on the "+" button located to the right of the From calendar box. The current date is set as the first date of the rate. To change the date, click on the calendar button and choose the desired date.
You must correctly set the rate date, since if a call will have a date earlier than the rate date, the cost calculation of such a call will not be performed or performed incorrectly.
You can also add a new date to the existent rate. This allows to edit its parameters or type a new rate value, which will be used from a new date.
To change the rate date, click on the calendar button and select a new date.
To remove the rate date, click on the Delete button and then add a new date.
The New rate page includes three tabs: Rate, Modifiers, and Accounts.
The Rate tab
The Rate tab is used to type the main rate parameters.
In the Currency list, select the rate currency. The main currency that you set in the system is display by default.
A table of rate parameters contains at least one row if a rate value does not depend on the day type and time of day. In this case the values of the Day type, Rate factor, From hour and To hour columns are not edited. If a rate value depends on the day type and (or) time of day, you should add rows to the table with the appropriate parameters.
In the case where the rate value is applied for 1 minute, in the Rounding list, select the To minutes value. This is the default value. In this case, the second column of the rate table is called the Rate per 60 s. In that case, where the rate value is applied for 1 second, in the Rounding list, select the To seconds. In this case, the second column of the table is called the Rate per 1 s.
To type a rate value, select the desired row in the rate table, and click on the Edit icon in the toolbar. The Edit modifier window appears as shown in Figure 4.8.3.
Figure 4.8.3
If the rate period is 1 minute, enter a rate value in the Rate per minute box. The Rate per s. box will display the appropriate value.
If the rate period is 1 second, enter a rate value in the Rate per s. box. When you enter a value in this box, the value of the Rate per minute box is automatically recalculated.
In the case where this window is opened for the first row of the rate table, the following boxes are not edited: Rate factor, From hour, To hour, and Day type.
If the rate cost may not be less than a minimal specific value, you should type this value in the Minimal call cost box. All call costs that are less than this value will be rounded up to the value.
The Rate factor, From hour, To hour, and Day type boxes are available for editing only for the second and subsequent rows of the rate table (Figure 4.8.2). These parameters are used when a rate is changed in dependence of the time.
The Rate factor box allows to set a rate value using a factor with respect to the base value of the rate, i.e. the rate value that has been entered in the first row of the rate table. When you type a value in this box, the values of the Rate per minute and Rate per 1 s. boxes are automatically recalculated.
The Hour from and To boxes allows you to set the time range when the rate value is applied. You can enter only integer values of hours in these boxes.
The Day type box specifies the type of the day for which the rate value is applied. Select from the following:
- Workday,
- Saturday,
- Sunday,
- Holiday.
After entering all data, click Save. A new row will be added in the rate table (Figure 4.8.2).
To add a rate for the specific type date or time period to the rate table click on the Add icon on the toolbar (Figure 4.8.2).
To edit a rate, select it in the rate table and click on the Edit icon on the toolbar.
To delete a rate for the specific type date or time period, select the rate and click on the Delete icon on the toolbar.
As described above, you may specify various options of the period of rounding. To do this, use the Rounding list (Figure 4.8.2), which contains the following options:
- To minutes. In this case, if the Round down switch is off, the call duration is rounded to minutes. For example, a call duration of 1 minute 8 seconds will be rounded to 2 minutes. Accordingly, when the Round down switch is on, the call duration of 1 minute 51 seconds will be rounded to 1 minute. Similarly, when using a rate for data, the received / transmitted data will be rounded to a megabyte.
- Round to seconds. A call duration is rounded to seconds.
- Custom rounding. If you select this option, the Account every box is active. In this box, you should specify the desired number of seconds to which a call duration will be rounded. For example, if rounding will be set to 6 seconds, the call duration of 13 seconds will be rounded to 18 seconds.
The Minimal duration box (Figure 4.8.2) allows you to specify a value to which all calls with duration less than this value will be rounded. For example, if you specify rounding to minutes and a value of the Minimal duration box is 2, then all calls less than 2 minutes will be calculated as calls with duration of 2 minutes.
To specify number of digits after decimal point in a call cost or traffic cost, use the Digits after decimal box.
If the Round down switch is off, the call cost will be rounded up. If the switch is on, the call cost will be rounded down.
If you do not need other rate settings, click Save. In the rate table (Figure 4.8.1), a new row appears.
The Modifiers tab
The Modifiers tab is shown in Figure 4.8.4.
Figure 4.8.4
The Modifiers tab allows to modify the call cost in dependence of number of parameters.
The Free seconds box allows you to specify the number of call seconds, which will be taken into account in some situations. When a call duration is less than a value is specified in this box, the call duration shall be considered null. When a call duration is longer than the value, all call seconds will be accounted in the call duration.
The Subtract seconds box allows you to specify the number of call seconds that will be deducted from the call duration and the cost of these seconds will not be charged. For example, if you set value of 5 in the box, this means that a call duration of each call will reduce on 5 second before the call cost calculation.
In the Connection costs partition, you can set parameters which will change the call cost by adding a connection cost.
This setting is applied only to the Tariscope Provider edition.
In the Less then box, you can specify the value of the call cost, which affects the calculation of the connection cost value. If the call cost is less then this value, the connection cost value is applied from the Conn. fee box, which is located on the right from the Less then box. Otherwise, the connection cost value is applied from the Conn. fee box, which is located on the right from the Else position.
Tariscope allows to change a rate depending on the duration of each call or all calls for one month. This setting is specified in the Service amount dependency partition.
For example, the rate value of X should be applied to each call with duration to 600 seconds. If a call duration is in the range from 600 to 1200 seconds, you should apply the rate value of Y. Finally, the rate value of Z should be used for a call duration more than 1200 seconds. A similar approach can be applied to all calls for one calendar month. If the Single call switch is off, the rate modification defined in this partition will be applied to all calls for one calendar month. To specify parameters of the rate modification, click on the Add icon on the toolbar. As a result, the New stage window appears as shown in Figure 4.8.5.
Figure 4.8.5
In the Quantity box, type a value of seconds to which will be applied the factor.
In the Factor box, type a factor value that is applied to the base rate.
Click Save. A new row with entered parameters will be displayed in the table (Figure 4.8.4).
Repeat the above steps to enter new parameters.
The entered data for the above example is shown in Figure 4.8.6, where the rate of X is calculated as the base rate, multiplied by the factor of 1, the rate of Y as the base rate, multiplied by the factor of 0.9, and the rate of Z as the base rate, multiplied by the factor of 0.7.
Figure 4.8.6
The Accounts tab
The Accounts tab is used to set the parameters associated with the charging of service cost to a customer's (subscriber's) account. This tab is used only for the Tariscope Provider edition. An example of this tab is shown in Figure 4.8.7.
Figure 4.8.7
If the call costs with this rate are not required to charge to the customers' accounts, turn off the Enable accounting mode for this rate switch.
If a customer has multiple extensions / IP addresses and you want to perform the charging of call cost / IP traffic cost to each extension / IP address separately, turn on the Every subscriber's number separately switch. By default, the switch is off.
In the Description box you can type a text that will be used in the customer's account when charging the call cost is executed. Accordingly, this description will be used at formation of billing documents and reports. You can use the same description for some rates. For example, you have some international rates for different directions, but you want all calls to these directions keep in one record. To do this, you should enter, for example, the value of International in the Description box for all international rates.
When you have entered all the parameters of the rate, click Save. In the table of rates (Figure 4.8.1), a new line appears with the entered data.
The rate table (Figure 4.8.1) allows to perform actions, which are available from the toolbar or from the menu (it appears when click on the Menu icon on the toolbar):
- Add. The icon is used to create a new rate.
- Copy. Allows you to create a copy of a selected rate. It is recommended to use this action when you enter a rate that is not significantly different from the selected rate.
- Edit. Allows to edit the parameters of the selected rate.
- Copy from plan. This item is used when there are multiple rate plans (for the Tariscope Provider edition). Allows you to copy all parameters of the selected rate to another rate plan.
- Delete. Deletes the selected rate.
- Show all date entered. When you select this action, the rate table will be displayed all existing rates and also those which are inactive in the current time and was replaced by the new rates.
- Set provider. It allows you to bind the selected rate to the specific provider.
- Clean dates. Cleans dates and all data from the selected rate.
- Multiple rates. The item allows to multiply the selected rate values on the desired factor and save these changes in the rate.
- Setting columns visibility. If you click on the icon, a list of available columns to display in the rate table appears. You can check or clear the desired columns.
- Export to file. Allows you to export the rate table into the external file. Supports the following file format: Excel, HTML, CSV, and PDF.
