How the System Requests How Much Was Consumed

There are two types of service agreements:

  • Those that charge for some commodity; such as, electricity, water, garbage, and street lighting.

  • Those that charge for something intangible; such as, deposit, charitable contribution, and payment arrangement.

For service agreements that charge for something intangible, there is no notion of requesting or determining how much was consumed and therefore the topics in this section are not relevant. For service agreements that charge for a commodity, the first step in the creation of a bill segment is requesting the amount or usage consumed (or bill determinants) from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management; for example,

  • If the service agreement bills for electricity, the system must know how much electricity was consumed.

  • If the service agreement bills for lamp service, the system must know how many lamps the customer uses.

After the system requests and receives the amount or usage consumed (or bill determinants) during the bill period from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management, it saves the consumption or usage details on the bill segment in the following snapshots:

  • The item snapshot contains information about the items that existed at the service points received from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management

  • The calculation/audit read details contains information about the meter read details received from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management

  • The calculation/audit usage details contains information about the usage details received from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management.

  • The service quantity snapshot contains the billable service quantities received from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management

Note: This logic is in a plug-in. The logic described below resides in algorithms that are plugged-in on the bill segment type referenced on a service agreement's SA type. If you need different logic, you should develop the appropriate algorithm and plug it in on your bill segment types.
Fastpath:

Refer to The Big Picture of Usage Requests for more information about how Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing requests and receives consumption / usage information from Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management.

Refer to Usage for more information about how Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management calculates usage.