New Features in PDC

7 New Features in PDC

Learn about the new features in Oracle Communications Pricing Design Center (PDC) 15.0.

Topics in this document:

New Features in PDC 15.0.1

PDC 15.0.1 includes the following enhancements:

Subscription Term Enhancements

PDC now supports the following subscription term enhancements:

Minimum Contract Length: You can now specify a minimum length for a contract with corresponding penalty charges for early cancellation. If customers cancel early, they must pay the remaining balance up to the minimum contract length.

For example, assume a subscription term has a 1-year commitment period, a minimum contract length of 4 months, and a $50 monthly fee. Customers would be charged $50 for each month remaining in the 4-month minimum contract length. A customer canceling after 1 month would pay $150, and a customer canceling after 3 months would pay $50. A customer canceling after 6 months would pay $0 because they already paid the 4-month minimum.
Penalty Fees: The penalty fee can now consist of an early termination fee, the remaining contract balance, or both.

In previous releases, the penalty fee could be an early termination fee or the contract balance. You could not apply both.

For more information, see "About Penalty Fees" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.

To implement these enhancements, use the following:

The PDC UI. See "Configuring Early Termination Fees" in PDC Online Help.
The following XML tags in your ImportExportPricing input file: minimumContractLength, minimumContractUnit, and penaltyOptions. See the PDC_home/apps/Samples/Examples/Sample_SubscriptionTerms.xml file and "Subscription Terms" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.

Triggering Either In-Advance or Post-Expiration Notifications

PDC now allows you to configure the following to generate notifications in advance, after expiration, or both. In previous releases, in-advance and post-expiration notifications were either both enabled or both disabled.

Balance elements: You can configure any currency or noncurrency balance element to trigger notification events when its validity period is about to expire, when it has already expired without new funds being added, or for both.
Product expiration: You can configure a subscription to trigger notification events before the subscription expires, after the subscription expires, or for both.
Subscription renewals: You can configure a subscription to trigger notification events before it is due for renewal, after it is past due for renewal, or for both.

For information, see "Configuring BRM to Send Notifications to External Notification Applications" in BRM Managing Customers.

New Mappings for PDC TMF 620 API

The REST API Reference for Pricing Design Center TMF 620 API supports new mappings for the following:

GET, POST, and PATCH of product offering with extensions (proration settings, billing cycle settings, discount rules, triggers).
GET, POST, and PATCH of attribute-based alterations (discount selector).
PATCH of product offerings with selectors using service, event, and account attributes for subscription or usage events.
Account-level charge and discount offers.

To view the new mappings, see "Mapping Product Offerings" in PDC REST Services Manager Integration Guide.

Updated Examples in PDC TMF 620 REST API

The product offering price endpoints in REST API Reference for Pricing Design Center TMF 620 API includes additional examples using charge selectors.

New Features in PDC 15.0.0

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

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

PDC 15.0.0 includes the following enhancements:

Support for Purchasing Same Offer Multiple Times with Separate Balances

Previously, customers could extend the validity of a balance by purchasing an offer again, and BRM added the new balance to the existing balance. Now, you can choose to track the new and existing balances separately, with separate validity dates.

You can choose from two new options:

Longest date: Extends the old subscription with a separate balance, setting the validity end date to whichever is later, the new or existing validity.
Cumulative validity: Extends the old subscription with a separate balance, setting the validity end date by adding the new validity to what remains of the old validity.

For example, on June 1, a customer purchases an add-on bundle that grants 3GB of data, is valid for seven days, and has a grace period of four days. On June 3, after using 1GB, they purchase the bundle again. With both options, the new 3GB balance is added to a new balance group, separate from the remaining 2GB in the old balance group.

With the longest date option, the new balance is valid starting on June 3, and BRM compares the validity periods of the old and new balances to set the validity end date for the new balance to the later of the two end dates, June 10. The old balance retains the original validity dates.

With the cumulative validity option, the new balance is valid starting on June 8. BRM adds the validity period of the old balance to the new balance to set the validity end date for the new balance to June 15. The old balance retains the original validity dates.

You can choose the new options using:

The PDC UI. When customizing offers in bundles, select the new options from the Behavior menu in the Purchase area.
The ImportExportPricing utility. When creating bundles in XML, set the value <purchaseMode> element under the <bundledProductOfferingItem> element to either LONGEST_DATE_NEW_SUB_BAL or EXTEND_NEW_SUB_BAL.

For information, see "About Purchasing the Same Offer Multiple Times" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.

PDC Supports Debiting in Discounts Consumed Immediately

You can now create currency-based discounts in PDC that are deducted from the customer's account balance immediately. To do so, you add the new Instant Debit balance impact type to your discount.

Note:

The Instant Debit balance impact type is supported if all of the following are true:

ECE is enabled in the system
It is included in a standard discount or a standard chargesharing pricing profile for ECE charging
It uses currency balance elements
It is included in fixed or percentage discounts

For information, see "About Discount Offers and Discounts" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.

New TMF-Based REST API for PDC

PDC contains a new TMF-based REST API, allowing you to manage a BRM system's product offerings. The PDC TMF REST API can perform the following operations:

Retrieves one or more product offerings, product offering prices, or product specifications
Updates product offerings, product offering prices, or product specifications
Creates product offerings, product offering prices, or product specifications
Deletes product offerings, product offering prices, or product specifications
Manages event notifications

For information, see REST API Reference for Pricing Design Center TMF 620 API.

Support for Full-Day Discounts

Previously, when rounding to midnight was disabled, and a discount was purchased after midnight, the discount would not be applied to the entire day. For example, a discount purchased at 15:00 on June 1 would apply only from 15:00 through 24:00 on June 1. Now, you can specify to apply the discount to the entire day even when rounding to midnight is disabled. That is, a discount purchased at 15:00 would apply from 00:00 through 24:00 on June 1.

You can configure this option using the PDC UI or the ImportExportPricing utility.

When creating discounts in an XML file, you set the value in the <validityRounding> element under the <alterationOffering> element. You can set <validityRounding> to one of the following:

OFF: Sets the discount start time to the time of purchase.
ON: Sets the discount start time to midnight (00:00:00) of the day the discount is purchased.
NOT_SET: Uses the systemwide setting. This is the default.

For information, see "Configuring Discount Validity Rounding" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.

New PDC REST API

PDC contains a new REST API that allows you to do the following:

Manage pricing components in your BRM system. For example, you can create, modify, and delete charge offers, discount offers, and selectors.
Manage setup components in your BRM system. For example, you can create, modify, and delete setup components that PDC manages, such as balance elements, custom rules, deliverables, and tax codes.

For information, see REST API Reference for Pricing Design Center.

Validation for Dynamic Charging

Previously, you could dynamically override pricing at purchase time with no validation. Now, you create price tags as setup components with validation rules to determine valid overrides for charge offers and discount offers at purchase time.

You configure price tags as setup components, add them to balance impacts when creating charge offers and discount offers, and set their values at purchase time.

You use the ImportExportPricing utility or the PDC UI to create the price tag setup components and add them to balance impacts. The rules configured in the setup components determine which price tags are valid for a given balance impact and which values can be used at purchase time. You can restrict price tags to certain balance elements, resource units, and services. You can restrict the values that can be used to a list or range of values.

For example, you could create the following price tag setup components:

Applicable to the minute unit of free minutes resources of TelcoGSM and Telephony services, and the only permitted values are 10 and 20.
Applicable to any unit of US Dollars resources of TelcoGSM services, and permitted values are between 100 and 200.
Applicable to the byte unit Euro resources of TelcoGSM services, with no restrictions on the value.

You cannot use price tags with charge shares or temporary balance elements in discount offers.

For information, see "Configuring Price Tags" in PDC Creating Product Offerings.