A service that runs on a second generation (2G) or third generation (3G) wireless network. Association with either of these service types determines whether a plan is a 2G or 3G plan. Transitions between 2G and 3G plans are handled by the generation change feature of Pricing Center.
Automatic Account Creation. Accounts are created automatically when customers register by using the Web.
See "security code".
Also called access control list (ACL). A group that enables one or more users to perform customer management tasks on a particular hierarchical account group or brand.
An access group can contain only one account group or brand. Users who do not belong to a given access group cannot manage customer accounts and other data associated with that access group's account group or brand.
Permissions that enable a user to access customer accounts, price lists, and other data in a brand or hierarchical account group. You set up these privileges by creating an access group in the Access Privileges application.
When users log in to an application that uses access privileges, such as Customer Center or Configuration Center, they can choose to work with any brand or account group for which they have privileges.
The application you use to assign customer service representatives (CSRs) or other personnel permission to work with accounts in a brand, sub-brand, or account group. Access Privileges is part of the Configuration Center.
A record of a customer's information, including name and address, billing date, account balance, service, and payment method. Accounts keep track of transactions such as credits, debits, and payments.
Account information is stored in the BRM database in an /account object.
See "balance".
The currency used by a customer. All balance impacts are recorded in the customer's account currency, and the customer pays bills by using the account currency. The account currency can be different from the system currency.
Customers from EMU countries have a primary currency and a secondary currency.
A deal that is associated with an account rather than with the services associated with the account. The financial parameters defined in an account deal are valid even if all services in the account are discontinued. You use account deals to charge customers for having an account, apart from any services they use.
A collection of accounts that are linked for billing, reporting, resource sharing, or topping up. There are several types of account groups:
Hierarchical groups contain one parent account and any number of child accounts or other hierarchical groups. They are created for two purposes:
To have parent accounts pay all of charges in a nonpaying bill unit in their child accounts. See "subordinate bill unit".
To organize accounts visually in Customer Center. In this case, the child accounts might be A/R accounts that pay their own bills and therefore pay their own charges. See "A/R account".
Resource sharing groups consist of a sharing group owner account and one or more member accounts. Resource sharing groups are created so that an owner can share discounts and charges with participating member accounts.
Sponsor groups contain one sponsor group owner account and one or more member accounts. They are created so that bills and payments can be split between accounts. For example, a corporate sponsor owner account can pay monthly fees for employees by sponsoring cycle forward charges while the employee member accounts pay their own usage charges. The sponsor owner account receives sponsored charges from member accounts immediately after the events generating the charges occur. In a sponsor group, the account's bill units are the actual sponsored or sponsoring entities.
Sponsored top-up groups contain one sponsored top-up group owner account and one or more member accounts. They are created so that the owner account can top up member account balances.
Pipeline Manager data module (DAT_Listener) that receives updates from the BRM database.
A unique number that identifies a customer's Automatic Account Creation (AAC) in the database. The default account number format begins with the database number and is followed by one or more digits, for example, 0.0.0.1-9310.
A customer password that is not used for accessing a service (for example, a password to a Web page).
An account attribute that determines the level of activity that a customer can perform. There are three types of status:
Active: The customer can perform normal account and service activity.
Inactive: The customer is restricted from using any service, usually because the customer exceeded a credit limit or did not pay a bill. Depending on how your system is configured, the customer might be able to use Web account-access pages. Inactive status implies that the customer will use the account again.
Closed: The customer has no access to services and typically, cannot use Web-access pages. Closed status implies that the customer will not use the account again.
See also "service status".
Account Synchronization Data Manager
A data manager (DM) that informs Pipeline Manager when account data has changed.
A process that gathers information about customer sessions, such as the duration of a session, the time of day the session occurred, and the amount of data sent or received during the session. The BRM rating process uses this information to determine how much to charge customers for the service they use.
A one-month period during which all billable events are recorded and the charges are calculated, but not billed. Charges are recorded in the customer's balance and in bill items. See also "billing cycle".
The way customers are billed, and how payments are applied to their bills. There are two accounting types:
With open item accounting, a customer is billed only for charges from the bill items in the current bill. If a customer does not pay a bill, the next bill does not include charges for the bill that the customer did not pay.
By default, if a customer account with open item accounting has an underpayment, the payment must be allocated manually.
With balance forward accounting, a customer's bill includes all the charges that a customer owes, including those from previous billing cycles. If a customer does not pay a bill, the next bill includes charges from the previous bill.
By default, if a customer account with balance forward accounting has an underpayment, the payment is automatically allocated to the oldest bill.
The balance group that is automatically created for an account. By default, this balance group tracks resources for all the services owned by the account. You can add additional service-level balance groups to track resources for one or more specific services.
A current asset representing money owed to a company for services performed or merchandise sold. Also, an accounting system that tracks this information.
Access Control List. See "access group".
A classification for a person or group in your company assigned to one or more suspended payments in The person or department responsible for correcting a suspended payment. Action owners are specified though action owner codes and assigned through Payment Center.
An identification number that indicates the action owner responsible for correcting a suspended payment. These codes are configured in the reasons.en_US file. BRM reads the string values for the action owner codes and displays them in Payment Center. When payment analysts review suspended payments, they can select an action owner code for each suspended payment. See "reasons.locale".
In Pricing Center when pipeline data migration is enabled, you must activate a change set before making any changes. All changes made while a particular change set is active become part of that change set. Only one change set can be active at a time in an instance of Pricing Center.
The normal status for an account or service. The customer can perform normal account and service activity.
See also "inactive status" and "closed status".
A transaction that credits or debits a customer's account by changing the amount due for a bill or by changing the non-currency resource balances.
When rerating, if the original event being rerated has already been billed, the GL has already been posted, or both, an adjustment event gets recorded. This adjustment event generates a balance in the next bill for the difference in the amount.
A special service required for logging in to Customer Center. Both the root account and CSR accounts include the admin_client service.
An event generated by changes to account information, such as a password or name change.
The process of customizing resource balance impacts in a product's real-time rates and pipeline price models. Advanced customization results in the creation of a customer-specific customized product.
Accounts receivable that has not been paid. It is usually grouped in time periods, for example, 30-day, 60-day, or 90-day. At some point your company might conclude that they are never going to get paid and decide to write off A/R, that is, remove it from the books as an asset.
Pipeline Manager functionality used for combining data from EDRs, usually for gathering business intelligence.
A non-currency account balance used by discounting to track subscribers' total usage charges or units used (such as minutes or bytes) for the cycle. Aggregation counters are incremented when subscribers use their services. A discount (typically a billing-time discount) is then applied based on the aggregated balance.
Time-based category into which overdue balances are divided for reporting in Collections Manager. For example, overdue balances can be divided into 30-, 60-, and 90-day aging buckets.
An Oracle character set for the SQL CHAR data type, which is used for the database character set. It encodes Unicode data in the UTF-8 encoding format. AL32UTF8 is the default character set for BRM 7.5.
See "UTF8".
To distribute the amount of a payment or adjustment between bills in the customer's account and reduce the amount the customer owes. You can use Customer Center or Payment Tool to allocate payments and adjustments.
A program that simulates the Paymentech credit card processing service. When setting up credit card payments, use answer_b for testing batch processing.
A program that simulates the Paymentech credit card processing service. When setting up credit card payments, use answer_s for testing online processing.
APN (Access Point Name) device
A device such as a router, that provides access to a network. BRM IP Address Manager enables you to manage the APNs in your system as devices in /device/apn objects.
Accounts receivable account. An account that pays the charges in its own bill unit. A parent account in a hierarchical account group that pays the charges of the subordinate bill unit in a child account is also an A/R account.
In Customer Center, an A/R account is called a paying bill unit.
An adjustment, dispute, refund, settlement, or write-off. The balance impact of an A/R action is stored in an A/R item.
See also "item" and "item charge".
A paying bill unit in a parent account that pays the charges of a subordinate bill unit in a child account. If there are multiple levels of hierarchy, the A/R bill unit is the top-most, paying bill unit.
An object in the BRM database that stores the balance impact of an A/R action such as a payment, adjustment, dispute, settlement, refund, payment reversal, or write-off. See also "bill item".
associated charge breakdown record
A block of data added to an EDR by a function module in a pipeline. For example, the FCT_CustomerRating module adds an associated charge breakdown record to the EDR. Each associated charge breakdown record includes one or more charge packet. Each charge packet includes a single charge, for example, the charge for a telephone call for a single time zone.
In Pricing Center when pipeline data migration is enabled, an association indicates that a pipeline pricing data object has a relationship with another object that has been modified in a change set. Pricing Center maintains a list of associations for each change set.
An associated object is not locked and can be modified by another change set. Associated objects are not exported with the change set.
Store the revenue assurance data generated by running the billing utilities and pipeline rating process.
Verification of a customer's identity, which typically is accomplished by checking the customer's login name and password. By default, authentication takes place prior to authorizing access to a service. You can specify which checks should be performed to validate a user for a specific action.
See also "authorization".
Verification that occurs when a customer accesses a service to ensure that the customer is allowed to do so.
Authorization is generally based on account information (for example, the product a customer owns or whether the customer has exceeded a credit limit). Authorization occurs after authentication.
A process performed by a credit card processor to determine whether a credit card is valid (for example, whether the card has not expired).
See also "validate".
Automatic Number Identification (ANI)
A telephony feature that determines from what number a caller is dialing. Also known as caller ID.
See "AAC".
The process of automatically creating a rerate job for an account's events when certain events occur. For example, when an deal purchase event is backdated, a rerate job is created for the purchase event so that it is automatically rerated the next time pin_rerate is run with the -rerate parameter.
You can also configure rerating to create rerate jobs based on custom criteria by using trigger-dependent rerating.
A top-up initiated by BRM. BRM supports the following types of automatic top-ups:
An automatic standard top-up is made when an account balance falls below a specified threshold.
An automatic sponsored top-up is initiated by the pin_balance_transfer utility at specified intervals. These top-ups are based on information in the /group/topup object associated with the account that receives the top-up.
Address Verification Service. The a credit card processing service that verifies the name and address for a credit card transaction.
To change the date of a payment, adjustment, dispute, settlement, transfer, or write-off so that it takes effect in the proper period instead of the date that it occurred. You cannot backdate a transaction previous to the last run pin_ledger_report that used the -posted option.
A process used by system components, such as a DM, that use queuing.
DM back-end processes connect to a database.
Back-end processes with which client applications connect to a connection manager (CM).
See also "front-end process".
The amount of a resource in an account balance group, such as dollars, that a customer owes to your company or that your company owes to a customer.
The total amount due on a customer's bill. This amount includes the charges from cycle forward items and usage items but does not include disputed or transferred charges.
See "resource".
Balance Element ID Object (BEID)
See "resource".
One of two accounting types that determine how to create bills and apply payments. With balance forward accounting:
The customer's bill includes amounts from previous bills.
The customer's payment applies to all open accounts receivable items, regardless of the bill they are from.
By default, if a payment is not enough to cover the entire amount due, the payment is allocated to the oldest open items.
Customer accounts that use an automated payment method, such as a credit card, should always use balance forward accounting.
See also "open item accounting".
A collection of sub-balances that track what customers owe or are credited with for one or more services. The sub-balances are grouped by resource. A balance group contains sub-balances for any number of currency and non-currency resources such as free minutes, number of bytes, and number of email messages. To collect payments from customers, every balance group is associated with a bill unit.
The impact that rating has on a customer's account balance.
You can apply balance impacts to any type of resource; for example, a rate of one dollar per hour applies a balance impact to the US Dollars resource.
A rate that credits one hour of Internet access applies a balance impact to the IP Hours resource.
A programming component. A base class is a top-level object definition from which all other object types are derived.
For example, /config is a base class and /config/payment and /config/glid are subclasses.
See also "class".
The discount expression in a discount balance impact that defines the amount to discount. The base expression can specify the balance that contains the amount or quantity of usage, a fixed value, or a calculation. After the amount in the base expression is discounted, the results of the discount are applied to the specified balance.
A BRM software component used for running applications automatically. See also "batch handler", "metronomic execution", and "scheduled execution".
A program that you can use to run another program automatically. For example, Universal Event (UE) Loader has a batch handler that can run the UE Loader automatically. Batch handlers are in turn run by the Batch Controller. See also "metronomic execution" and "scheduled execution".
A record in the BRM database for a CDR file that was suspended (also called a /suspended_batch object). This is not the file itself, but simply a record of the file and information about its suspension.
The minimum ratable or discountable quantity:
In a price model, the beat is the minimum number of units to which a charge is applied. For example, if the event is measured in seconds, entering a beat of 30 means the smallest increment you can charge for is 30 seconds.
See "price model step".
In a discount model, the beat is the number of units to which a discount is applied. For example, to give a monetary credit for each 10 seconds of call usage, the beat is 10. The beat is relevant only for amount discounts.
You can also define the minimum discountable quantity by using a calculation in the base expression. In this case, if you also include a beat greater than 1, the beat divides the base expression into further discountable increments.
This term has multiple meanings:
(Noun) An object in the BRM database that stores the balance impacts in the bill item of a customer's account during one billing cycle. Bills contain information about the customer's account, the account's billing cycle, and the amount billed. See also "billing".
(Verb) To assemble all amounts recorded in an account during one billing cycle into a /bill object.
(Verb) To send a request for payment to a customer, for example, to send an invoice or to debit a credit card.
A systematic way to allocate accounts to accounting days of month that enables users to load-balance their billing operations.
An object in the BRM database that stores the total of the balance impacts for billable events during an account's billing cycle. There are several types of bill items:
Usage items record the balance impacts from service usage, canceling products, and purchasing products. In addition, the first month's cycle forward rate is recorded in a usage item.
Cycle forward items track the A/R for cycle forward events.
Cycle arrears items track the A/R for cycle arrears events.
Custom items track the A/R for customized bill items that you create.
You can see information about bill items in the Bill Details panel in Customer Center. Bill items might appear on a customer's bill.
An item has three possible states:
Pending: The item is still accumulating charges.
Open: The amount due has not been paid.
Closed: The total amount has been paid; the amount due is zero.
An object created at the close of a billing cycle. The bill object contains the total amount due for a customer.
See also "bill".
A feature that enables you to do the following:
Reduce the load and duration of billing runs.
Fine-tune bill due dates.
A feature that enables you to postpone finalizing a bill until the end of a future billing cycle.
You use bill suppression to avoid sending out unnecessary bills and incurring wasteful expenses. For example, if the cost to create and mail a bill is greater than the balance due, you can suppress the bill until its balance due is greater than its production costs.
A collection of balance groups for which the customer receives a bill. The bill unit represents the /billinfo storable object, which contains the account's billing information, such as billing status, billing and accounting cycle, and hierarchy. The /balance_group storable object contains information about the /billinfo storable object that it belongs to.
An event that you charge a customer for, such as an Internet connection or an IP phone call.
Revenue from charges that have been included in a bill. Billed revenue is not necessarily earned. See also "unbilled revenue".
You track billed revenue by running general ledger (G/L) reports.
A BRM process, typically run daily, that compiles the fees incurred by customers into bills and requests payments from the customer.
A command-line application, such as the pin_collect and pin_bill_accts applications, that you use to request and deposit customer payments.
A list of days on which bill payments cannot be due. Each billing calendar is stored in a separate /config/calendar object.
Billing calendars enable you to implement payment terms based on business days. To calculate due dates for bills associated with such payment terms, BRM must determine which days of the year are considered business days and which are not. To do so, it uses billing calendars to exclude days such as weekends, holidays, and other user-specified nonbilling days from the calculation.
The person who receives the bill for an account. The billing contact is usually the owner of the account or the parent account of an account group. However, the billing contact might be different from the person who uses the service. For example, a corporate account can use a different billing contact for a number of nonsubordinate employee accounts.
The time period during which charges accumulate in an account before a bill is finalized. One billing cycle can contain one or more accounting cycles.
An organization, such as a content aggregator or Internet service provider, that provides billing services to content providers.
An account attribute that determines whether an account is billed when the billing applications are run. There are two types of status:
Active: The account is billed when billing is run.
Inactive: The account is not billed when billing is run.
The debits, credits, charges, refunds, adjustments, disputes, and settlements made to a customer's account.
See "accounting type".
A discount that is determined at the end of the billing cycle, and can be granted for the current billing cycle or the next one. This allows you to grant discounts based on resources used during a billing cycle.
Billing-time discounts are calculated and balance impacts are applied when billing is run.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
A type of account that you use to separate the customer accounts and pricing plans of branded service management.
Brands are similar to hierarchical account groups in that they can contain many levels. Each brand or sub-brand can contain account groups, accounts, and other sub-brands.
A person who manages a specific brand. This administrator can create sub-brands and price lists, assign access privileges, and carry out any other brand-specific tasks.
The application you use to create a brand so you can provide services under a new brand name. Brand Manager is part of Configuration Center.
A feature that lets a single hosting BRM site support multiple virtual BRM sites.
An Oracle database used for storing, retrieving, and processing information about accounts, events, pricing, billing, and payments. See also "Pipeline Manager database".
The DM that provides a link between the CM and the BRM database. BRM includes DM for Oracle (dm_oracle) database server.
The directory where you install BRM components. By default, BRM_Home is /opt/portal/relnum, where relnum is the number of the release you installed.
Payment processing triggered by BRM. Payment methods processed this way are those for which a customer is automatically charged, such as credit card or direct debit payments.
There are two types of BRM-initiated payment processing: transactional and nontransactional.
See also "transactional payment", "nontransactional payment", and "externally initiated payment".
An adjustment you apply concurrently to a block of accounts. You perform bulk adjustments to correct a widespread problem such as misapplication of rates across the board or to accommodate changes in policy that affect a large number of accounts.
Business Application SDK (BAS)
Business Application SDK (BAS) is a Java programming framework that aids in creating customizable applications, such as Self-Care Manager and Customer Center.
A business operation comprising one or more BRM events. Business events are used by EAI Manager and features that rely on the Enterprise Applications Integration (EAI) framework to do the following:
Capture information needed by external applications or internal BRM components.
Establish the circumstances under which EAI publishers send information to these applications or internal components.
For example, the Account Synchronization DM uses the EAI framework to alert Pipeline Manager of BRM activities that affect rating. When a customer initiates an action, such as a product purchase, that could change the basis used to rate events, a business event is created to capture information about this activity. The EAI framework then publishes the business event to Pipeline Manager, which adjusts the rating basis accordingly.
A business event is created only after all BRM events included in its definition have occurred. BRM includes a set of default business events and their definitions, but you can also define custom business events.
How your company handles certain customer situations, for example:
What to do when a customer pays only part of a bill
The required number of characters for passwords
The minimum credit card charge amount
You change the default business policies by editing a configuration file, using the Field Validation Editor in Configuration Center, or customizing BRM source code.
A method of validating bill units and other objects to determine how they are used in BRM. Business profiles can be used to classify bills as prepaid, postpaid, or convergent to determine how bills and payments should be handled and to determine whether objects need to be stored in Pipeline Manager memory.
A way to categorize your customer base. BRM supports two business types by default: consumer and business. You can add to the default business type definitions in the pin_config_business_type file and use the load_pin_config_business_type utility to load them.
A set of holidays used for Pipeline Manager. For example, if the calendar defines January 1 as a holiday, you can define special rates for that day. A single calendar can be used by different rate plans. Calendars are defined in the IFW_CALENDAR table.
Data created by IP telephony gateways and telephone switches to record telephony usage, such as call origin and destination.
The event generated when a telephone call occurs. A call event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
The event generated when a product is canceled. Cancel events are used to assess fees associated with canceling a product. A cancel event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
The process of presenting strings of characters in a standard way, called canonical form. For example, the strings ”àbc” and ”abc” are equivalent, but the second one is in canonical form. BRM uses a set of rules to convert character strings into canonical form. Strings in canonical form are easier to compare for searches or sorts.
A unique ID number assigned to each original CDR batch file, also called a mediation batch. When event data records (EDRs) pass through a pipeline to be rated, rerated, or recycled, they can originate from multiple CDR batches. The CDR batch ID indicates to which CDR batch file the EDRs originally belonged.
Call-details record file; a log file created by IP telephony gateways and telephone switches to record telephony usage, such as call origin and destination.
A complete BRM installation containing at least one instance of a Connection Manager (CM) server and a DM server.
In Pricing Center, when pipeline data migration is enabled, a change set is a group of related changes to pipeline pricing data that you manage as a whole by using the Change Set Manager. A change set can be exported from one Pipeline Manager database and imported into another Pipeline Manager database.
In Pricing Center, when pipeline data migration is enabled, the Change Set Manager window enables users to manage, import, and export change sets.
In pipeline data migration, a change set moves through states that describe its current status and how the change set can be used. There are four default states, and you can create custom states.
A block of data in an event data record (EDR) that stores data about a single charge, (for example, the charge for a telephone call). A charge packet can also include data about part of a charge. For example, if an event is rated by two different rates based on time, each charge is stored in a separate charge packet.
Charge packets are stored in EDRs as part of an associated charge breakdown record.
The ability for a charge sharing group owner account to assume all or part of the charges for services owned by group member accounts. For example, a business may want to pay for some or all of the wireless charges for its employees.
You set up charge sharing groups in Customer Center or a third-party client application. Charge sharing is based on chargeshares. You set up chargeshares and chargeshare models in Pricing Center.
A group that consists of one group owner account and one or more member accounts. The group owner account receives the balance impact of sponsored charges incurred by the member accounts.
The top-level price list component for charge sharing. A chargeshare object includes a name, information about validity dates, and a usage map that links event types to chargeshare models.
You create chargeshares in the Pricing Center.
A filter used by Pipeline Manager that determines which charge packets contain charges that are shared among two or more accounts or services. Chargeshare masters are used in chargeshare models, which define the conditions and rules for charge sharing. You define chargeshare masters and models in Pricing Center.
A set of pricing components that determine when and how charge sharing applies to a particular event data record (EDR).
Each model contains one or more versions, which lets you administer chargeshare models that share the same configuration but differ in their validity dates.
Chargeshare models are structured the same way as discount models and include most of the same components. See also "discount rule", "discount trigger", and "discount master".
A record in the BRM database that shows an incomplete credit card transaction. Checkpoint records are indicated by the number 999 in the charge event result field.
A member of a hierarchical account group. Child accounts have either a nonsubordinate bill unit or a subordinate bill unit.
See "system process".
See "storable class".
An application or system process that connects to the BRM system. For example:
A client application, such as Customer Center or Pricing Center
Applications that capture billable events, such as a RADIUS Manager back-end process
An account or service status that prevents the customer from using any service or accessing any administrative Web pages. Closed status implies that the customer will not use the account again.
You can reopen a closed account, but all products need to be repurchased, since closing an account cancels all products.
See also "active status" and "inactive status".
A group of phone numbers, for example, a group of all mobile numbers in a company. Calls between members of the closed user group can be rated differently from other calls, for example, given a special discount.
One or more servers that perform identical functions and are managed as a set for load balancing and failover. These servers can run on the same or different nodes.
A system process (cm_proxy) that provides a fast authentication Connection Manager (CM) connection for BRM applications. CM Proxy allows access to the database without a login, which improves performance.
A proactive process to collect overdue accounts receivable (A/R). See "Collections Manager".
An individual activity in the collections process, such as sending a dunning letter. Actions are organized into collections scenarios, which define the order in which actions take place.
From the point of view of Collections Center users, actions are collections tasks that need to be completed.
A third-party business that specializes in recovering overdue accounts receivable (A/R). Companies can refer accounts to a collections agency if their internal collections policy fails to collect the overdue funds. Collections agencies generally use more aggressive methods than internal collections departments.
An employee in an internal collections department. In BRM, these employees use the Collections Center application to keep track of bill units in collections.
A BRM application that enables collections agents and collections managers to oversee accounts in collections, including the progress of both automatic and manual collections actions. See "Collections Manager".
An employee in an internal collections department who supervises collections agents. Managers can use special features in Collections Center to assign agents to accounts.
An optional product that enables collections functionality. Collections Manager includes both client and server components.
Used in Collections Manager to group bill units according to criteria that you define. Collections profiles are used to determine which collections scenario applies when a bill unit enters collections. You define profiles in the Collections Configuration application and implement them by modifying a policy opcode.
Used in Collections Manager to define the entry criteria that determine whether a bill unit enters collections. Scenarios also determine the sequence of collections actions that takes place while a bill unit is in collections and the exit criteria that determine when it leaves collections.
In Collections Center, an individual collections action that must be completed for a bill unit in collections. Some tasks, such as phone calls, are completed manually by a collections agent or collections manager. Other tasks, such as a dunning letter or a bill unit inactivation, are completed automatically by the system.
A program that includes these applications: Brand Manager, Access Privileges, and Field Validation Editor.
A system file used for connecting system components and defining BRM behavior. Most configuration files are named pin.conf for C programs and Infranet.properties for Java programs.
A graphical wizard for customizing certain panels and default behaviors in Customer Center. The wizard wraps the API provided with the Customer Center SDK to enable easy modification without programming.
A group of processes used by client applications to establish connections to the BRM database. CMs also contain the facilities modules (FMs) that carry out BRM functions.
CMs function as daemons; an active CM is a parent process with multiple child processes.
Connection Manager Master Process (CMMP)
A system process that redirects client connections to a CM. If a CM goes offline, the CMMP reroutes connections to another CM.
A set of connections maintained between an application, such as Content SDK, and the CM. An incoming request is assigned a connection from this pool and uses the connection to perform operations. When the operation is completed, the connection is returned to the pool.
A utility for loading the EDR container description into the Pipeline Manager database.
An organization that resells content created by content providers. A content aggregator is also a billing provider for content providers.
Phone calls can sometimes terminate unexpectedly due to technical reasons. A continuation call is when a customer makes another call to the same phone number to resume the connection.
An optional component that you install on your BRM system. Content Manager includes a set of opcodes that enable billing providers to offer authentication, authorization, rating, and billing services to content providers.
An organization that sells content. Content can be any type of information distributed via the Internet or other electronic media.
A set of Java classes that content providers install on their host systems. Content servers use methods in the Java classes to make AAA requests to your Content Manager installation.
A value that tracks resources for service usage in detail. You use contributors to keep separate sub-balances for each service, call session, product, or any other attribute of the usage event or record. This provides flexibility for tracking non-currency resources such as free minutes and shared discounts.
Contributors associated with a sub-balance specify the following:
Which event updates the sub-balance resource
Which sub-balance is updated by a balance impact
Which sub-balance resources are included when the total available resource is retrieved
You specify contributors for your entire system in a configuration file. The sub-balances that contributors create, however, are limited to an individual balance group in an account.
A Pipeline Manager component. You use the Controller to stop and start the Pipeline Manager framework and the pipelines. The Controller uses the registry and semaphore to manage the pipelines. It also logs all error messages.
A bill that is generated after corrections are made to a regular bill or a bill that was previously corrected.
A decrease in a resource balance in a customer's account. Credits can be applied to both currency and non-currency resources, such as US Dollars and Bulk Hours.
You can set up rates to automatically give credits, for example, 10 free Internet access hours per month, and you can give credits in Customer Center.
See also "debit".
An account balance where your company owes the customer a resource, such as US Dollars. See also "debit balance".
The Data Manager (DM) used for connecting to a credit card processor, for example, the Paymentech DM (dm_fusa).
A numeric value that sets the starting point for a credit threshold. The amount that represents 0% consumption of the credit limit value. The default value is 0.
The maximum amount of a resource, such as currency or hours, that can accumulate in an account before the customer is prevented from logging in, using a service, or purchasing new products.
The rate used when no other rate in a tiered rate structure can be applied because a resource's credit limit is reached.
The limit override rate sets a baseline charge for an event. After all of the rates set for a given event have been applied without exceeding any credit limits, there might still be some quantity of the event that has not been rated. If this quantity is not rated, the customer will not be charged for it. In this case, the highest-priority override rate is applied to the remainder of the event.
Generally, override rates use currency to charge for an event. However, you can define override rates using any resource.
A percentage of a credit limit that alerts customers that they are approaching a credit limit or triggers BRM to perform a particular action, such as topping up an account.
Customer service representative. A CSR uses Customer Center or a third-party client application to create and manage customer accounts.
A method by which the rating module selects a rate plan. You create a list of rate plans in Pricing Center and write a policy opcode to analyze some attribute of the event to be rated and then select a rate plan.
The BRM customer management application that you use to create, display, and change customer and account information in your BRM database.
Customer Center is a Java application that can be fully customized and localized.
An application framework and toolkit for customizing the default implementation of Customer Center and Self-Care Manager. The SDK provides three ways to customize the application: a set of custom properties and resource files you edit to override the default implementation at run-time, a graphical wizard for modifying certain Customer Center panels, and a set of controllers to subclass for modifying Customer Center or Self-Care Manager to suit your business needs.
A user-defined customer category such as early bill payer, reliable bill payer, and delinquent bill payer that you can use to group accounts according to customer billing and payment practices. An account can belong to multiple customer segments.
You can use customer segments to charge payment fees, to provide payment incentives, and for bill suppression.
A customer classification defined by your company. For example, customer types can be used for identifying the level of customer commitment and customer usage behavior, such as Platinum, Gold, or Silver.
The modified version of a base product containing changes to the product's pricing data and copies of unchanged data. BRM uses the customized product for rating in place of the base product as long as the customized product is valid. You create customized products individually for each subscriber in Customer Center or by opcode calls from another CRM tool. The process of creating a customized product is called advanced customization.
An event generated at the end of the accounting cycle. Cycle arrears events are used to charge for services provided during that month. A cycle arrears event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
A fee charged on the last day of each accounting cycle for services that were provided during that cycle.
See also "cycle forward fee".
A recurring event, typically used for charging a fee. A cycle forward event charges in advance, and a cycle arrears event charges for the previous cycle period. A cycle forward arrears event is generated at the beginning of an accounting cycle and billed at the end of the cycle.
Cycle events are not affected by how much a customer uses a service.
A cycle event is a recurring event typically used for charging subscription fees. You can apply a discount to one or more cycle events.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
A recurring monthly fee applied on the first or last day of each accounting cycle, for example, a $15 monthly subscription fee for email service. There are two types of cycle fees: cycle forward fee and cycle arrears fee.
An event generated on the first day of each accounting cycle. Cycle forward arrears events are used to include the fee for services that will be provided during that cycle at the beginning of the cycle, and bill the fee at the end of the cycle. A cycle forward arrears event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
A recurring fee applied on the first day of each accounting cycle but billed at the end of the accounting cycle for services that will be provided during that cycle.
You use cycle forward arrears fees to recognize revenue in G/L reports for cycle fees that are not yet billed
See also "cycle arrears fee".
A bill item that includes balance impacts resulting from cycle forward arrears fees.
A recurring event that is typically used for charging a fee in advance of service. A cycle forward event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
There are five cycle forward events:
Cycle forward monthly
Cycle forward bimonthly
Cycle forward quarterly
Cycle forward semiannually
Cycle forward annually
You can also define your own cycle events, for example, weekly cycle events.
A recurring fee for services that will be provided during that cycle.
There are five cycle forward rates:
cycle_forward_monthly
cycle_forward_bimonthly
cycle_forward_quarterly
cycle_forward_semiannually
cycle_forward_annually
You can define your own cycles, for example, weekly cycles.
See also "cycle arrears fee".
A process that runs in the background and performs administrative tasks for the operating system at predefined times or in response to certain events.
A value, such as a telephone number or IP address, that you can include in a zone for the purpose of setting up a rate.
A database or other data storage system such as the Paymentech credit card processor.
A data management facility that contains all field and storable class definitions for the current BRM database.
A group of processes that translate BRM operations into a database language. BRM uses DMs to communicate with the Oracle database and credit card processor. You can write custom DMs to interact with third-party or legacy systems.
A type of Pipeline Manager component that stores data used by function modules. For example, the FCT_Dayrate module gets data from the DAT_Dayrate module.
A number that identifies a BRM database. For an application to access a particular database, the application, the Data Manager (DM), the Connection Manager (CM), and the Connection Manager Master Process (CMMP), if any, must all use the same database number, which is defined by an entry in the configuration file.
A flag for each event listed in the /channel object that shows whether the event has occurred.
In pipeline rating, a group of days that you use to define a time period. For example, to charge different rates for weekdays and weekends, you could create the following day codes:
WD is the day code for weekdays.
WE is the day code for Saturday and Sunday.
A pricing component that consists of one or more product and discount objects. By bundling products into a deal, you can provide discounts for those products. For example, you can create a deal that waives the sign-up fee if the customer registers before a certain date.
You can associate a deal with a particular service or with any service owned by an account.
An increase in a resource balance in a customer's account. Debits can be applied to both currency and non-currency resources, such as US Dollars and Bulk Hours.
See also "credit".
An account balance where the customer owes your company a resource, such as US Dollars. See also "credit balance".
An indication that the system has rejected an operation because of illegal input. BRM displays debugging messages in a log file. Developers use them to diagnose errors in applications.
The balance group in a bill unit that receives balance impacts for events that are not associated with any service.
See "system product".
Postpone billing for a period of time that you specify. Use delayed billing to ensure that events that occur during a given accounting cycle are recorded properly before you run billing applications.
A prerated event that is loaded into the BRM database by Rated Event (RE) Loader. The delayed event storable class type is /event/delayed/service_type.
A sum of money given as security for a device acquired for temporary use or to ensure payment for services rendered.
The telephone number where a call is received. The destination can be identified by a country code, area code, or a specific telephone number.
A suite of applications that enables developers to add storable classes and fields, test and run opcodes, view the contents of objects in the BRM database, and map data from event log files to objects in the BRM database. Developer Center includes four applications: Storable Class Editor, Opcode Workbench, Object Browser, and Universal Event Mapper.
An item managed by an optional manager such as the Number Manager, or a custom application created with the Device Management framework. A device can be a physical item such as a set-top box or a ”virtual” one such as a telephone number.
A set of storable classes, opcodes, and utilities that enable you to create or customize applications for managing devices. Optional managers such as Number Manager use the Device Management framework.
The status of a device, for example, New, Assigned, or Released. For example, before a telephone number is assigned to a service, the device state is New. After it is assigned, the state is Assigned.
Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS)
The ability to determine which telephone number(s) the caller has dialed.
A customer connection to the Internet or to an intranet service by using a modem. Dialup attempts and connections are recorded as events in the BRM database.
A reduction in the charge for a billable event or a change in a balance of a resource such as free minutes or loyalty points. You specify when and how discounts are applied by configuring discount objects and discount models. You can discount usage charges, purchase fees, and recurring charges.
Discounts can be configured for events rated by either real-time rating or rated by Pipeline Manager.
A pricing component that determines the amount of a discount and which balances are impacted. One or more discount balance impacts can be linked to a discount step, which is part of a discount rule. A discount balance impact can be a percentage or a fixed amount and can increase or decrease the balance.
You create discount balance impacts in Pricing Center.
A rule that establishes a mutually exclusive relationship between discounts so that two discounts cannot be owned by and account at the same time. Exclusion rules between discounts can be applied at billing time or when cycle fees are applied.
Exclusion rules can also be applied between plans, or between a discount and a plan.
An expression that the pipeline evaluates to determine a value that is used in calculating a discount. A discount expression can include one or more individual elements such as decimal values, arithmetic operators, and other discount expressions. You can use discount expressions in discount triggers and discount rules.
A filter that determines which charge packets are discounted in a pipeline. Discount masters determine which charge packets apply to the threshold value for determining which discount step in a discount rule is used. You define discount masters in the Pricing Center.
Discount masters are used in a similar way with chargeshares.
A set of pricing model components that determine which events are discounted, the amount of the discount, and the conditions under which the discount applies. Each model contains one or more versions, which lets you administer discount models that share the same configuration, but differ in their validity dates.
Discount models are linked to event types in discount usage maps that are included in discount objects. You create discount models in Pricing Center.
See also "discount rule", "discount trigger", and "discount master".
A set of one or more ranked configurations that map a price/discount model selector rule to a discount model. When a rule is satisfied, Pipeline Manager uses the associated discount model. You can use a discount model selector instead of a discount model in a discount usage map.
See also "price model selector".
The top-level pricing model component for discounting. A discount object determines which event types are mapped to discount models. It also includes information about processing multiple discounts and validity dates.
Discount objects are purchasable items that you can include with products in deals. You create discount objects in the Pricing Center.
The part of a discount model that specifies the type and amount of a discount. Each discount rule can have one or more steps, which define threshold values. Each step in turn can contain one or more discount balance impact. A rule is linked to a specific discount trigger.
You create discount rules in Pricing Center.
Defines whether a discount rule is tiered or threshold:
A tiered rule type means that the amount to consider for discounting can overlap the threshold values for which the discount is applied. For example, if the threshold is 0 to 60 and the amount to consider for discounting is 80, the discount is applied. The discount amount and the balances impacted are defined in the discount balance impact.
A threshold rule type means that the amount to consider for discounting must fall entirely within the threshold values for which the discount is applied. For example, if the threshold is 0 to 60 and the amount to consider for discounting is 80, the discount is not applied.
You create discount rules in Pricing Center.
The ability for a discount sharing group owner account to share discounts for particular services with group member accounts that also own the service. For example, a Mrs. Smith may purchase discounts on her e-mail services and want these discounts to apply to all her children's e-mail services as well.
You set up discount sharing groups in Customer Center or a third-party client application. You set up discounts in the Pricing Center. For an example of discount sharing using snowball discounts, see "snowball discount".
A group that consists of one group owner account and one or more member accounts. The group owner shares discounts that it owns with the member accounts. Events generated as a result of member activity are discounted using the group owner's shared discounts.
The part of a discount rule that defines the amount of usage for which a discount is applied. The amount of usage is specified by using threshold values. For example, to apply a discount to all usage exceeding $100.00, the threshold for the discount is from $100.00 to infinity.
If you use multiple steps, the discount is applied to the amount that falls within the threshold. If only one step is used, the discount can be applied to the amount within the threshold, or another account balance.
Conditions that must be met before applying a discount. For example, a discount might be given after the first 100 minutes of telephony usage. A trigger is linked to a specific discount rule in a discount model. You define discount triggers in Pricing Center.
Triggers are also used in chargeshare models.
The part of a discount object that maps event types covered by the discount to the discount models that will be used to process them. You create discount usage maps and discount objects in Pricing Center.
A rule that specifies the time period during which a discount is valid. Each discount validity rule you apply in Pricing Center defines start and end dates for a discount, and can be applied to both cycle and usage events.
An item that records a customer's objection to an amount billed to an account or to an event that affected the non-currency resources of an account. Use the Bill Details panel in Customer Center to open, track, and settle disputes.
A portion of a larger suspended payment. A suspended payment can be broken into any number of distributed payments, each of which can be applied to a customer account. Distributed payments are tracked in BRM by their transaction ID and transaction ID values.
See "XA transaction".
See "Data Manager (DM)".
The DM that provides an interface to the Paymentech credit card and direct debit processing service.
The DM that provides an interface to Vertex Communications Tax Q Series, which handles telecommunications taxation, and Vertex Sales Tax Q Series, which calculates taxes for sales and use.
On the Internet, a domain is a group of computers whose host names share a common suffix known as the domain name. The domain name typically follows the @ sign in an email address.
A phone call that terminated unexpectedly for a variety of technical reasons, such as the mobile phone moving out of the wireless network's range or network interference.
A discount ratable usage metric (DRUM) defines the amount or quantity to consider for discounting. The DRUM type specifies whether the DRUM is a currency charge or a non-currency quantity such as minutes. The DRUM expression specifies the actual amount or quantity. You specify the DRUM type and DRUM expression when defining discount rules.
A letter sent as part of the collections process to customers with overdue balances. The content and severity of the letter can vary based on the situation.
An optional component that publishes business events and lets you integrate BRM with other data-sharing applications in your enterprise.
Revenue that is earned at the time that a G/L report is run. Revenue from usage, purchase, cancel fees is always earned. Revenue from cycle forward fees can be earned or unearned, depending on when the G/L report is run. See also "unearned revenue".
A configuration file for pipeline rating or for processing AAA requests by AAA Gateway Manager that contains the definition of the EDR container. For example, the container description includes the fields in the EDR container, their field types, and their default values.
A optional component that integrates your company's email service with the BRM system. Use Email Manager to authentication and authorization email users.
The process during pipeline rating where data is added to an EDR, or data is normalized. For example, telephone numbers are normalized to be represented in a consistent format.
Enterprise Applications Integration (EAI)
An optional component enabling the use of BRM with other data-sharing applications in your enterprise.
A message notifying you that a system component is not operating correctly. BRM displays errors in a log file.
See also "warning" and "debugging message".
See "log file".
The allowable error due to rounding when converting euro and EMU currencies. You use the Resource Editor to set the currency error tolerance for each EMU currency. It can be based on a percentage or minimum and maximum amount of the total amount billed.
An online action that is recognized by BRM and recorded in the BRM database, for example:
Connecting to the Internet
Placing an IP phone call
Changing a password
Creating an account
BRM tracks events and bills users for them.
See also "cycle forward event" and "cycle arrears event".
A component of an event that you can use as input to the rating module at rating time, for example, the origin or destination of a telephone call. You use event attributes to implement a rate plan selector or custom event analysis.
A temporary balance used to store a discount balance impact when more than one discount applies to the same event. You use event balances when you need the results of one discount to calculate another discount.
You specify an event balance ID when you set up discount balance impacts. You reference an event balance by using the discount expression EBal (event_balance_ID). You can reference an event balance in discount rules, discount triggers, and discount balance impacts.
An application available in Customer Center that displays information about events. You use the Event Browser to correct charges or payments by adjusting events. When you adjust the general ledger impact of the event, you can also adjust the tax impact of the event.
In pipeline rating, the representation of an event. For example, multiple call detail records (CDRs) for a single telephone call can be assembled into a single EDR that represents the telephone call event.
A utility that extracts prerated events from the BRM database for rerating. This utility is an optional component that is packaged with the Rated Event (RE) Loader.
A Pipeline Manager component that you can use to start external programs based on events occurring in a pipeline. You can use the event handler to automate operations such as archiving files or notification of errors.
A template used by the Universal Event (UE) Loader that maps data in log files to fields in an event flist. Use the UE Mapper to create the event import template.
A file that records events that you load into the BRM database by using the Universal Event (UE) Loader. Event log files are created by programs such as IP telephony gateways and Web servers.
A configuration file, pin_event_map, that maps services to the event types that are valid for the service. This file also includes a description of each event type, which Pricing Center displays when you add the event to a product. Pricing Center uses the event map to ensure that only events valid for a given service are associated with that service.
For example, an event map might contain the following matrix for the IP service:
| Services | Events | Event Descriptions |
|---|---|---|
| /service/ip | /event/session/ip | IP Session Event |
| /event/session/dialup | IP Dialup Event | |
| /event/billing/product/fee/cycle/monthly | Monthly Cycle Fee | |
| /event/billing/product/action/purchase | Product Purchase Fee |
Configure the event map before you create a price list.
A feature that you use to carry out actions automatically based on the occurrence of a specified event.
The events that can be rated by a product. You define an event rating map for each product when using Pricing Center.
The specific type of event stored in the BRM database as a storable class. All events of the same type have the same object type specified in the storable class POID. For example, all billing events have /event/billing as the object type and all customer information changes have /event/customer as the object type.
An exchange rate specifies the respective values of one currency to another. For example, 1 euro is worth 1.75 US dollars. In Pricing Center, you can define exchange rates between any listed currencies as becoming valid on a specific date.
An attribute of a service or account used to provide a special rate or discount. You include an ERA in a provisioning tag, which you then add to a product or discount.
When an account purchases a product or discount with the provisioning tag, you specify values for that ERA for that account.
There are two types of ERAs:
Service-level: An ERA that is used with a specific service, such as a telephone service. Friends and family and closed user group discounts are examples of service-level ERAs.
Account-level: An ERA that can be used with any service (for example, a birthday discount).
For some types of ERAs, such as friends and family, you can include multiple individual lists in the same ERA. Each list is identified as an ERA label. This enables you to set up rating and discounting to select the rate or discount based on the label name.
ERAs are configured for a specific service or account in Customer Center, where they are called promotions. After they are configured, ERAs are stored in profiles. ERAs can be shared between services and accounts using profile sharing groups.
The value of a field in a call detail record (CDR) before it is converted to an internal code and added to an event data record (EDR). The external code is the raw field data that is used by the network. The converted code in the EDR is used by Pipeline Manager for rating. The conversion is performed in a pipeline by the input module.
A component similar to a Facilities Module (FM) that performs functions such as rating. An EM is not linked to a CM in the same way that an FM is. Instead, it runs as a separate process that you need to start and stop.
Payments that are triggered by an action from a financial institution.
Examples of payment methods processed this way are check and cash payments. Typically, after such payments are received from a customer, they are sent to a bank. The bank then initiates the payment processing by sending you a list of payments that have been received and deposited. If the payment information is not sent to BRM through a payment gateway, you use Payment Tool to allocate the payment and update the account.
See also "BRM-initiated payment".
A set of opcodes that are called by a BRM application or a system process that manages BRM activity and ensures that data is processed correctly.
There are several types of FMs, for example, FMs that include opcodes for running billing.
A payment that doesn't comply with the financial practices of your company because, upon collection, it has been dishonored or rejected by the bank. For example, payments can fail due to expired credit and debit cards, incorrect account details, and insufficient funds.
A backup component that is used if the primary component fails or is otherwise unavailable.
A programming component for developers. A field is the simplest data item in BRM. Each field in the BRM system has a unique ID, name, and type.
You can use fields in many different object and opcode definitions. Objects consist of variable numbers of field/value pairs.
You use the PIN_FLIST_FLD_GET and PIN_FLIST_FLD_SET macros to retrieve and set field values.
A BRM client application in Configuration Center used to define how to validate customer data. For example, you can determine what login names are prohibited when a customer signs up for a service.
A feature in Pipeline Manager that enables you to apply system products and discounts to a select group of customers. For example, you can specify that only calls made to London by customers with great credit qualify for a special 20% discount.
You create filter sets by using Pricing Center. Each filter set defines:
The filter criteria, that is, the list of required EDR fields and values.
The applicable system products and system discounts, along with their priorities and validity dates.
BRM stores data about each filter set in /filter_set/product objects.
A bill that is ready to be paid. The status of all the bill items associated with the bill has been changed from pending to open so that they stop accumulating charges and payments can be applied to them. In addition, a payment due date has been added to the bill. If necessary, an invoice is generated for the bill. A new bill is created to handle bill items for the next billing cycle.
A component of a balance impact that specifies the amount of a resource that should be charged or credited to an account's balance. It is called a fixed impact because the amount of the impact is not affected by changes in account usage or the quantity of events being rated.
You use a fixed impact to charge for a set quantity of item products and calculate charges for rates.
A fixed impact can be used in conjunction with a scaled impact to determine the total cost of a rate. The fixed impact sets the base price and the scaled impact is then added to it.
A field list. An flist is a variable-length list of field/value pairs. Flists provide input and output parameters to BRM opcodes and functions.
An ordered collection of one or more control points in a rating pipeline. For example, the flow describing a complete rating process can include two control points, start of rating and after rating.
A special event usually generated at the end of the accounting cycle. You rate a fold event to affect a resource balance based on another resource's balance. For example, you could rate a fold event to credit frequent flyer miles for every $500 a customer spends on a service. You could also rate a fold event to cancel unused free hours at the end of each month.
A file that specifies how to read and map an incoming record in a CDR, or a record in pipeline output.
For example, the input format description defines the parts of a record (header, trailer, and so forth), and where each part of the data is located in the record.
A telecommunication service for cost-efficient, high-speed, data transmission. A frame relay is appropriate for intermittent traffic between local area networks (LANs) and between end-points in a wide area network (WAN). A frame-relay service does not perform error detection or correction.
See "pipeline framework".
A Data Manager (DM) or daemon process that communicates with Connection Managers (CMs) and client applications.
See also "back-end process".
A Pipeline Manager component that performs a specific rating or processing function. For example:
The FCT_Reject module rejects EDRs that contain errors.
The FCT_CustomerRating module applies rates to events.
In a multithreaded pipeline, a group of one or more consecutive pipeline function modules that are processed by one thread. You can configure function pools to improve pipeline performance.
See "Paymentech".
general ledger (G/L) interface
A feature that allows the BRM system to provide data to a general ledger (G/L) system. You assign G/L IDs to events that impact an account's balance, such as credit card payments. Each G/L ID is mapped to a pair of G/L accounts such that positive (debit) changes in one G/L account are matched by negative (credit) changes in another G/L account.
A type of plan transition between a second generation (2G) and third generation (3G) wireless plan in which the plans are not required to share a common primary service. Plans are considered to be 2G or 3G, depending on whether they are associated with 2G and 3G services. A generation change transition can be from a 2G to a 3G plan, or vice versa.
In Pipeline Manager, the definition of zones based on geographical coordinates. For example, you can rate phone calls based on the geographic distance between the call origin and destination.
G/L (general ledger) accounts in BRM and Pricing Center are equivalent to G/L accounts in commercial accounting software packages.
See also "G/L ID" and "general ledger (G/L) interface".
General Ledger ID. An ID assigned to events to record revenue. For example, you keep a record of revenue from usage fees by mapping usage fees to G/L IDs.
G/L IDs are defined in the pin_glid configuration file. You map G/L IDs to events by using Pricing Center.
You load G/L IDs into the BRM database by using the load_pin_glid application.
A set of customer accounts that share a common general ledger (G/L) report.
By using G/L segments, you can create general ledger reports that include data for specific sets of customers, for example:
You want to record the revenue for a product in different G/L accounts depending on who bought the product.
You host multiple Internet service providers (ISPs) and need to deliver individualized accounting data to each ISP.
A charge sharing group whose members include either every account in the system or every service of a specific type. You specify every account or every service of a specific type as members by using a type-only POID.
See "XA transaction".
An optional component that integrates customer management and billing systems with your GPRS network services. Use GPRS AAA Manager to perform authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) for prepaid GPRS services.
An optional component that integrates customer management and billing systems with your GPRS network services. Use GPRS Manager to authenticate and authorize your GPRS customers and track service usage.
graphical user interface (GUI)
The appearance of an application, for example, the windows and dialog boxes.
GSM Manager Customer Center Extension
An optional component that supports creating and managing accounts that own GSM services.
A sponsored rate that is guaranteed to be paid by the sponsor account, even if the sponsored account exceeds a credit limit. See "sponsor group".
See "statement handle".
A helper opcode is an operation used by the Services Framework to perform administrative functions for a specific service type. For example, helper opcodes build search templates or generate input flists.
You can modify the default helper opcodes to suit your business needs. BRM includes the source code for all helper opcodes.
See also "opcode".
See "account group".
The person who administers the entire BRM system at a company that hosts branded services for external companies, or at a company that is sub-divided internally. This manager has root access to BRM, creates the top-level brand accounts, and carries out system-wide tasks.
In real-time rating: A rate attribute you use to apply different balance impacts when using the same rate plan. For example, to rate calls made to two different countries, you create impact categories for each country. When the call event occurs, the impact category determines which rate to apply. For example:
Rate: /telephony/minute
Impact category: France
Balance impact: .05
Impact category: Bolivia
Balance impact: .10
In pipeline rating: A combination of zoning and other event attributes, such as service codes. You can define separate rate plans based on the impact category.
A temporary status for an account or service. Inactive status implies that the customer will use the account again in the future, as opposed to closed status. Inactivating an account does not cancel the products that the account owns.
Inactive status usually means one of the following:
The account or service is new and is waiting for provisioning.
An existing account or service has been temporarily suspended from normal activity, usually because the customer exceeded a credit limit or did not pay a bill.
Depending on how your system is configured, a customer with an inactive account might be able to use Web account-access pages.
See also "active status" and "closed status".
See "configuration file".
A pipeline framework feature that measures, in microseconds, the time taken by each pipeline module to process EDRs. Instrumentation results are posted to the pipeline process log.
With pipeline rating, part of a roaming agreement that defines the pricing and settlement methods for roaming events.
A Pipeline Manager rating component consisting of the source and destination network and the service used for a roaming or interconnection call. Pipeline Manager compares the EDR data with the IC products to determine the associated rate plan to use for rating the service, and the network operator associated with the call. You set up IC products in Pricing Center.
The process of handling usage events over physical lines between two or more network operators.
The value of a field used in an event data record (EDR) after it is converted from an external code in the call detail record (CDR). The converted code in the EDR is used by the function modules for rating. The conversion is performed in a pipeline by the input module.
An HTML file you display during Web-based registration, usually to confirm the customer's plan choice. See "welcome message".
An itemized list of all charges included in a bill. BRM can generate physical invoices to request payments from invoice accounts. You can also generate virtual invoices for accounts that use non-invoice payment methods, such as credit card accounts.
Invoice files are stored in the BRM database.
A message printed on invoices to remind customers of overdue balances. Used as part of the collections process. You set up invoice reminders by using the Universal Message Store (UMS) framework.
IP Address Administration Center
The BRM device management application that you use to create and manage your IP address device and APN device inventories. This application is a provided with IP Address Manager.
IP Address Administration Center is a Java application that can be fully localized.
The BRM IP Address Manager allows you to manage your IP address inventory by storing IP addresses as devices in /device/ip objects.
BRM IP Address Manager is an optional component that you use to manage your APN and IP address inventories. Using IP Address Manager, you store IP addresses and APN devices as objects in the BRM database.
An iScript that is run only when specific conditions are met. iRules should be used to implement functions that apply only to certain EDRs or under certain conditions.
A script used by Pipeline Manager to perform custom processing, for example:
Normalizing data, such as phone numbers
Triggering events
Custom enrichment
Use iScripts when the script can be run for every EDR.
An object in the BRM database that stores information used for billing and maintaining the balance of an account. See also "bill item" and "A/R item".
The total cost of the billable events tracked by an item during an account's billing cycle. Item charges are stored in usage items, cycle items, and custom items. They contribute to the balance of a bill and are listed in Customer Center.
See also "balance", "bill", "billable event", "billing cycle", and "item".
A product associated with a one-time purchase fee that contains no cycle or usage fees.
See "tax jurisdiction".
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, a set of protocols for accessing data directories. LDAP is based on the X.500 standard and supports TCP/IP, for Internet access. LDAP Manager is a service integration component that you install on top of a BRM system. The LDAP DM interfaces with an LDAPv3-compliant directory server.
A DM that is a queue-based daemon. It maps the BRM object model to the LDAP directory server object model. This daemon is known functionally as dm_ldap. The LDAP Manager uses the dm_ldap daemon.
A server that stores customer information and provides access to the information by using LDAP. LDAP directory servers provide a way to name, manage, and access collections of attribute-value pairs.The LDAP documentation refers to the LDAP directory server as directory server.
A rate that applies to an event even if a credit limit has been reached. Using a limit override rate ensures that all of an event is rated.
Linking revenue assurance data /process_audit objects to compare and analyze the revenue assurance data generated at different control points.
When pipeline data migration is enabled in Pricing Center, a lock indicates that a change set has modified a pipeline pricing data object. When one change set has a lock on an object, that object cannot be modified by other change sets.
All the locks for a change set are removed when the change set is closed or backed out. Objects that have locks on them are exported with the change set.
A text file that records the status of a system component. A system administrator checks log files to find and fix problems in the system. See also "pinlog".
A unique name that a customer uses to access a service, such as Internet access. Login names and passwords identify customers with their accounts.
An authorization from a customer allowing the bank to debit the customer's account for any payment that the customer needs to make using direct debit. A mandate is implemented only once during the life of the account: before charging the customer for the first time.
A top-up initiated through a CSR tool or a customer self-care application.
BRM supports the following types of manual top-ups:
A manual standard top-up is made by a customer to his own account.
A manual sponsored top-up is made from one account to another account. These top-ups can be initiated by the paying account or by the receiving account. When they are initiated by the receiving account, they must be accompanied by a valid top-up PIN.
A system process that handles an initial connection and then hands the connection off to a child process. For example, a Data Manager (DM) master process handles the initial connection request from Connection Manager (CM).
Multibyte character set. A mixed-width character set that contains single byte and double byte characters.
An account that belongs to any of the following account groups:
Discount sharing group or charge sharing group
If a sharing group owner account has invited a member account to participate in a discount or charge sharing group:
Sponsored charges incurred by member accounts are paid by the owner account.
Sponsored discounts belonging to the owner account are shared with member accounts.
An account can be a member of more than one sharing group.
Sponsor group
As long as the status and credit limit of the group's sponsor group owner account permit, sponsored charges incurred by member accounts are paid by the owner account. An account can be a member of more than one sponsor group.
Sponsored top-up group
A member of a sponsored top-up group receives top-ups from the sponsored top-up group owner account. To join a sponsored top-up group, an account must have its /topup object linked to the appropriate /group/topup object. An account can be a member of only one sponsored top-up group.
A service in a subscription group that subscribers purchase and use such as telephony, text messaging, and data transfer. Member services can share the resource balances owned by the subscription service or be limited to using their own resources balances.
A name that tells the credit card processor DM which merchant number to use when sending transactions to a credit card processor. By default, all accounts use the merchant defined in the Connection Manager (CM) configuration file.
Repeated execution of a batch handler at a specified interval. See also "scheduled execution".
A set of rules used to choose between multiple price models or discount models during rating based on EDR values. See "discount model selector" and "price model selector".
Mobile station ID.
An MSID is usually composed of one or both of the following numbers:
MSISDN: Mobile Station ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) number. An MSISDN is a standard international telephone number.
IMSI: International Mobile Subscriber Identity number. An IMSI number is a unique 15-digit serial number hard-coded into a Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card.
MSID is a standard term in the cellular phone industry. MSIDs are used to identify subscribers to wireless networks. For example, in GSM-based networks, MSIDs are stored on SIM cards. When a SIM card is associated with a mobile terminal (typically a cell phone), a mobile station is created. An MSID can be moved from terminal to terminal via the SIM card, enabling a subscriber to gain access to the same service from a variety of terminals.
A method of rating usage events by using Pipeline Manager. Use multi-segment rating to collect data about rate plan usage and revenue-generation for different customer segments, for example, customers in a specific geographic area, or customers that use a specific network provider.
The owner of a physical network responsible for the physical structure and operation of the network components.
A program that controls and manages server processes running on a computer node. Each computer node has one Node Manager which is responsible for managing BRM on that node.
A bill unit in a child account whose charges roll up to a paying bill unit in the parent account. The bill for a nonpaying bill unit is paid by the parent account.
A nonpaying bill unit is also known as a subordinate bill unit.
An event, such as a payment or refund event, that is not rated, but might have a balance impact.
A password that does not access an IP service. You use non-service passwords to access password-protected Web sites.
In a hierarchical account group, a bill unit in a child account responsible for its own charges. Charges in a nonsubordinate bill unit are paid by the child account.
See also "subordinate bill unit" and "A/R account".
A BRM-initiated payment that occurs in two or more communication sessions between BRM and a payment processing service. Subsequent sessions can occur online or offline; for example, processing service personnel may send payment information to you over a network or on CDs.
See also "transactional payment".
Comments about changes in a customer's account that explain transactions and record communication with the customer.
In North American telephony, the combination of the area code and the three-digit prefix of a phone number. The NPA (Number Plan Area), or area code delineates a toll area in the US, Canada, and Mexico. NXX refers to the exchange, which is the three digits following the area code.
A GUI tool used for creating and managing an inventory of telephone numbers in the BRM system.
See also "Number Manager".
A set of BRM server components that support managing telephone number inventory.
See also "Number Administration Center".
Also called storable object. A collection of data and the methods by which the data is transferred to and from the database. Objects are referenced by client applications that use the BRM API. They map directly to SQL objects in the database tables.
For example, there are storable objects to represent BRM items such as accounts, bills, events, and services, and you can have unlimited instances in your system.
An application in Developer Center that you use to view the contents of storable objects in the BRM database.
See "POID".
A discount that is not dependent on a billing cycle or monthly accounting cycle.
You can set up daily, weekly, or monthly flexible cycles that do not coincide with billing cycles or monthly accounting cycles. An off-cycle discount is a discount that applies to the flexible cycle event.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
A feature you use to bill a customer immediately for a purchase rather than when the customer's billing cycle ends.
A discount that can be valid either for a specified number of billing cycles or for a specified time period. For example, you can grant 100 free minutes that can be used over a period of 6 months.
You can also create multiple one-time discounts for an account.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
An alternate LDAP DM mapping scheme. This scheme maps one directory server entry to one storable object. To use this mapping scheme, you set the user_mapping entry to 0 in the CM pin.conf file.
An operation used by client applications and scripts to carry out BRM functionality, such as create accounts and run billing.
There are two types of opcodes: system opcodes, and policy opcodes. System opcodes perform basic operations; you cannot change them. Policy opcodes perform higher-level operations and you can change their default behavior. For example, you can modify a policy opcode to rate IP-access usage by the number of bytes downloaded instead of total access time.
A GUI application in Developer Center that you use to test applications and customized components. You use Opcode Workbench to run opcodes. Opcode Workbench includes all the functionality of the command-line utility testnap plus additional features.
One of two accounting types that determine how to create bills and apply payments. With open item accounting:
The customer's bill does not include amounts from previous bills. If a customer does not pay a bill, the next bill does not include charges for the bill that the customer did not pay.
By default, if a payment is not enough to cover the entire amount due, the payment is allocated to the oldest open items.
Customer accounts that use an automated payment method, such as a credit card, should always use balance forward accounting.
You use the Order Management framework to manage orders and sub-orders or to connect an existing order management system to BRM. The Order Management framework is used by optional BRM products such as voucher manager to facilitate their order management features.
An object in the BRM database containing links to the charge sharing group and discount sharing group that a member has joined, listed in order by rank. The ordered balance group belongs to the group member rather than to the group owner. The ordered balance group list determines the sequence in which the sharing groups' resource balances are impacted by the member-generated events.
The telephone number from which a call is made. Depending on how your IP gateway is configured, the origin can be identified by a country code, area code, or a specific telephone number.
The first instance of a payment that is saved to BRM, either through Payment Tool or a payment processor. Original payments can be saved initially to suspense or to a customer account, but have never been moved back and forth between the two.
An account in a hierarchical account group that has child accounts under it. Parent accounts can also be A/R accounts.
An optional feature that splits database tables and indexes into smaller, more manageable units. When you no longer need the objects stored in a partition, you can purge them from your database by deleting the partition. This helps control the growth of your BRM database.
A word or series of characters, known only to a customer, that provides access to your services or the BRM system.
A bill unit in a hierarchy that is responsible for its own charges. The bill for the bill unit is paid by the account to which the bill unit belongs.
Payload Generator External Module (EM)
A component of EAI Manager and other EAI-based applications. The Payload Generator EM collects events, generates the data necessary to publish business events, and sends the data to the EAI-based application.
The BRM client application used to assign, investigate, and correct suspended payments, and to suspend payments that have been posted in customer accounts.
Payment Center is a Java application that can be fully customized and localized.
A payment property that identifies the delivery method by which customer payments are sent to a financial institution. For example, payment channels include the Internet, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) phone service, Automated Clearing House (ACH), and lockbox.
A one-time, non-recurring penalty that can be charged to an account for a payment that fails due to financial errors. For example, if a customer check is denied due to insufficient funds, or a credit card is invalid because it has expired, you can charge the customer a payment fee.
A third-party BRM-initiated payment transaction application that supplies payment information to BRM.
A payment gateway receives payment files from multiple sources (for example a bank or automatic clearing house), preprocesses them, formats the files, and calls opcodes to record the payments in the database.
Alternative term for transaction ID, a unique number that identifies a specific payment. You use payment IDs to process payments, refunds, and payment reversals with Payment Tool.
A special compensation for a customer who pays a bill early and in full. Payment incentives can take the form of free gifts, certificates, free minutes, and so forth. Payment incentives typically reward customers by reducing their bill amount or by adding resource credits to their accounts.
The way by which customers pay their bills. The most common payment methods are credit card, invoice, and subordinate bill unit (nonpaying bill unit).
Reverses the record of a payment in the BRM database. For example, if a customer makes a credit card payment that is recorded in the database, but the payment cannot be deposited because of an expired credit card, you can reverse the payment so that the payment is still open.
An ownerless account that stores suspended payments along with the details of each suspended payment, such as credit card number, payment channel, payment method, and so forth.
Specifies how to calculate the due date of a bill. All the payment terms in a BRM system are stored in the same /config/payment_term object. You use payment terms to set due dates a specified number of days after the billing cycle end date or on a specified day of the month.
A credit card and direct debit processing service that BRM supports.
The initials FUSA are sometimes used to represent Paymentech in BRM file names. For example, the Paymentech DM is named dm_fusa.
A unique identifier generated by BRM for each payment reversal that occurred due to suspended payment recycling. BRM uses paytransaction IDs internally to track a recycled payment back to its original payment. The paytransaction ID of a payment reversal is equal to the transaction ID of the payment it reversed.
A special service that BRM utilities and programs, such as service integration components, use to log in to the BRM system. The root account includes the pcm_client service.
Portal Communications Protocol. A protocol that uses an object/transaction model to allow interprocess communications.
A status for a bill item. A pending item is still collecting charges, and has not been included in a bill.
Authorization for a user to access a particular BRM application or to perform a particular task in an application.
A role is a set of permissions for a given application, such as Customer Center or Pricing Center. For example, you can specify which users can change a password, apply credits, and give refunds.
The BRM application that you use to manage the roles and permissions of your customer service representatives (CSRs).
Process ID. A number that identifies a master process, child process, or thread. Each CM or DM process is identified by a unique PID.
The library that contains routines for managing and manipulating flists and objects, handling errors, and using configuration files.
A file that you use to manually load resources in the BRM database by using the load_pin_beid application.
Use the Resource Editor in Pricing Center to create and edit resources.
See "configuration file".
See "event map".
A log file that records errors or other activity. Most pinlog files are named program.pinlog, as in dm_oracle.pinlog, but some BRM applications use default.pinlog.
The mechanism by which EDRs are processed and rated by Pipeline Manager. A pipeline consists of input modules, function modules, data modules, and output modules.
Pipeline Configuration Manager
Pipeline Configuration Manager is a set of scripts and utilities you can use to configure pipelines and load pricing data into the Pipeline Manager database
An optional feature in Pricing Center that you use to manage, export, and import change sets. You enable data migration during Pricing Center installation or by changing a configuration file entry.
The database used by Pipeline Manager. This database holds pipeline rating and pricing data.
The Pipeline Manager system platform. The framework includes the components that run Pipeline Manager, for example, the Controller and the Transaction Manager.
A BRM application used for rating wireless usage events. Pipeline Manager processes call details record (CDR) using a series of task-specific modules.
A package of deals that customers purchase to use your services. For example, you can offer one service with two different ways of charging for it, each defined in a separate deal. When you create the plan, you choose which of the deals to include in the plan.
You cannot create a customer account without a plan, because the plan specifies which services a customer can use. Accounts for customer service representatives use the CSR plan, which includes the service required for logging in to Customer Center.
See also "plan with options".
A list of plans that you offer to customers. You can offer different plan lists to different customers, for example, one plan list for customers who register by using the Web, and another plan list for customers who register with a CSR.
A plan in which you define deals as required or optional.
Required deals must be purchased when the plan is purchased by the customer.
For optional deals, purchase is not mandatory; CSRs using Customer Center can choose whether to include optional deals when the plan is purchased.
You use Pricing Center to create plans with options.
Portal object ID. A unique 64-bit identifier assigned to each BRM database object when it is created. A POID enables you to have multiple instantiations of the same storable class. For example, every account object has a unique POID. An account POID looks like this:
0.0.0.1 /account 8606 0
A POID consists of four components:
A database number. In the preceding example, ”0.0.0.1.”
An object type. In the preceding example, ”/account.”
A unique ID. In the preceding example, ”8606.”
A revision number. In the preceding example, ”0.”
You cannot change an object's POID, except for the revision number, which is updated automatically each time the object changes.
See also "type-only POID".
When calculating taxes, the point of title passage indicates whether the title to tangible property transfers at the ship-from location (origin) or at the ship-to location (destination). In most cases, the point of title passage is the destination.
See "Policy FM" and "business policies".
A Facilities Module (FM) that implements policy opcodes. You use policy opcodes to change the default behavior of the BRM system.
A policy opcode is an operation that implements business policy decisions. A policy opcode takes a description of a situation, makes a business policy decision based on the logic you implement, and returns that decision to the System FM for execution. For example, a policy opcode determines how many days before an invoice is past due. You can modify the default policy opcodes to suit your business needs. BRM includes the source code for all policy opcodes.
See also "opcode".
Point of Presence. A telephone number that permits dialup access to the Internet. Internet service providers (ISPs) generally provide many POPs so that users can make local calls to access the Internet and read email.
TCP/IP port. Each BRM system process is associated with a particular port on a specific computer.
Portal Communications Module (PCM)
A library of functions that package opcodes and send them through the BRM system. The PCM is used to manipulate objects in the BRM database and control communications channels to the database.
The PCM API runs on top of the PCP and controls all object manipulation and access to the BRM database.
An event for which charges are assigned by a policy opcode or through the reason codes file. These prerated events are not processed by the rates defined in your price list.
Also, an event rated by Pipeline Manager. These events are processed by the rates defined in your price list.
See also "rated event".
A model that you set up to determine when, how, and how much to charge customers. Price lists consist of the following components: resources, rates, products, deals, and plans.
In pipeline rating, a price model defines the charges that apply to an EDR when it is rated. The price model used to rate an EDR is determined by the rate plan configuration. Each price model comprises one or more price model step.
A set of one or more ranked configurations that map a price/discount model selector rule to a price model. When a rule is satisfied, Pipeline Manager uses the associated price model in rating. You can use a price model selector instead of a price model in a rate plan configuration.
See also "discount model selector".
In pipeline rating, a component of a price model that defines charges for a specific usage level. A price model can have any number of price model steps. Within a price model step, charges can be based on any combination of events, duration, and volume.
price/discount model selector rule
An association of one or more EDR fields with a specific value that you use when you configure a discount model selector and a price model selector.
The application you use to create price lists that determine how much your customers pay for your services and merchandise.
Price lists define how BRM rates events, and consist of the following components: resources, rates, products, deals, and plans.
You can use Pricing Center to create and edit rate plans for real time rating and batch pipeline rating.
One of the components that make up a price list. A price list includes rates, products, deals, plans, and plan lists. You use Pricing Center to create and maintain your price lists.
Accounts for customers in EMU countries use a primary and secondary currency. The primary currency is the currency that the customer uses to pay bills. The secondary currency is required to convert one EMU currency to another, and to support the transition to the euro.
The primary currency can be either the native currency for an EMU country, such as French Francs, or the euro. For example:
If the primary currency is a native EMU currency, the secondary currency is the euro.
If the primary currency is the euro, the secondary currency can be any EMU native currency.
In multischema systems, the database schema that contains all the configuration, pricing, audit trail, and uniqueness objects. All applications that modify those objects must be connected to the primary schema.
Modifications to configuration, pricing, and audit trail objects are always performed by the primary DM in the primary schema. Secondary DMs can modify uniqueness objects in the primary schema by using schema qualifications.
The primary schema also contains subscriber data, such as events and account objects.
In multischema systems, the machine containing the primary CM and primary DM and that connects to the primary database schema.
See "system process".
A pricing object that defines how to charge your customer for goods and services. A product consists of one or more rate plans, that specify the cost of each billable event that affects a customer's account.
By bundling rate plans into a product, you define how to charge for all the resources that apply to the product. For example, the rate plans for a dialup service can charge our customers by using two resources: money and hours of connection time.
See "base product" and "customized product".
The ability to configure a customer's service based on an attribute defined in a product instead of having to create multiple services. For example, you can define different levels of an email service, with different mailbox sizes, and present these service variations as product attributes.
A method of storing custom information about customer accounts.
When you configure an extended rating attribute (ERA) for an account, BRM stores the values in a profile.
You can also create custom profiles to store information such as the following:
Results of a marketing survey.
Legacy account numbers.
Additional service information, such as chat room nicknames.
You can perform database searches on profiles. You can also customize Customer Center to display profile information with the Customer Center SDK.
See also "profile sharing group", "business profile", and "collections profile".
A group that enables a profile created for an account's service to be shared with services owned by other accounts. A profile stores extended rating attribute (ERAs) or other types of information about an account.
A profile sharing group can be used to make an ERA, such as a friends and family list, available to multiple customers. When a profile sharing group generates an event, shared profiles are checked to see if they are valid to rate or discount the event.
A code entered by customers during registration that specifies which plans they can purchase. With Web registration, you can associate plans with promotional codes.
To assess fees based on partial use. If a product includes a cycle forward fee and a customer can purchase or cancel the product in the middle of a billing cycle, you can prorate the charge to reflect the amount of time that the product was owned.
A format for transmitting data between two devices. Protocols determine the following transmission requirements:
Type of error checking to be used.
Data compression method, if any.
How the sending device indicates it has finished sending a message.
How the receiving device indicates it has received a message.
A predefined product attribute used to configure a service. Use provisioning to define multiple service configurations without having to define multiple services, and to rate each configuration differently. For example, when a customer purchases a product at a specific provision level, the BRM system configures the associated service accordingly.
In this example, the email service is associated with three products. Each product has an associated provisioning tag. Each provisioning tag defines a different service configuration based on mailbox size. When a customer signs up for email service, and purchases a product package, the mailbox size is configured according to the associated provision tag.
| Service | Product | Provisioning Tag | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| /service/email | Basic
|
Basic | Sets the minimum mailbox size to 0MB, the maximum mailbox size to 10MB, and specifies the path to the mail server. |
| /service/email | Regular
|
Regular | Sets the minimum mailbox size to 0MB, the maximum mailbox size to 20MB, and specifies the path to the mail server. |
| /service/email | Power
|
Power | Sets the minimum mailbox size to 0MB, the maximum mailbox size to 30MB, and specifies the path to the mail server. |
You define provisioning tags by using policy opcodes.
Provisioning tags configure a service after an account purchases a product or a discount that contains a tag. For example, a provisioning tag can be used to set up one or more of the following:
An extended rating attribute (ERA) that can enable rating or discounting to vary for the same service based on a specific attribute.
For GSM telco services only, a supplementary service (or feature), such as call forwarding.
For telco services only, a bearer service or other service extension.
Provisioning tags are used in product-level provisioning.
An event that generates a one-time fee, for example, an installation fee. A purchase event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
See also "event".
An attribute that specifies whether a product, discount, or deal applies to a specific service or to the account.
For example, if a product has a purchase level of /service/ip, the rate plans in that product are used to track and rate only the IP service and no other services. If a product has a purchase level of account, the rate plans in that product are valid for as long as the account is active regardless of the services owned by the account.
A group of balance impacts that provide real-time volume discounting. For example, you can charge different amounts based on the quantity of a resource that has already been used.
A mechanism used by Data Managers (DMs) and some client applications to reduce the number of connections to the database.
An optional component that provides an interface between your terminal server and the Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) system by authenticating customers and tracking service usage.
The method for measuring an event.
In real-time rating, you can measure events by usage or occurrence. When measuring usage, you can use different units of measurement, for example, minutes or hours.
For example, a /session/ip event has the following RUMs defined:
| RUM Name | Event Description | Measurement Type | Units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | IP Session | Total length of time | Minutes |
| Occurrence | IP Session | Single instance | <none> |
In pipeline rating, RUMs are of three types:
| RUM Type | RUM Code | Measurement Type | Units |
|---|---|---|---|
| Duration | DUR | Total length of time | Seconds, minutes, hours, or days |
| Event | EVT | Single instance | <none> |
| Normal | REC
SND |
Volume received or sent | Bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes |
A pricing object that defines the cost of a specific billable event under a specific set of circumstances.
In real-time rating: A group of one or more rate tiers. Typically, a rate plan is mapped to a single event type, for example, a purchase or usage event. For example, within a product, you can create multiple rate plans for rating multiple event types.
See also "event map".
In pipeline rating: The criteria used to determine how an event data record (EDR) is charged. A rate plan defines a range of charges and differentiates them according to service, impact category, day type, and time interval. A rate plan can exist in several versions. Each rate plan version in turn has one or more rerate plan configurations.
In pipeline rating, a component of a rate plan version that maps a combination of criteria to determine which price model is used to calculate the charges for a particular EDR. A rate plan version can have any number of rate plan configurations.
A real-time rating feature you use to rate events based on any event attribute. In Pricing Center, you configure a matrix that associates one or more event attributes with a rate plan and an impact category. When an event occurs, the rate plan selector analyzes the incoming event and specifies which rate plan to use to calculate the charges for the event.
For example, when rating telephone calls, you can use a rate plan selector to determine which rate plan to use based on call origins and destinations.
In pipeline rating, a component of a pipeline rate plan defined by its validity period. Only one rate plan version can be valid for any period. Different rate plan versions can use different zone and discount models. Each rate plan version has one or more rate plan configurations.
In real-time rating, one or more rates grouped together by date and time ranges. Within a rate plan, you can create multiple rate tiers, each with its own unique range of dates and times. For example, a rate plan can include the following rate tiers:
Rate tier 1: Usage occurring on weekdays
Rate tier 2: Usage occurring on weekends
Events for which charges are assessed by the rates defined in the price list.
See also "prerated event".
Application that loads pipeline prerated events into the BRM database. It includes two utilities: pin_rel loads prerated events, and pin_rerel loads prerated events that have been rerated.
A process that determines how much to charge customers for the use of your services.
Rating is performed on events. To rate an event, BRM does the following:
Measures the event.
Applies a charge to the resulting measurement.
Adds the charge to the customer's account balance.
See also "rate".
Instantaneously. For example, BRM rates in real time so that a customer's account balance reflects service usage as it occurs.
The BRM functionality that rates purchase, cycle, and usage events when they occur. Some types of usage events, for example, wireless calls, are rated in batch by Pipeline Manager.
An identification number that indicates the reason why the following events have occurred in the BRM system:
An adjustment such as a charge, debit, or refund was made to an account or service.
A suspended payment was recycled to or from suspense.
An unallocatable payment was removed from the BRM system.
These codes are configured in the reasons.en_US file. BRM accesses the string values for the reason codes and displays them in Customer Center, Payment Center, and other applications. When CSRs make changes to individual accounts they can select a reason code for the adjustment. See "reasons.locale".
A configuration file that contains localized reason codes and G/L IDs. The locale is indicated by the file suffix (for example, reasons.en_US).
A string added to EDRs that are stored by BRM during rating interruptions. When the rating interruption is over, you use the pin_recycle program to search for and rate all EDRs with the recycle key. Recycle keys are added to EDRs by programs such as triggered-billing and Account Migration Manager (AMM) that initiate EDR rating interruptions.
A payment that has moved back and forth between the payment suspense account and one or more customer accounts. Recycled payments have been reversed from a source account and applied to a destination account due to payment suspense processing.
Recycled payments include:
Payments that have been distributed from the payment suspense account into customer accounts.
Payments that posted to a customer account when they entered BRM, but were later suspended.
Recycled payments are created when you use Payment Center to distribute payments or undo an allocation.
The EDR state that indicates a pipeline is attempting to process a previously failed EDR. The EDR state is set by the standard recycling tools or Suspense Manager. The other EDR states are the following:
Succeeded
Suspended
Written off
Maps each service that a pipeline is rating to a usage event. The reference map tells the pipeline which products to synchronize from the BRM database.
A payment made to a customer. Refunds return existing credit in the customer's account to the customer.
Creation of a customer account. Your customers either register by calling your CSR or by using your registration Web site.
Payment to a third party based on a service provided or transaction handled by the third party. Also called settlements. You use the remittance feature to calculate the share of the revenue you receive that you need to pay to a third party.
An account set up to receive remittance funds. This type of account owns only remittance products.
An attribute of a storable class mapped to a custom name and used to define remittance criteria. In a remittance specification, you create statements with remittance fields that determine the conditions under which remittance takes place. For example, service_type = /service/ip is from a list of criteria in a remittance profile. In this example, service_type is the remittance field.
The information BRM uses to calculate remittance. A specification includes the criteria that determine which third party receives remittance and the product BRM uses to calculate remittance when the criteria are met. You define one or more specifications in the remittance specification file.
A text file that contains all the remittance specifications defined for your BRM system.
A replica POID is a transformed POID. For example, if the POID is 0.0.0.1 /account 12345 0, the replica POID is 0.0.5.1/r_user 12345 0.
One type of connection to a BRM database. The other is a transaction. A request is a read operation that is not part of a transaction. A request does not require that the data remain the same for the duration of the connection.
request for response (RFR) file
A file used by Paymentech to recover failed credit card transactions.
A combination of /job/rerate and /job_batch/rerate objects in the BRM database that store information about the accounts and events selected for rerating and about the status of the rerating process.
There is a one-to-one correlation between /job/rerate and /job_batch/rerate objects and they are created in the same transaction.
An identification number assigned to a rerate job that indicates the reason why rerating has been requested.
The automatic rerating sets the reason code to 0 (no rerate reason) by default. All rerate jobs with no reason code are automatically rerated when you run the pin_rerate utility with the -rerate parameter.
You can assign unique rerate reason codes to rerate jobs by customizing automatic rerating or by using the pin_rerate utility.
The process in which the balance impact for ratable transactions are recalculated so that the rate changes or corrections may be retroactive. Rerating performs the recalculation of previously rated events based on modified rating attributes, for example, changes in pricing configuration, account attribute, account product attribute, etc. Rerating can be done for usage events as well as transactions that are calculated during the billing run, for example, cycle fees, folds, etc.
A unique batch ID number assigned to a batch of event data records (EDRs) when they pass through a pipeline to be rerated.
An asset of economic value, such as US Dollars. A resource can also be a non-currency asset such as Internet access hours. The total amount of each resource that a customer owes, or is credited with, is tracked in the customer's balance.
In real-time rating, each resource includes the following attributes:
An ID, such as 840 (US Dollars). IDs for currency resources are defined in an ISO standard.
A name, such as US Dollars or Bulk Hours.
Rounding data, which determines how many decimal places to use for calculations. For example, if a usage event is rated with a balance impact of $10.4082, the value can be rounded up to $10.41.
In Pricing Center, each resource includes the following attributes:
A name, such as DOLLAR.
A symbol, such as $.
A type, such as Money or Other.
A currency code, if applicable, such as USD or EUR.
You define these resources by using the Resource Editor.
A client application in Pricing Center used to define a resource for your price list.
A numeric identification of a resource, such as 840 (US Dollars), that is used by the BRM system. Resource IDs for currency resources are defined in an ISO standard. When you create your own resources, you give them a resource ID.
Reservation of customer account balance resources in advance of a network session, allowing for use of multiple concurrent sessions or services.
An optional component that enables you to reserve customer account balance resources in advance of a network session, allowing for use of multiple concurrent sessions or services.
A group in which the resources of a group owner account are shared with one or more member accounts. The group owner account receives the balance impact from events generated by the member accounts. There are two types of resource sharing groups: charge sharing group and discount sharing group.
Data that BRM collects to verify the accuracy of revenue producing operations.
An optional component used to obtain revenue assurance data by running billing utilities and pipeline rating process.
You need to set up revenue groups in Pricing Center if you want to apply split billing rules to various groups of customers. In split billing, multiple customers share and split the cost of one service.
A payment whose effect on the customer's account balance in the BRM database has been undone. For example, if a customer makes a credit card payment that is recorded in the database but the payment cannot be deposited because of an expired credit card, the payment can be reversed. The net balance impact of a payment and its reversal is zero (0).
An agreement that defines the terms under which roaming partners provide roaming services to each other's customers, and how to manage settlement of roaming financials.
A specific set of permissions that determine what your customer service representatives (CSRs) can and cannot do with BRM applications. You assign CSRs to roles based on the tasks they perform.
Roles can be set up in a hierarchy, with child roles inheriting permissions from their parent roles.
Unused resources from one cycle that are credited to an account resource balance in succeeding cycles. For a resource granted in a cycle, you can specify how many resource units remaining at the end of a cycle can be rolled over to the next cycles and how many succeeding cycles it can be roll over into. You also specify the maximum total balances for a resource from previous cycles that can be rolled over into a new cycle.
An example of a resource that is commonly rolled over is free minutes.
An account created during installation that provides general access permission to the BRM system. This account includes two services, admin_client and pcm_client, used by BRM applications. System administrators use this account to create accounts and set permissions for CSRs.
A group of two or more RUMs that share a unit of measurement (UoM) with each RUM in the group.
RUM groups help determine the basis for charges and depend on the service code.
Associates a ratable usage metric (RUM) with a unit of measurement (UoM) or a RUM group with one or more RUM/UoM pairs.
A component of a balance impact that specifies what amount of a specified resource should be credited or debited to an account balance. It is called a scaled impact because its affect on an account balance depends on the amount of usage or quantity of events being rated.
Use a scaled impact to define the amount to charge and to measure events that accumulate in an account, such as minutes of connection time.
You can use a scaled impact in conjunction with a fixed impact. After the fixed impact is applied to the event, the scaled impact is applied.
Execution of a batch handler at specified times. See also "metronomic execution".
See "primary currency".
In multischema systems, a database schema that contains subscriber data, such as events and account objects. Each secondary schema also has access to the configuration, pricing, audit trail, and uniqueness objects stored in the primary schema.
secondary installation machine
In multischema systems, a machine that contains a secondary DM and connects to a secondary database schema.
A code used by a CSR to verify that the customer calling is the owner of the specified account. Security codes are chosen by customers, for example, the customer's social security number or the maiden name of the customer's mother.
A security code is also called an access code.
When using pipeline rating, a class of customer, for example, customers from a specific geographic region.
The Web-based customer self care application. You can customize the appearance of the default Web pages by modifying Java Server Pages (JSPs).
Self-Care Manager enables customers to log into their accounts, use vouchers to top up their account balance, and view their account and product information by using a Web browser.
A Pipeline Manager configuration file used for configuring a system during operation, for example, reloading data or inactivating Pipeline Manager modules.
A log maintained by the optional Sequencer Pipeline Manager component to store information about processed sequence numbers for CDR files.
There are two sequence logs: one for sequence checking and one for sequence generation. Each log includes information about the processed sequences, such as stream name, sequencer name, and number of records processed. Each log also contains tracking information about the process, such as number of records and date and time they were processed.
A number associated with a CDR file. The optional Sequencer Pipeline Manager component can be configured to check sequence numbers to prevent processing a CDR file more than once and to identify gaps in incoming sequence numbers.
A Pipeline Manager component that performs CSR file sequence checking or sequence generation in pipeline rating.
Sequence checking prevents Pipeline Manager from processing a CDR file more than once. It also logs any gaps in sequence numbers.
Sequence generation assigns sequence numbers to output files (for example, when a CDR file does not have a sequence number and when an input file is split into multiple output files).
An instance of a BRM server process (CM or DM). See also "node".
A commodity sold by your company and that your customers can purchase and use, such as an email address or an Internet connection. When customers use a service, they generate billable events, which you use to bill customers.
Each customer account can have an unlimited number of services.
In pipeline rating, an internal code that represents a variation on a service, for example, the quality of service for GPRS, or a telephone service used only for emergency calls.
In pipeline rating, an internal code that represents a type of service, for example, telephony or GPRS.
A record in a service definition file that defines attributes of a provisioning tag. When the service definition file is loaded using a load utility, provisioning tags with the name specified in the Provisioning_tag field of the service definition are created.
A file containing a collection of service definitions for a particular service, such as Content Manager. You load service definition files into the BRM database by using a load utility designed for that service definition file.
When service definition files are loaded, provisioning tags are made available for product-level provisioning.
See "merchant number".
An optional component that integrates BRM with a system used for provisioning a service. For example, RADIUS Manager integrates BRM with terminal servers to support the dialup Internet access service.
A set of statuses or states and status or state transitions through which a service passes from its initial status or state to its final status or state.
By default, all BRM service types use the default service life cycle, which has three statuses: Active, Inactive, and Closed. The default life cycle cannot be customized.
The default service life cycle status is stored in the PIN_FLD_STATUS field in /service objects.
If you need a life cycle that better represents the phases of a particular service type, create a custom service life cycle for that service type. BRM includes a sample prepaid service life cycle that has the following states: Preactive, Active, Recharge Only, Credit Expired, Dormant, Fraud Investigated, Suspended, and Closed.
The custom service life cycle state is stored in the PIN_FLD_LIFECYCLE_STATE field of /service objects.
See also "service state" and "service status".
A company, such as a wireless service provider, that provides customers the ability to access information via electronic media. A service provider is also a billing provider for content providers.
A service attribute that determines the level of activity that a customer can perform with a service that uses a custom service life cycle.
For example, the sample prepaid service life cycle has the following states: Preactive, Active, Recharge Only, Credit Expired, Dormant, Fraud Investigated, Suspended, and Closed.
The service state is stored in the PIN_FLD_LIFECYCLE_STATE field of /service objects.
See also "service life cycle" and "service status".
A service attribute that determines the level of activity that a customer can perform with a service that uses the default service life cycle, which has the following statuses:
Active: The customer can perform normal service activity.
Inactive: The customer is restricted from using the service, usually because a credit limit was exceeded or a bill was not paid. Inactive status implies that the customer will use the service again in the future.
Closed: The customer is restricted from using the service. Closed status implies that the customer will not use the service again.
The service status is stored in the PIN_FLD_STATUS field in /service objects.
See also "account status", "service life cycle", and "service state".
A service attribute that defines the Quality of Service (QoS) of a service. You can use Pipeline Manager to rate usage based on service-level agreements.
A balance group that you add to an account to track resources for one or more specific services.
An item that records the settlement of a dispute of the currency or non-currency resources of a customer's account. A settlement can grant the customer's dispute in part or full. A settlement can also deny the dispute, resulting in no change to resources. Use the Bill Details panel in Customer Center to open, track, and settle disputes.
An event adjustment treated as unbilled for proper G/L reporting. Creating a shadow adjustment is important if the adjusted bill item has not been posted to the G/L (for example, when billing has not yet been run).
The event created for the shadow adjustment has a complement of each balance impact from the original event and new balance impact as a result of the adjustment. This event is of the same type as the event being adjusted but has a different time stamp than the original event.
While rerating events, a shadow event gets recorded for unbilled events or events for which the GL has not been posted yet. The shadow event has a complement of each balance impact from the original event and new balance impact as a result of rerating. This shadow event is of the same type as the original event being rerated and is recorded at the same time as the original event.
The account that pays all shared charges incurred by a charge sharing group member account or the account that shares selected discounts with a discount sharing group member account. Owner accounts receive charges eligible for charge sharing from member accounts immediately after the event generating the charges occur. An account can own multiple discount and charge sharing groups.
A GUI tool used for creating and managing an inventory of SIM cards in the BRM system.
See also:
BRM server components that support managing SIM card inventory.
See also:
See "Storage Manager".
A small electronic device similar to a credit card that contains electronic memory and possibly an embedded integrated circuit (IC).
Smartcards are used for a variety of purposes, including generating network IDs, storing digital cash, personal data, and business data. Smartcards are access control devices that make the embedded information of the card available only to authorized users.
A billing-time discount configured as snowball discount. A snowball discount allows distribution of group discounts to group members.
See "discount sharing".
A credit card status that indicates a temporary condition, such as exceeding a credit limit.
Data fields in the Paymentech DM configuration file (BRM_Home/sys/dm_fusa./pin.conf) that enable you display the following information about your customer's checking account or credit card statement:
The name under which you do business (your DBA name)
Product name
Customer service number on your customer's checking account or credit card statement
This feature is available with Paymentech credit-card or direct-debit processing.
Making use of a prior parsing efforts for commonly used SQL statements, to avoid the performance impact of parsing the same statements repetitively. BRM statement caching eliminates the need for Oracle soft parsing.
A file created and edited by programmers that is compiled into a software program or program component. You can customize BRM by editing BRM source code files.
Data collected in Revenue Assurance Manager by breaking up the total revenue billed data into various categories by billing segment or DOM. The split revenue assurance data is collected using the pin_bill_accts utility.
An account group that consists of one sponsor group owner account and one or more member accounts. The sponsor group owner receives the balance impact of sponsored charges incurred by the members.
The account that pays all sponsored charges incurred by a sponsor group member account. Owner accounts receive sponsored charges from member accounts immediately after the event generating the charges occur. An account can sponsor more than one group.
See "member account".
A rate whose balance impact can be applied to a different account than the account that generated the rated event.
A top-up made from one account's debit balance to another account's debit or credit balance. For example, a mother can top up her teenage son's account balance with a $50 payment from her account.
For account A to top up account B, account A must be the sponsored top-up group owner account of a sponsored top-up group, and account B must be a member account of that group.
BRM supports the following types of sponsored top-ups:
Manual top-up
Automatic top-up
An account group that consists of one sponsored top-up group owner account and one or more member accounts. A member account receives top-ups from the group owner account. To be a member of a sponsored top-up group, an account must have its /topup object linked to the group's /group/topup object.
See also "sponsored top-up".
sponsored top-up group owner account
An account that owns a /group/topup object. A sponsored top-up group owner account can make top-ups to other accounts that become member accounts of its group.
See also "sponsored top-up".
The default tools used to recycle or delete EDRs that have failed pipeline processing and have a suspended state. These tools include the pin_recycle utility and the FCT_Suspense and FCT_PreSuspense modules.
Suspense Manager, which you purchase separately, offers a more comprehensive mechanism for suspending EDRs.
A top-up that a customer makes to his or her own account. For example, a customer can use a voucher to add 100 minutes to the balance associated with his mobile phone service.
BRM supports the following types of standard top-ups:
Manual top-up
Automatic top-up
A descriptor that identifies an SQL statement that has been sent to the database management system.
The BRM use of the term handle differs from the standard programming term handle, which means "a pointer to a pointer."
The state of an account, service, or product.
The status of an account or service can be active, inactive, or closed. See "account status" and "service status". The status of a product can be active, inactive, or canceled.
The system definition of a storable object that contains all structural and behavioral information about the storable object. Classes do not contain actual data; they are object definitions.
Basic field information determines the object's behavior and includes a structure of the storable object.
See also "subclass" and "super class".
An application in Developer Center that you use to create and modify storable classes and fields. Storable Class Editor includes windows that display the hierarchy of classes and fields in the data dictionary. It can also generate the C and Java source files needed to use custom fields with BRM applications.
An instance of a storable class. A storable object is a collection of related data that is transferred to and from the database. Storable objects include accounts, bills, events, services, and more.
A back-end Data Manager (DM) process that translates BRM operations into the language of the data access system. Each DM has a front end that communicates with CMMP and a back end that communicates with a data access system. You can write your own Storage Manager to translate BRM operations to another database.
In pipeline rating, part of the output module. The output module creates a log file for every output stream transaction. The log file contains every error message per stream. The stream log file serves as a kind of multi-error handler, since configuration errors are detected and recorded. Within this file, error evaluation and post-processing of rejected EDRs is carried out.
The amount of a resource in an account balance group that a customer owes to your company or that your company owes to a customer. Sub-balances can contain currency resources such as dollars, or non-currency resources such as free minutes, number of bytes, and number of email messages.
A storable class derived from a storable class. For example, /event/activity is a subclass of the /event storable class.
In a hierarchical account group, a bill unit in a child account whose charges are rolled up to the paying bill unit in the parent account. Charges in a subordinate bill unit are paid by the parent account.
See also "nonsubordinate bill unit" and "A/R account".
Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) card
A chip in a mobile phone that stores GSM service information, for example, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity (IMSI).
A set of services associated with a subscription. For example, telephony and text messaging services associated with a wireless connection. A subscription group consists of a subscription service and zero or more member services.
A product that has a recurring impact on a customer account. Subscription products contain rates that are tracked and tallied throughout each accounting cycle. For example, a monthly membership for a service and an hourly charge for Internet usage are both subscription products. The default product type is subscription.
The service in a subscription group that represents the subscription. The subscription service can be a service that subscribers use such as telephony or IP, or it can be a representational service with no associated usage fees.
A type of field (PIN_FLDT_SUBSTRUCT) that consists of a set of named fields of any type, similar to an array. Unlike an array, there is exactly one instance of a substruct within an object. Substructs do not have element IDs like arrays; instead, they are fully identified by the field name in an object.
A unique identifier generated by BRM for each payment that was reversed due to suspended payment recycling. BRM uses subtransaction IDs internally to track a recycled payment back to its original payment. The subtransaction ID of a recycled payment is equal to the transaction ID of the payment from which it originated.
Payments that have never been recycled have a SUB_TRANS_ID value of NULL.
The EDR state that indicates a call record was successfully processed by Pipeline Manager. The EDR state is set by the standard recycling tools or Suspense Manager. The other states are the following:
Recycling
Suspended
Written off
A feature added to a basic GSM service that enhances the basic service. Examples are call forwarding and call blocking.
Supplementary services are not implemented as BRM services. Instead, they are implemented by using product-level provisioning. For example, a GSM price list might include a product associated with GSM telephony, with a provisioning tag that implements the call forwarding supplementary service. Supplementary services cannot be used without a GSM service.
supplementary zone packet record
In pipeline rating, a block of data containing information about the zone model, which is added to an EDR by a function module. This data block is added only when standard and segment zoning are performed.
An account whose services and products are inactive and whose bills are suppressed. Optionally, charges associated with one account-level deal can accumulate in suppressed accounts.
A bill that is not finalized at the end of its billing cycle but is instead extended for another full billing cycle. Charges generated during the original billing cycle will not age, get invoiced, go into collections, or have a payment due date set for them until the bill is unsuppressed.
Application used by standard recycling and Suspense Manager to load suspended (failed) pipeline prerated events into the BRM database. This application is very similar to Rated Event (RE) Loader.
A payment that does not meet payment criteria and requires evaluation by a payment specialist before it can be posted to the correct account.
Conditions that result in suspended payment include:
The account number and bill number are missing or incorrect.
The account number and bill number are correct, but the bill belongs to a different account.
The account is closed.
You can resolve suspended payments before submitting the payment batch to BRM. Or, you can submit them to BRM as suspended, and they will be placed in a payment suspense account for later evaluation by a payment analyst.
The EDR state that indicates a call record failed pipeline processing. The EDR state is set by the standard recycling tools or Suspense Manager. The other states are the following:
Succeeded
Recycling
Written off
An optional service integration component that you purchase separately. Suspense Manager offers a comprehensive and flexible set of tools for managing failed EDRs. Suspense Manager includes the Suspense Management Center GUI application to analyze, edit, recycle, test recycle, write off, archive, and delete failed call records. Also included is an API interface to Suspense Management Center, and a set of reports for analyzing suspended call records are also included in Suspense manager.
Suspense Manager augments the default BRM standard recycling tools.
The default currency for the BRM system, typically the currency used by your business for financial transactions. Your customers in other countries can use a different currency as their account currency.
A type of discount that is applied to all accounts in the system. For example, you can use a system discount to discount all items purchased during a holiday period.
For rating, the class of predefined event types as listed below:
Event type
/event/billing/product/fee/purchase
/event/billing/product/fee/cancel
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_forward_monthly
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_forward_bimonthly
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_forward_quarterly
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_forward_semiannual
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_forward_annual
/event/billing/product/fee/cycle/cycle_arrear
System Manager is a program that you use along with Node Manager to monitor Connection Manager (CM), CMMP, and Data Manager (DM); to detect server failures; and to centralize log management.
The BRM system consists of a number of system processes that are always running, for example, Connection Manager (CM) and Data Manager (DM).
A master process spawns child processes to handle connections as needed.
A product that applies for all customers. For example, you could create products to charge for IP usage with various limitations for various customers. You could then create a system product to charge a default usage rate of $0.10 per minute for all your customers when those other products are not valid.
System products are only valid for events and services for which they are defined. System products are applied according to their priorities. However, if a system product has the same priority as a normal product, BRM applies the normal product first.
System products do not apply to the following event types: cycle forward, cycle arrears, purchase, and cancel.
Telephony Application Programming Interface. An API that enables hardware-independent access to telephone-based communication. TAPI covers a wide area of services, such as initializing modems and placing calls.
A code that identifies a type of product, such as a subscription or a physical commodity. You map tax codes to taxation packages that calculate the tax on the products or to custom tax rates that you define.
The percentage of a taxable amount that a customer is exempt from paying. For example, some customers are exempt from paying part of local government taxes. If a customer has a 20% exemption, taxes are calculated based on 80% of the total amount.
A method of determining if a company pays state taxes. A company has a tax nexus if it does business within a state, for example, by maintaining an office, leasing telephone lines, or sending in sales representatives regularly.
A company or company division responsible for collecting taxes. Taxes can be calculated differently depending on the location of the tax supplier.
A server that your customers connect to when dialing in to your IP services. Also known as a Network Access Server (NAS).
See also "RADIUS Manager".
An application used by developers to test custom applications and to read and manipulate data in the BRM database.
Software that enables you to install BRM software packages that use the InstallShield MultiPlatform (ISMP) installation method. The software includes the Perl libraries and JRE required for ISMP installation.
A discount configuration that has one discount rule that contains multiple steps. The steps have contiguous, non-overlapping threshold ranges.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
See also "tiered discount".
For pipeline discounts, the threshold type defines whether customers earn their discount based on the minutes they use or based on a monetary amount.
A discount configuration that has multiple steps with contiguous threshold ranges. In a tiered discount, each discount rule contains only one discount step.
You create discounts in Pricing Center.
See also "threshold discount".
In pipeline rating, the time range a time period covers. For example, a time interval of 08:00-17:00 might be used to cover peak calling times of 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
The combination of a time interval and a day code defines a time period.
In pipeline rating, a combination of time period that together cover a full week without any gaps or overlap. Time models are used to charge different fees for the same service depending on the day and time. Time models are included in pipeline rate plans.
In pipeline rating, a time period covers a time range for one or more days in a week. For example, one time period might cover 8:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m., Monday-Friday.
Time periods are defined by a combination of a day code and a time interval. You include time periods in a time model.
A resource amount, such as $50 or 10 Internet access hours, that is a credit to an account balance. An account balance can be topped up manually through a CSR or customer self-care tool or automatically by BRM.
BRM supports the following types of top-ups:
Standard top-up
Sponsored top-up
One type of connection to the BRM database. The other is a request. A transaction is a connection that requires that the data being read or written must not change during the connection.
A transaction adheres to the ”ACID” properties, which means the transaction is:
Atomic: Either the entire transaction completes successfully, or none of it does.
Consistent: The transaction takes the database from one consistent state to another.
Isolated: Only the process that opened the transaction can see the intermediate results of the transaction.
Durable: After the transaction is committed to the database, the changes are permanent and cannot be changed except by another transaction.
Temporary storage of a transaction's objects in the CM to avoid having to read them from the database multiple times. The PCM_OPFLG_CACHEABLE flag enables transaction caching.
The date recorded in the BRM database for a transaction. Often this is the date the transaction occurred, but you can backdate payments, adjustments, disputes, settlements, and write-offs so they appear in the accounting reports for the proper period.
You cannot backdate an A/R transaction prior to the time of the last posted G/L transaction report or prior to the account creation date. If you backdate an A/R transaction into a billing cycle for which billing has already been run, the transaction does not appear on the bill for the current billing cycle.
A unique identifier generated by BRM for each payment, payment reversal, and refund. BRM uses transaction IDs internally to manage A/R, for example, to identify a payment that needs to be reversed or to identify a failed payment for application of a payment fee.
For online payments and refunds, the transaction ID also identifies the transaction that occurred between BRM and the external processor, such as Paymentech.
For payments that have been recycled due to suspense, the subtransaction ID is equal to the transaction ID of the payment's original payment.
Includes revenue assurance data collected on the earliest and the latest call start timestamps for a subgroup of EDRs.
An BRM-initiated payment that occurs in its entirety in one communication session between BRM and a payment processing service. The communication session is bidirectional and occurs entirely online. By default, all BRM-initiated payments are processed this way.
See also "nontransactional payment".
To move an amount from one bill item, payment item, or payment refund item to another. Transfers are made in Customer Center, typically by CSR to correct misapplied payments.
A rule that filters the list of available options that are presented to a customer during the purchase process. You can define deal-to-deal and plan-to-plan transition rules in Pricing Center.
There are three types of transitions you can define between plans: upgrade, downgrade, and generation change.
A BRM rerating feature that allows you to customize rerating to create rerate jobs based on any event criteria.
Twin Talk Enabler allows you to configure twin talk services for customers. A twin talk service allows subscribers to direct usage charges for outbound calls to a primary or secondary account, such as a business or personal account.
A process comprising the following phases, which ensure that all data stores (resources) involved in extended architecture (XA) transactions remain synchronized:
Phase 1: Prepare. After verifying whether its data store is accessible and the changes can be successfully committed, each participating resource manager votes either to commit or to roll back the transaction.
Phase 2: Commit. If all participating resource managers vote to commit, the transaction manager instructs them to finalize the operation. If one or more vote to roll back, all participating resources are instructed to roll back the prepared changes.
See also "XA transaction".
A special type of POID used in flists to specify the database and type of an object without specifying the unique ID number. You can use type-only POIDs to perform actions on all objects of the same type, such as all accounts or all services of a specific type.
In a type-only POID, the number -1 takes the place of the ID:
0.0.0.1 /device/sim -1
Revenue from charges that have not been included in a bill, such as usage fees that have been accrued, but not billed. Unbilled items become billed at the end of the customer's billing cycle. See also "billed revenue".
Unbilled revenue is tracked by running general ledger (G/L) reports.
A BRM-initiated payment that was posted as successful by the payment DM before confirmation from the bank or payment processor.
You must create a custom payment DM to enable unconfirmed payment processing.
Revenue that has not been earned at the time that a general ledger (G/L) report is run. Unearned revenue only applies to revenue from cycle forward fees. See also "earned revenue".
A 16-bit universal character encoding. Unicode applications can display characters from several different languages. You use Unicode when you have customers in multiple countries.
Create names of units you will use to measure events, such as seconds or bytes, specifying a three-character code and descriptive name.
A component of Developer Center used to map data from event log files to objects in the BRM database. You use the Universal Event (UE) Mapper to create an event import template and save it to the BRM database. The event import template is read by the Universal Event (UE) Loader for instructions on loading data from event log files to the BRM database.
A command-line application used to load event data from event log files into the BRM database. The UE Loader reads an event import template for instructions on how to load event data. You create an event import template by using the Universal Event Mapper.
A framework that enables you to include system-generated messages in customer documents such as invoices.
In pipeline rating, an internal code that represents a secondary service, for example, call forwarding.
An event generated by service usage. Usage events are rated based on how much the service is used. A usage event is one of the event types you can include in the event map when you create a product.
A fee based on how much the customer uses a service, for example, a fee for hourly Internet access.
A bill item that includes balance impacts from usage fees, purchase rates, cycle arrears rates, and cancel rates. These fees are stored in the /item/misc storable object.
An /item/misc object is created for each account, and for every service that the account owns. This allows you to manage fees for each service independently, for example, you can display the usage fees for separate telephony services.
In pipeline rating, an internal code that represents an attribute of a customer account (for example, a friends and family discount).
The user mapping scheme maps /account and /service objects to one entry in an LDAP directory server. This is the default mapping scheme for replicating data to the directory server.
The parameter that controls whether BRM uses this scheme is the CM user_scheme entry in the CM pin.conf file.
LDAP DM uses this mapping scheme to form /r_user objects by merging the information it finds in the /account and /service objects.
Universal Character Set Transformation Format 8. UTF8 is an 8-bit encoding of the characters in the Universal Character Set (UCS). BRM clients need to convert data to and from UTF8 format.
See "AL32UTF8".
To make sure that information is entered correctly, for example, that a phone number has the correct number of digits.
You can specify how to validate customer registration information by using the Field Validation Editor.
To make sure that a credit card is valid.
By default, credit card validation checks the card holder's name and address.
A template object that contains a set of iScript rules used to determine whether the following objects meet the requirements of the business profile to which the template is linked:
/balance_group
/billinfo
/group/sharing
/group/sharing/*
/ordered_balgrp
/profile
/profile/*
/purchased_discount
/purchased_product
/service
/service/*
A telephone number attribute that can be used to rate the number differently from other numbers.
Value Added Tax certificate. If you do business in countries outside of the US, you need a VAT certificate to collect VAT taxes. Alternatively, your customers can have buyer's VAT certificates, in which case they pay the VAT tax.
The company that produces Communications Tax Q Series, which calculates telecommunications taxation, and Sales Tax Q Series, which calculates tax for sales and use. BRM supports both of those Vertex programs.
An optional component that integrates BRM with the Vertex Communications Tax Q Series and Sales Tax Q Series software.
An optional component that integrates BRM with the Vertex Sales Tax Q Series software.
An invoice generated for an account that uses a BRM-initiated payment method, such as a credit card account. You display virtual invoices in Customer Center.
To the customers of a company that implements BRM, a voucher is a physical representation, such as a phone card, of one or more prepaid resource amounts.
To BRM, a voucher is a device object (/device/voucher) linked to a deal containing products that credit specified resources to an account. When the voucher device is associated with an account, BRM transfers the resource credits from the voucher to the account.
You use a voucher management system to create orders for voucher cards and to load and modify the order details.
Virtual Private Dialup Network. A VPDN enables a customer to access a private network by using a public dialup Internet service provider (ISP). VPDN is used when an organization needs to allow dialup access to its private network from a number of locations, but does not want to manage its own network infrastructure.
An indication that BRM cannot perform a task because of incorrect or inconsistent data in the database. The system can still operate properly, but you should check and resolve the data problem immediately. BRM displays warnings in a log file.
See also "error" and "debugging message".
Wireless Provisioning Data Manager
A DM used for sending service and device provisioning requests to a provisioning system.
A transaction that removes an uncollectable accounts receivable from a customer's account so it is not considered as an asset for accounting purposes.
The EDR state that indicates that a suspended call record will not be recycled. This state is set in two ways:
BRM standard recycling sets EDRs to this state briefly before deleting them. This is useful for generating revenue assurance data.
The Suspense Management Center application allows you to set EDRs to this state manually, and maintain them in the database for as long as you need them. You can then delete these EDRs at any time.
The other states are the following:
Suspended
Recycling
Succeeded
A group of operations implemented as a single transaction involving multiple data stores (resources) on multiple network hosts. Each data store is represented by a resource manager (such as JCA Resource Adapter), and the transaction is presided over by a global transaction manager. To ensure that all data stores involved in an XA transaction remain synchronized, each data store must participate in a two-phase commit process.
Also called a distributed transaction or a global transaction.
See also "two-phase commit process".
An XML (Extensible Markup Language) developed by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to create common information formats to share on the World Wide Web, intranets, and elsewhere.
In the BRM database, a group of values that apply to a single event attribute, such as a group of call origins (event attribute CALL.ANI).
In the Pipeline Manager database, a combination of origin and destination area codes or the distance between those area codes.
You use zones to simplify your price list. For example, instead of creating a rate plan for each area code, you can group area codes into zones in the BRM database or into zone models in the Pipeline Manager database and apply different balance impacts to multiple zones in a single rate plan.
You set up zones in the BRM database by using Zone Mapper. You set up zones in the Pipeline Manager database by using Pricing Center. You use zones when you create your price list in Pricing Center.
A hierarchical structure of zones and zone values, for example:
Zone: California area codes
Zone: Northern California area codes
Value: 408
Value: 415
Value: 510
You set up zone maps in the Zone Mapper, and use zone maps when you create your price list in Pricing Center. For example, to define the charges for telephone calls to all area codes in California, you create a rate plan that applies a single balance impact to all calls made to the California zone.
The BRM application you use to create a zone and organize them into a zone map. Using zones allows you to simplify your price list, for example, by creating a single rate plan for a zone that includes multiple area codes. Zone Mapper is part of Pricing Center.