1. Release Notes
  2. New Features in Billing Care

8 New Features in Billing Care

Learn about the new features in Oracle Communications Billing Care 15.0 releases.

Topics in this document:

New Features in Billing Care 15.0.1

Billing Care 15.0.1 includes the following enhancements:

Billing Care Now Supports Contracts for All Revenue Recognition Types

Billing Care now supports contracts when deliverable-based recognition is disabled. A contract is a subscription with terms your customers agree to when purchasing it. The terms define the commitment period and options for canceling and renewing the subscription. See "Managing Customer Contracts" in BRM Managing Customers for more information.

In previous releases, Billing Care supported contracts only when deliverable-based revenue recognition was enabled.

To support contracts, Billing Care includes the following enhancements:

  • The Account Creation wizard now displays the Terms stop, regardless of whether deliverable-based revenue recognition is enabled.

    Note:

    The Account Creation wizard grays out the Terms stop and skips the Terms page when a package does not contain terms.

  • The Subscriptions area on the Bills tab has been obsoleted. To view all subscriptions, packages, and contracts a customer owns, you now click the Assets area on the Bills tab.

  • The new Filtered Services dialog box allows you to filter services-focused asset cards by service type, service status, or service ID.

  • On the Assets page in the Services and Offers view, assets cards now display a View Contract button when a package contains terms.

  • The Assets page includes a new Contracts view, which allows you to view details about the contract's terms, such as the commitment period, the grace period, the penalty for canceling early, and the auto-renewal options. Figure 8-1 shows a sample asset card in the Contracts view.

    Figure 8-1 Example Asset Card in Contracts View


    Description of Figure 8-1 follows
    Description of "Figure 8-1 Example Asset Card in Contracts View"

For more information, see the following in Billing Care Online Help:

You can also customize the information displayed on the contract term's asset card.

There are also two new endpoints in the Billing Care REST API to support this feature:

  • GET /bcws/webresources/v1.0/subscriptions/account/{id}/purchasedcontracts (Get Purchased Contracts for an Account)

  • GET /bcws/webresources/v1.0/subscriptions/contracts/{id}/services (Get Services for a Contract)

For more information about these endpoints, see REST API Reference for Billing Care.

Authorization for Billing Care Contracts View

Billing Care supports authorization for the new Billing Care Contracts view. The authorization Subscription resource includes the following new actions:

  • ContractRenew: Allows the user to enable or disable a contract's auto-renewal options in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

  • ContractTerminate: Allows the user to cancel a customer's contract in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

When a user does not have these resource grants:

  • The Billing Care UI hides the auto-renewal and termination actions on all contract asset cards.

  • The Billing Care REST API generates these error messages when users attempt to perform the auto-renewal or termination actions:

    • You do not have permission to enable or disable auto-renew facility for contracts.

    • You do not have permission to terminate a contract.

For more information, see "About Billing Care Authorization Resources" in BRM Security Guide.

Authorization for Billing Care Batch Payment Process and Batch Template Views

Billing Care supports authorization for the new Billing Care Batch Payment Process and Batch Template views. The authorization Payment resource includes the following new actions:

  • BatchTemplateCreate: Allows the user to create batch templates in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

  • BatchTemplateDelete: Allows the user to delete batch templates in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

  • BatchTemplateModify: Allows the user to modify batch templates in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

  • BatchProcess: Allows the user to validate and submit batch payments, batch reversals, and batch refunds in Billing Care or through the Billing Care REST API.

  • noManualAllocationMandatory: When the user runs validation, it allows validation to pass when a payment amount is less than the total due for the account.

For more information, see "About Billing Care Authorization Resources" in BRM Security Guide.

Itemized Tax Calculation for Disputes and Settlements

You can now view details about the taxes applied or reversed during accounts receivable operations and payments at the following level:

  • Itemize: BRM segregates tax details based on the tax code and tax jurisdiction.
  • Summarize: BRM segregates tax details based on the tax code only.

If the TaxReturnJuris business parameter is enabled (set to itemize), you can see information based on the tax code and jurisdiction level for each item. The settled tax amount, settled taxed amount, and settled non-taxed amount will be shown as a consolidated amount for each item if it is set to summarize (default).

For more information, see "Working with Disputes" in Billing Care Online Help.

Standardized Date and Time Formats

Date and time formats have been standardized across the Billing Care user interface. Earlier, the date used the standard dd/mm/yyyy format for displaying and inputting dates across all locales. It now uses a locale-specific date standard. The time format has been standardized to the 24-hour format regardless of the locale.

For more information, see "About Date and Time Formats (Release 15.0.1 or later)" in Billing Care Online Help.

Enhancements for Batch Payments, Refunds, and Reversals

The Billing Care UI now supports creating and editing batches and editing imported batches. You can create, edit, import, and validate batch payment files (.pmt) directly in the Billing Care UI, with batch templates stored in the database for efficiency. Key functionality includes validating batch files and processing them based on standard or custom templates, managing individual records within a batch, and handling errors by editing failed records and creating new batches. You can also manually suspend payments requiring special handling and allocate payments to bills or items.

To support the Batch Payments feature, Billing Care includes the following enhancements:

For detailed instructions, see "Batch Payments, Refunds, and Reversals" in Billing Care Online Help and "Processing Payment Batches in Billing Care" in BRM Configuring and Collecting Payments.

There are also new endpoints in the Billing Care REST API to support this feature:

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/validate (Validate a Payment Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/submit (Submit a Payment Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchrefund/validate (Validate a Refund Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchrefund/submit (Submit a Refund Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchreversal/validate (Validate a Reversal Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchreversal/submit (Submit a Reversal Batch)

  • POST /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/batchtemplates (Create a Batch Template)

  • PUT /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/batchtemplates/{id} (Update a Batch Template)

  • DELETE /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/batchtemplates/{id} (Delete a Batch Template)

  • GET /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/batchtemplates (Get Batch Templates)

  • GET /bcws/webresources/v1.0/batchpayments/batchtemplates/{id} (Get a Batch Template by Template ID)

For more information about these endpoints, see REST API Reference for Billing Care.

Tracking CSR Activity for Audit Purposes

When CSRs perform activity in Billing Care, it can now store user context information, such as the CSR's client machine IP address, in the following fields of the /user_activity database object:

  • PIN_FLD_API_USER: Contains the Web Services Manager user. By default, it is set to NULL, but you can override this behavior using the Billing Care SDK.

  • PIN_FLD_EXTERNAL_USER: Contains the external CSR's login or ID. By default, it is set to the external login ID, but you can override this behavior using the Billing Care SDK.

  • PIN_FLD_NAP_IP_ADDRESS: Contains the client machine's IP address. By default, Billing Care attempts to set it to the client machine's IP address by looking up the X-Forwarded-For header value. If it is not found, it is set to the Billing Care service's IP address. However, you can override this behavior using the Billing Care SDK.

  • PIN_FLD_CORRELATION_ID: Contains an ID to tag for collating an operation. By default, it is set to NULL, but you can override this behavior using the Billing Care SDK.

Note:

The Web server must pass this information so Billing Care can persist it in the BRM database.

Enhancements in Billing Care 15.0.0

This section lists the features introduced between Billing Care 12.0 Patch Set 8 and Billing Care 15.0.0.

For information about the features introduced between Billing Care 12.0 and Billing Care 12.0 Patch Set 8, see "New Features in Billing Care" in BRM 12.0 Patch Set Release Notes.

Billing Care 15.0.0 includes the following enhancements:

  • Billing Care screens and dialog boxes now use an upgraded Oracle JavaScript Extension Toolkit (JET) version. The screens were also migrated to a new style and syntax to improve the client tool's overall look and feel.

    Note:

    You must update any Billing Care customizations that use ojComponent knockout binding (data-bind="ojComponent:{...}") to use custom element equivalents. This is because the Oracle JET 12.0.0 release has removed support for ojComponent knockout binding.

  • A few Billing Care screens that still used LUX grids in previous releases were changed to use Oracle JET instead.

For more information, see Billing Care Online Help.