Usage Reconciliation

Usage reconciliation takes wholesale and retail usageClosed The consumption of services, for example a subscriber using call minutes. records and aggregates them by usage type, broken down by origin and destination, by volume per day. For each usage, the wholesale units , charges and number of events and retail units, charges and events are calculated and compared to determine variances. The process produces a report of these results that compares retail volumes to wholesale volumes to enable users to identify discrepancies that are above tolerances to identify revenue leakage.

External wholesale usage records are converted into a generic CSVClosed Comma Separated Values. A simple file format used to store tabular data, such as a spreadsheet or database. CSV files can collect the data from tables so that it can be input to another table-oriented application such as a relational database application. format and loaded into CMPClosed Converged Monetisation Platform. The MDS Global product that supports customer care and billing for digital service providers. by daemons. Retail usage records are CMP rated usage records.

The following jobs are involved:

This job aggregates of both rated and wholesale usage records. It groups usage records by usage date, type, origin and destination and calculates totals for usage charges and usage units for each of these groups. It creates a usage reconciliation record for each usage groupClosed In the Customer Manager Platform hierarchy, the highest level of the structure. The group level can be used to group corporates. Groups can hold financial information..

This job reconciles retail and wholesale usage records.

It collects aggregated usage records between the dates specified in the job parameters for both retail and wholesale usage. The job then compares the records are against each other and calculates variances between usage charges, units and number of events. It exports the results of the reconciliation as a CSV file. A daemonClosed A computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the control of an interactive user. transports the CSV file to storage.

The following daemons are associated with usage reconciliation:

Type Category Activity Details
Transformation Wholesale Usage From TAPIN /TAPOUT Transforms TAPIN and TAPOUT files to a generic CSV format
Load Wholesale Usage From Generic Format Polls remote CSV files on the database server and loads them as a batch, which will be available for processing into CMP by the appropriate batch job.
Transmission Usage Reconciliation To File Storage Transmits the Usage Reconciliation extracts to a specified location

 

For more information on daemons, in the Administration ConsoleClosed An operations web console that allows batch jobs to be scheduled, run manually and monitored. The console also provides for viewing and modification of business and user applicable system configuration., navigate to Daily Operations > Daemons. Click any daemon in the Daemons List for more details.

The following probes can be run against jobs and daemons in the Data Warehouse suite:

Stage Category Name Type Description
Verification Usage Aggregation Normal Alert Alert probe that returns the number of CMP configuration errors detected by the Usage Aggregation Job today. If the probe detects a value above the configured threshold, then an alert will be issued to the recipients configured for the probe.
Verification Usage Aggregation Punctual Alert An alert probe that returns the number of minutes since the Usage Aggregation Job processed a file. If the probe detects a value above the threshold, then an alert will be issued to the recipients configured for the probe.
Verification Usage Reconciliation Normal Alert An alert probe that returns the number of CMP configuration errors detected by the Usage Reconciliation Job today. If the probe detects a value above the configured threshold, then an alert will be issued to the recipients configured for the probe.
Verification Usage Reconciliation Punctual Alert An alert probe that returns the number of minutes since the Usage Reconciliation Job has processed a file. If the probe detects a value above the threshold, then an alert will be issued to the recipients configured for the probe.