Siebel Order Management Guide Addendum for Communications > Employee Asset-Based Ordering >

About Time-Based Offerings

A time-based offering is a promotion product component that offers a discount with a fixed, limited duration. The Time-Based Offering feature allows product administrators to define commitments at the promotion product component level. Different commitment enforcement and charge generation guidelines can be applied to different promotion components. This feature thus helps reduce product and discount proliferation by allowing you to specify different discount durations for components of the same promotion product, rather than defining a different promotion product for each discount duration.

For example, suppose a discount product called 10% Discount is synchronized from Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management. You designate this discount product as a time-based offering. You then define a bundled promotion, Wireless Silver Plan, which includes Wireless Service, Headset, and 10% Discount as component products. For this particular bundled promotion, you define 10% Discount as having a duration of three months, beginning at the order Due Date. (You can also add the 10% Discount product to other bundled promotions, specifying different durations and beginning points.) Later, a user adds the Wireless Silver Plan to an order with a Due Date of February 15, 2010. When this order is processed, the Wireless Silver Plan service, which is discounted 10%, begins for the ordering customer on February 15, 2010, and ends on Might 15, 2010.

The Time-Based Offering feature also allows you to define discount validity in Siebel Order Management for Industry Applications and communicate that discount validity definition to Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management as part of an order.

The Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management rating engine calculates and applies specific discount to customers' services. Oracle® Communications Order and Service Management passes the end dates through Oracle Application Integration Architecture to the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management API to set the end dates.

The Time-Based Offering feature includes the following capabilities:

• Create products and discounts in Siebel Order Management for Industry Applications, synchronized from Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management as customizable products.
• Calculate the validity of the actual start date from provisioning; and calculate the duration, unit, and validity start attributes in the product and discount.
• Pass the start date and end date values to Oracle Application Integration Architecture in a new order, and pass previous and new values for product attributes and dates during a change order.
• Update an order line item with start and end dates from Oracle Application Integration Architecture.
• Update the asset status in Siebel Order Management for Industry Applications when the discount product expires.