Setting Up Service Quantity (SQ) Rules
Do NOT attempt to set up SQ rules until you have a very good understanding of what your meters measure and how your rates charge for this consumption. In addition, you should completely understand the concepts described in UOM versus TOU versus SQI before creating these rules. In addition, you should completely understand the concepts described in When and How to Manipulate Measured Consumption before creating these rules.
To set up Service Quantity (SQ) rules, choose
Description of Page
Enter a unique SQ Rule ID and a Description for the SQ rule.
Enter a Long Description that describes, in detail, what the rule does.
Indicate the UOM, TOU and SQI to be output by the rule.
Every service quantity supplied to a rate has two quantities - the amount of service as it was initially measured, and the amount of service that should be priced by the rate. Generally, an SQ Rule does not change the initially measured quantities. There are two exceptions to this, which are the Mathematical Functions rule (MA) and the Sum rule (SM). (Refer to the algorithm type descriptions of each rule for more information.)
Indicate whether the system should Create Billing Error if the SQ Rule is not able to execute successfully. For most SQ Rules you would turn this option on. However, if the rule is linked to a rate where the rule is only applicable to a subset of the customer base using the rate, you may not want a billing error to be issued if the rule cannot execute. For example, consider a rule used to derive total kWh by adding together peak kWh and off-peak kWh. You would only use such a rule if you measured peak and off-peak consumption, but you had prices in respect of total consumption. In the situation where this SQ Rule was linked to a rate used by customers with and without time-of-use meters, you would not want the system to issue a billing error for those customers without time-of-use meters (because their meter already measures total consumption).
Use SQ Rule Processing to indicate if the SQ rule is Always executed by rate application, even if the consumption details on the original bill segment are to be used when the system recalculates a bill segment (refer to Rebill (Bill Segment)). If the SQ rule should not be executed when the consumption details on the original bill segment are used, indicate that the SQ rule should only be executed on the Initial SQ Calculation . SQ rules that create a characteristic type / value (in the characteristic collection) used by one or more bill factors referenced in a rate component should typically be always executed. Refer to Base Package SQ Rules for examples of SQ rules that create a characteristic type / value.
Select the SQ Algorithm Type that controls how the system manipulates the consumption supplied to the rate. Define the Parameters to be used by the SQ algorithm.