Understanding Usage Calculation Rules

Usage calculation rules are standard and custom rules that perform calculations on measurement data to generate bill determinants and other values used by external systems, such as billing systems, customer information systems, etc. Usage calculation rules are created for a specific usage calculation group. For example, if you were configuring two usage calculation groups and both included a specific usage calculation rule, you would need to create two instances of the usage calculation rule, one for each group.

The base package includes rules that calculate common bill determinants including:

  • Scalar reads
  • Time-of-use consumption (by applying a time-of-use map to an interval channel)
  • Interval curves (either real or derived)
  • Virtually anything else that can be calculated from the information in the system

For a deeper functional understanding of usage calculation, refer to the About Usage Calculation section of the Oracle Utilities Meter Solution Business User Guide .

Usage Transaction Exceptions

On almost every usage calculation rule, the failure of the rule results in a usage transaction exception and the Usage Transaction Exception Type for the failure can be configured on the rule. These usage transaction exception types can also be set to a specific Exception Severity:

  • Information: Used to highlight minor issues, but not sufficient to cause the usage transaction to be put into a failure state. Exceptions of this category can be used to report on the frequency of interesting, but not fatal issues
  • Issues: Used to report a problem that will prevent the usage transaction from being sent. Multiple "issue exceptions" can be created during usage transaction processing. If at least one issue exists after all rules have been applied, the usage transaction is transitioned to a failure state requiring review and approval.
  • Terminate: Used to report a severe issue that will cause the usage calculation process to stop and the usage transaction to be transitioned immediately to a failure state requiring review and approval. Only one terminate exception can be issued (as the first one causes calculation processing to stop on for a Usage Transaction). This should be used for cases where manual override / approval isn't accurate. For example, a "Curve Not Continuous" error that says the interval data doesn't cover the full usage period should always be set to Terminate as an Exception Severity.

Rounding Usage Transaction Service Quantities

Several usage calculation rules provide a means for defining the manner in which service quantities are rounded during usage calculations. Service quantity rounding can be defined using the SQ Rounding Details which allow configuration of the method by which quantities are rounded (Up, Down, or Nearest) and the number of decimal positions retained after rounding.

Creating Measurement Data Snapshots

Daily Scalar Calculation Rule, Get Interval, Get Item Counts and Consumption, and Get Scalar Details usage calculation rules can be configured to create measurement data snapshots during usage transaction processing. Measurement data snapshots are used by data aggregation in Market Settlements Management.

Measurement data snapshot configuration is done in the Extract To Measurement Data Snapshots section, and includes the following options:

  • Measurement Data Snapshot Type: The measurement data snapshot type for measurement data snapshots created by the usage rule.
  • Usage Transaction ID To Use: A flag that designates the type of ID to use to identify the usage transaction on the measurement data extract. Options include:
    • Usage Transaction ID: The usage transaction’s ID
    • Usage Transaction External ID: The external ID for the usage transaction. Used when the usage transaction is triggered by external system such as a CIS (or by the billing functionality in Customer To Meter)
  • Extract To Different Usage Subscription: A flag that designates whether or not the measurement data snapshot should be extracted to a different usage subscription, such as one used by Market Settlements Management. Options include:
    • No: The extract will reference the usage subscription for which usage calculations are being processed. This option is used when Meter Data Management and Market Settlements Management are installed in different application environments. In this case, the extract can be exported from Meter Data Management for subsequence import into Market Settlements Management.
    • Yes: The extract will reference a different usage subscription such as one used by Market Settlements Management. This option is used when Meter Data Management and Market Settlements Management are installed in the same application environment. In this case, the measurement data snapshot is “exported” within the system to the Settlement Item, where it can be used in data aggregation processing.

      When this option is selected, the Source Identifier Type and Target Identifier Type fields must be configured to define how the system will determine the correct settlement usage subscription to use.

  • Irregular Data Flag Mapping: Ranges of condition codes used to flag data as “irregular”. The value of the Irregular Data Flag (based on the IRREGULAR_​DATA_​FLG lookup) is used to flag data that falls with each range configured. A blank Irregular Flag value denotes that the condition range is considered to be "Regular".

See About Measurement Data Snapshots for more information about measurement data snapshot creation and processing.