Configuring Announcements

The announcements displayed to a customer along with their billing information on the Overview dashboard depend on the configuration of self-service alerts and their component objects.

Note: Customers also receive important alerts and notifications related to their account. For more information on configuring those alerts and notifications, see Notifications.

The following self-service alerts are examples of announcements that can be configured in the base product. The scripts used by these announcements must be configured to return applicable information for the customers of a Utility:

• Active Pay Arrangement/Pay Plan: Checks if the account has an active pay arrangement service agreement or pay plan. Supported with the C1-PAPPAlert script.
• Budget Enrollment: Checks if the account is currently on a budget plan. Supported with the WX-NtfyBudg script.
• Highlight Open Service Tasks: Checks if the account has a non-final service task for a task type that requires an alert. The alert header and description are defined on the service task type. Supported with the C1-OpenTaskA script.
• Highlight Pending One Time Payments: Checks if the account has pending one-time payment service tasks. Supported with the C1-SchOTPay script.
• Highlight Pending Start/Stop: Checks if the account has a pending start or pending stop service agreement. Supported with the C1-PendStSpA script.
• Outstanding Balance: Retrieves the account outstanding balance to display in self-service. Supported with the C1-AcctCurrB script.
• Prepay Biller Information: Checks if the available prepaid balance is below the threshold specified on the prepay biller task type for the account's prepaid service. Supported with the C1-PPBAlert script.

Note: This documentation provides steps to complete these configuration tasks using Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing. However, many of these tasks can be completed with other applicable products such as Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter or Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service. Refer to your applicable product documentation for steps to complete the configuration using your Oracle Utilities product. Additionally, this documentation assumes that you know how to create the various objects listed below as well as modify or create master configurations. For additional details on these tasks, refer to the applicable Oracle Utilities Documentation.

To create additional alert types for announcements:

Complete the following steps to create additional alert types for announcements.

1. Log in to Customer Care and Billing as a user with edit access for the CC&B Self-Service Integration master configuration.
2. If the alert types available with the base product do not cover all your announcement use cases, create any additional necessary objects. When defining your master configuration this can include:
   • Alert Type: The alert announcements that are displayed such as outstanding balance announcements. From the Admin menu, select Database, select Lookup, and select Search. Search for WX_CCB_ALERT_TYPE_FLG, which is the lookup table to modify if you need to add additional alert types.
     
   • Script: The script that determines when to display an announcement and details for the announcement such as message text. Refer to the previous list for the applicable alert scripts provided with the base product.

   Note: If you add additional alert types, be aware that the applicable scripts must use the data area WX-SSAlerts as its schema. Each alert may return the header description, icon, description, hyperlink, date, and priority to the self-service application.

3. From the Admin menu, select General, and select Master Configuration. From the Master Configuration zone, select the Edit option for the CC&B Self-Service Integration master configuration. The master configuration is displayed.
4. From the Self-Service Alerts zone, include all required alerts for the announcements available in Digital Self Service - Transactions. You can use the demo Self-Service Integration master configuration as a starting point, or create your own master configuration and add applicable alerts. To include additional alerts, click the plus icon and then define the following:
   • Alert Type: Select the applicable alert. For example, to include pending start or stop service announcements, select Highlight Pending Start/Stop.
   • Script: Search for and select the applicable alert script. For example, to support pending start or stop service announcements, use C1-PendStSpA.
5. Click Save to save the master configuration changes.

To modify announcement text:

If required, you can modify the header and description text displayed within the announcements to the customer. The scripts provided with the base product define a set of steps to determine which self-service messages supply the text content for the announcement. For example:

1. From the Admin menu, select System, select Script, and select Search.
2. Type the script name, in this example C1-AcctCurrB and then click Search. The outstanding balance script is returned.
3. From the Step tab, review the steps to determine what messages can be displayed for the alert. Make a note of any applicable messages. In this example, one of the messages that can be displayed is 11847.
4. To modify the text, from the Admin menu, select System, select Message, and select Search.
5. In the Description field type self-service and click Search to return self-service messages.
6. From this list select message 11847 and select the Details tab.
7. Use the Customer Specific Message Text field to provide your custom notification text, which overrides the default message text for the notification.
8. Click Save to save your message changes.

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