Implementation Guide for Oracle Self-Service E-Billing > Customizing the Payment Consolidator Integration Module >

Implementing Payment Consolidator Plug-Ins

The Oracle Self-Service E-Billing provides the following plug-ins for extending Payment Consolidator functionality:

• IBillingSystemIDPlugin
• ICartridgePlugin

For each plug-in, Oracle Self-Service E-Billing provides a default implementation.

This task is step in Process of Implementing a Payment Consolidator.

Implementing the IBillingSystemIDPlugin

Only one method is defined in IBillingSystemIDPlugin:

public String getBillingSystemID(IDetailRecord record) throws ProcessException

This method is called while processing the detail record. It is used to get the billing system ID from Oracle Self-Service E-Billing, which is used in combination with the account number to uniquely identify an account. Each billing system has been assigned a unique identifier called the billing system ID in Oracle Self-Service E-Billing. When enrolling a new account or changing an account number, this method is invoked to get the billing system ID according to the detail record information, and is then combined with the account number to check whether the account exists in Oracle Self-Service E-Billing. If the account does not exist, then it creates a new account with the billing system ID and account number.

Figure 32 shows the data flow for IBillingSystemIDPlugin.

Figure 32. Data Flow for the IBillingSystemIDPlugin

The default implementation is com.edocs.common.pc.core.DefaultBillingSystemIDPlugin. You might have to implement the plug-in using your business rules to get the real billing system ID. The default plug-in works well only when there is single billing system ID in Oracle Self-Service E-Billing.

To implement the IBillingSystemIDPlugin plug-in

• Set the Billing System ID Plug-In parameter in the biller's configuration in the Command Center. For details on configuring a biller, see Administration Guide for Oracle Self-Service E-Billing.

Implementing the ICartridgePlugin Plug-In

The ICartridgePlugin plug-in defines a group of methods that are invoked before a payment consolidation job can populate a record in the Oracle Self-Service E-Billing database or write to the response file in order to overwrite the default value of a record's field and change the behavior.

Figure 33 shows the workflow for the ICartridgePlugin.

Figure 33. Data Flow for the ICartridgePlugin

The default implementation is com.edocs.common.pc.core.cartridge.DummyCartridgePlugin, and is used for all payment consolidation file types. It is a dummy implementation and does nothing with the record. You can customize the default implementation for each file type.

You can implement the following methods in ICartridgePlugin:

• public IFileRecord preProcessFileRecord(IFileRecord record). Use to add customized operations before processing the file header or file tailer record, such as for a customized field.

  The ReceiverID field in the file header is required and is used to generate the enrollment response file. If the ReceiverID field is missing, then the enrollment response file generation will fail. For some payment consolidators, there is no ReceiverID field doesn't exist in the file header. You must implement preProcessFileRecord in ICartridgePlugin to set the value of the receiver ID for the fileHeaderRecord object.

• public IBatchRecord preProcessBatchRecord(IBatchRecord record). Use to add customized operations before processing the batch header or tailer records, such as for a customized field.
• public IDetailRecord preProcessDetailRecord(IDetailRecord record). Use to add customized operations before processing the detail record, such as for a customized field. You can also use this method to communicate with an external system for verifying the detail record, such as invoking billing system to verify whether the detail record is valid on the biller's side.

To implement the ICartridgePlugin plug-in

• Set the Cartridge Plug-in parameter for the particular file type in the payment consolidator's configuration in the Command Center. For details on configuring a payment consolidator, see Administration Guide for Oracle Self-Service E-Billing.