Creating Bundles

About Creating Bundles

A bundle is a set of charge offers, discount offers, or both. You typically use bundles to group offers that you want to sell together.

Each bundle is associated with a single service. Only offers that apply to that service can be included in the bundle. For example:

A package that provides only broadband access includes only broadband access bundles (such as cable and premium cable).
A package that provides broadband access and VOIP includes at least two bundles, one for broadband access and one for VOIP.
A package that provides VOIP and cable TV includes at least two bundles, one for VOIP and one for cable TV.

Figure 14-1 shows bundles that are associated with a single service.

Figure 14-1 Bundles Are Always Associated with a Single Service

Description of "Figure 14-1 Bundles Are Always Associated with a Single Service"

One bundle can contain any number of charge offers and discount offers, and two different bundles can contain the same offer. Grouping offers in different ways in different bundles adds flexibility to your pricing structure without requiring you to create additional charge offers or discount offers.

Creating a bundle involves these high-level tasks:

Configuring the bundle's validity dates, the service or account it is associated with, and other settings.

See "Configuring Bundle Settings".
Optionally, adding subscription terms. Subscription terms govern the agreement between you and the customer who purchases the bundle. When customers purchase a bundle with a subscription term, it becomes a contract.

See "Associating Terms with Bundles".
Adding one or more charge offers and discount offers.
Optionally, customizing the charge offers and discount offers.

See "Customizing Offers In Bundles".
Optionally, defining any dependencies between this bundle and other bundles.

See "Creating Dependencies for Bundles".
Optionally, specifying whether customers can transition from this bundle to another specified bundle.

See "Transitioning between Bundles".
Optionally, configuring PDC to save extra information about the bundle that may be useful to external applications.

See "Configuring Product Specification Attributes for Pricing Components".

Configuring Bundle Settings

You can configure bundles in the following ways:

Associate the bundle to a service or an Account. When creating a bundle, you can associate it with a specific service. That is the only service to which the offers in the bundle apply.

Alternatively, you can associate the bundle with Account. You might do this, for example, to create a bundle for late charges or for coupons. The offers in the bundle can then be used to rate any event associated with Account in the service-event map. Each account can own only one bundle that applies to Account.
Bill customers when they purchase the bundle. Usually, you bill a customer at the end of the customer's billing cycle. On-purchase billing, however, enables you to bill a customer immediately for a purchase, even if the customer's billing cycle has not ended. When you create a bundle, you can flag it for on-purchase billing. When a customer purchases the bundle, a bill is generated immediately for the purchase fees associated with the bundle.

Note:

On-purchase billing works with purchase fees only, not with recurring, usage, or cancellation fees.
Align balance impacts on first usage. You can configure a bundle to synchronize the start date of all balance impacts whose validity period starts on first usage. This ensures that all balance impacts in the bundle's charge offers are set to the same validity period when one of them is activated for the first time.

For information about how it affects discount offers, see "About Activating First-Usage Discount Offers".

For information about how it affects charge offers, see "About Granting First-Usage Balance Impacts In First-Usage Charges".
Permit CSRs to customize bundles. If your CSRs (customer service representatives) can discount or change the effective period of charges in bundles at purchase time, you can specify whether to prohibit, allow, or require such modifications in a particular bundle. For example, if customer input is required to set the date on which an offer's purchase fee is applied, you can specify that a bundle must be modified.
Specify when a bundle can be purchased. By default, the time period during which a bundle can be purchased starts immediately and never ends. You can change the default start date, end date, or both.

To be added to a bundle, an offer must have a purchase period that is the same as or greater than the bundle purchase period. If the purchase period of an offer in a bundle exceeds the bundle purchase period, the bundle purchase period overrides the offer purchase period.

About Activating First-Usage Discount Offers

Discount offers that start on first usage can be activated when the customer first uses a service, when the first cycle fee is applied, or when the account's bill is generated, depending on which fees are discounted and when the discount is triggered. For example, a first-usage discount on SMS messaging is activated when the customer sends the first SMS message, a first-usage discount on cycle fees is activated when the first cycle fee is applied, and a first-usage billing-time discount is activated when the first bill is generated for the account.

It is possible that a discount on a particular service might not be activated when a customer first uses that service. For example, if long-distance calls are discountable for a telephony service, a customer might make multiple local calls, which do not trigger the discount's effective period, before making a long-distance call.

There are some cases in which a discount's balance impact is negated by a second discount. If this occurs, the first discount's validity period is still set.

For example, a customer purchases a bundle that includes discount offer A and discount offer B:

Discount offer A is configured to start when first used, gives 10% off of all calls, and has a higher priority, so it is applied first.
Discount offer B is configured to start immediately and makes all birthday calls free.

If a customer makes a first-usage call on his birthday and is charged $5.00 for the call, discount offer A is applied first, which reduces the balance by $.50, and discount offer A's validity period is set. Then discount offer B backs out all charges. In this case, the validity period of discount offer A remains set.

About Granting First-Usage Balance Impacts In First-Usage Charges

A charge offer that is valid from first usage should not grant a credit balance, such as included minutes, that is also valid from first usage. If it does, the granted balance cannot be consumed by the first usage event.

For example, consider a charge offer that is valid on first usage and has these charges:

A recurring event that grants minutes. The balance impact is set to first usage.
A charge that consumes minutes until there are none, and then consumes money.

When the first usage event for this charge offer occurs, the charges are processed in this order:

The first usage event is charged, and it consumes a monetary balance, because no minutes have been granted.
The recurring event, with a balance impact set to first usage, can now be charged. It grants minutes.
Subsequent usage events now have minutes to consume.

Because the included minutes are valid from first usage, they are not granted until after the first usage event is rated. Hence, the first usage event cannot consume any of the minutes included in the charge offer. Therefore, the customer is charged for a call that should have consumed minutes.

However, if a discount offer that is valid from first usage grants a credit balance that is valid at first usage, the granted balance is available for consumption because discounting occurs after the balances are granted.

Associating Terms with Bundles

Note:

Adding terms to bundles is supported only by BRM 12.0.0.3.0 with Interim Patch 31426340 and later, and PDC 12.0.0.3.0 with Interim Patch 31426374 and later.

You can associate your bundles with subscription terms, which govern the agreement between you and the customer who purchases the bundle. Subscription terms specify the bundle's commitment period, whether customers are allowed to cancel the bundle early, and whether customers are charged an early termination fee for doing so.

If you add a subscription term to a bundle, it applies only if the bundle is optional in a package.

If a package specifies that the bundle is required, the bundle's terms will be overridden by the package's terms. See "About Bundle Terms and Package Terms".

Customizing Offers In Bundles

You can customize the charge offers and bundle offers in a bundle in the following ways:

Customize the offer quantity. You can customize bundles to provide more than one of the same charge offer or discount offer. For example, if a bundle for a cable service includes a charge offer that provides one set-top box and you want to include three set-top boxes with the cable service, enter 3 for the charge offer in that bundle.
Override the offer's validity period. You can override the validity start and end dates in a charge offer or discount offer, such as from January through March to a new validity period of January through July. See "About the Validity Periods of Offers in Bundles".
Set the status of offers at purchase. You can specify whether an offer is active or inactive at the time of purchase. For example, an offer might be inactive at purchase so that the purchase or first month's fee is only applied after you get confirmation that the hardware was received and successfully configured. By default, offers are active.

For offers with inactive status, you can specify a reason for that status.
Configure how to set a charge offer's cycle alignment when its bundle is reactivated. Suppose a customer suspends and later reactivates their subscription. In that case, you can specify whether the charge offer's cycle alignment is based on the original billing or purchase date, or reactivation date.

By default, the cycle is aligned with the original billing or purchase dates, depending on how the charge's cycle alignment is configured. You can instead select the Renewal Mode option for the charge offer to use the reactivation date instead of the original date. When you select this option, the following scenarios are possible:
- If the charge's cycle is set to align with the purchase date, the reactivated charge offer's cycle aligns with the reactivation date.
- If the charge's cycle is set to align with the purchase date, but the charge offer specifies that the cycle alignment should be a specific day of the month, the reactivated charge offer's cycle aligns with whichever is later, the reactivation date or the day of the month specified in the charge offer.
- If the charge's cycle is set to align with the billing date, the reactivated charge offer's cycle will align with the billing date (regardless of whether you select the Renewal Mode option).
Configure how to prorate an offer's cycle fees. You can specify to prorate an offer's fees using a 30-day month or the actual number of days in the month. See "Setting Proration for Offers in a Bundle".
Specify whether a charge offer can be purchased as an add-on product. You can specify that a charge offer is optional, meaning it can be purchased with the bundle or later on. See "About Add-On Charge Offers in Bundles".
Configure what happens when a customer purchases the same offer more than once. You can specify whether the additional offer is purchased as a new subscription or as a replacement. See "About Purchasing the Same Offer Multiple Times".
Customize charges and discounts for a customer. See "About Customizing Charges and Discounts in Bundles".

About the Validity Periods of Offers in Bundles

You can configure the start time and end time for each charge offer and discount offer in a bundle. The time between the start time and the end time is called the validity period. A customer cannot use a service provided by an offer unless the offer is valid.

Note:

You specify when a charge offer or a discount offer can be purchased in the offer itself. You cannot apply a validity period when you create a charge offer or a discount offer; you can only apply it in the bundle configuration.
You can apply validity periods to individual charges and discounts configured within offers. However, the validity periods specified in a bundle take precedence over the validity periods specified in the charges and discounts. For example, you might want to allow a customer to purchase a charge offer, but not allow the customer to use the service until it is activated on the network.

In bundles, you set the validity period of offers by specifying the start and end times of the offer and of the offer's cycle and usage charge periods.

Offer start and end times: Specify when a customer can use the service or benefit from the discount. The offer start time is when the purchase fee is charged. It is also the earliest time that the offer's fees can begin to accumulate in an account balance.
Recurring and usage charge periods: Specify when recurring and usage events can be charged or discounted. These validity periods must not begin before the offer start time.

You can set start times as follows:

Immediately: (Default) The offer or charge is valid and can be activated immediately. The purchase fee is charged as soon as the offer is added to the account.
Relative to Purchase: The purchase fee is charged when the offer is added to the account, but the customer cannot use the service or benefit from the discount until the relative period ends.

When a charge offer's charge period has a relative start time, the events are not rated and the fees are not charged until the relative period ends, even if the service has been activated. This option enables you to waive subscription or usage fees for a period of time.

When a discount offer's charge period has a relative start time, the discount is not applied to cycle or usage fees until the relative period ends.
First Usage of Any Offer in a Bundle: When a customer first uses any service in a bundle, all offers in the bundle are activated and all purchase fees are charged. The charge periods also begin at that time. The validity period start time is set to the start time of the event that first uses the service or triggers the discount offer.

Setting charge offers and discount offers to start when they are first used enables you to delay charging customers for the services they purchase until they start using those services or to delay activating discount offers until they can be applied to customers' usage. This is useful when you offer limited-time services or discount offers that expire relative to when they are activated.

Note:

Charge offers that start on first usage must include usage fees.

You can set the end times as follows:

Never: (Default) After it is activated, the offer is effective indefinitely, and its recurring and usage fees can be charged or discounted indefinitely.
Relative to Start: After the relative period ends, the offer is not effective and the recurring or usage fees are not charged or discounted.

If the offer end time specified in the bundle is earlier than the recurring or usage charge end time, the offer end time overrides the charge end time.

Setting Proration for Offers in a Bundle

When creating bundles, you can specify how cycle charges and discounts are prorated at the charge offer or discount offer level. You can specify to calculate prorated cycle charges and discounts using:

A 30-day month: Prorated cycle charges and discounts are calculated based on a 30-day month, regardless of the number of days in the billing cycle. For example, if a bundle was owned for 6 days in a cycle, the prorated charge would be the cycle charge multiplied by 0.20 (6 ÷ 30).
The actual number of days in a billing cycle: Prorated cycle charges and discounts are calculated based on the actual number of days in a particular cycle, such as 28 days in February, 31 days in March, and 30 days in April. For example, if a bundle was owned for 6 days in March, the prorated charge would be the cycle charge multiplied by 0.19 (6 ÷ 31).
The system-wide proration setting: Prorated cycle charges and discounts are calculated according to the system-wide setting in your CM pin.conf file. See "Enabling 30-Day-Based Proration" in BRM Configuring and Running Billing.

You can configure proration at the offer level in your bundles by using the following:

The PDC UI. When customizing an offer in your bundle, use the Proration list. For more information, see "Customizing an Offer in a Bundle" in PDC Online Help.
The ImportExportPricing utility. In your XML file, set the <prorationBasedOn> element under <bundledProductOfferingItem>. For more information, see "Configuring Proration for Offers in Bundles".

About Add-On Charge Offers in Bundles

You can include add-on charge offers in your bundles. All charge offers in bundles are base charge offers by default, which means they can be purchased without any prerequisites. Add-on charge offers require customers to own a valid base charge offer.

When you create an add-on charge offer, you specify how to determine its validity start date. The add-on charge offer's validity start date is the end date of the charge offer that you specify. For example, assume charge offer A has a validity period from June 1 through June 15. If you specify to align add-on charge offer B's validity period with charge offer A, charge offer B's validity start date would be June 15.

You can specify that an add-on charge offer's validity dates align with:

The base charge offer that you specify
The active base charge offer that expires first
The active base charge offer that expires last
The active charge offer that expires first
The active charge offer that expires last

You configure an add-on charge offer in a bundle by using the following:

The PDC UI. When customizing a charge offer in a bundle, set the This is an add-on charge offer option. For more information, see "Customizing an Offer in a Bundle" in PDC Online Help.
The ImportExportPricing utility. In your XML file, set the <addOnOfferingValidityMode> element under <bundledProductOfferingItem>. For more information, see "Configuring Add-On Charge Offers In Bundles".

About Purchasing the Same Offer Multiple Times

You can specify what happens if customers purchase the same charge offer or discount offer more than once.

For both charge offers and discount offers, you can specify whether the additional offer is purchased as a new subscription or a replacement of the existing subscription:

Create a new subscription and keep the old one: The additional charge offer or discount offer is purchased as a new, unrelated subscription. The balance impacts and validity periods of the old and new subscriptions are completely independent. This is the default option.
Create a new subscription and cancel the old one: The additional charge offer or discount offer replaces the existing subscription. The existing subscription is canceled, any configured proration is applied, and the new subscription is created, with all balance impacts and validity periods set as though for a new purchase.

For example, on June 1st, a customer purchases an add-on bundle that grants 3GB of data and is valid for 7 days. On June 3rd, after using 1GB, they purchase the bundle again. The old charge offer is canceled, any remaining balance is prorated, and the new 3GB balance is created, with a validity end date of June 10th.

For both charge offers and discount offers, you can also specify whether the additional offer is purchased as an extension of the existing subscription if it is purchased during a specified grace period. The grace period can be any number of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. The default grace period is 0 days.

Extend the old subscription, setting validity to whichever is later, the new or existing validity: The additional charge offer is purchased as an extension to the existing subscription if it is purchased within the specified grace period. The new balance impacts are added to the existing balance group. The validity period for the balance is then set to either the old validity end date or the new validity end date, whichever is later.

For example, on June 1st, a customer purchases an add-on bundle that grants 3GB of data, is valid for 7 days, and has a grace period of 4 days. On June 3rd, after using 1GB, they purchase the bundle again. The new 3GB balance is added to the remaining balance, for a total of 5GB. BRM compares the validity periods of the old and new charge offer and sets the validity end date for the total balance to the later of the two end dates, June 10th.
Extend the old subscription, adding the new validity to the old validity: The additional charge offer is purchased as an extension to the existing subscription if it is purchased during the specified grace period. The new balance impacts are added to the existing balance group. The validity period for the balance is then set by adding the new validity period to whatever remains of the old validity period.

For example, on June 1st, a customer purchases an add-on bundle that grants 3GB of data, is valid for 7 days, and has a grace period of 4 days. On June 3rd, after using 1GB, they purchase the bundle again. The new 3GB balance is added to the remaining balance, for a total of 5GB. BRM adds the validity period of the new charge offer to the old charge offer, and sets the validity end date for the total balance to June 15th.

You configure how to handle multiple purchases of the same offer by using one of the following:

The PDC UI. To do so, when customizing the offers in your bundles, use the Behavior list and Grace Period fields. For more information, see "Customizing an Offer in a Bundle" in PDC Online Help.

Description of the illustration customize_offer.gif
The ImportExportPricing utility. To do so, set the <purchaseMode>, <gracePeriodOffset>, and <gracePeriodUnit> elements in your import XML file. For more information, see "Purchasing the Same Offer in a Bundle Multiple Times".

About Customizing Charges and Discounts in Bundles

In addition to adding discount offers to a bundle, you can reduce one-time and recurring charges in charge offers by specifying a flat percentage discount for each charge category in the bundle itself. For example, you can discount all recurring charges and one-time charges by 10%. You cannot use a bundle to apply discounts to usage charges.

When you discount a charge category in a bundle, the discount applies to all charge types that apply to that charge category. For example, you might have a charge offer that includes two recurring charges; Monthly Fee and Grant Minutes. If you specify a percentage discount for recurring charges in the bundle, the discount applies to both recurring charges. To discount only the Monthly Fee charge, you must make the balance impact for Monthly Fee discountable and the balance impact for Grant Minutes nondiscountable.

Unlike discount offers, discounts configured in bundles cannot be tracked in the general ledger because they are not associated with a general ledger (G/L) ID. In addition, unlike discount offers, bundle-configured discounts are difficult to display on a customer's bill because they are not separate items.

Note:

Because of the limitations associated with discounts configured in bundles, Oracle recommends that you use discount offers instead. See "Creating Discount Offers" for more information.

Creating Dependencies for Bundles

You can set up the following dependent relationships between bundles:

Prerequisite: Specifies that an account must own a particular bundle to be able to purchase another particular bundle. A prerequisite can include bundles for different services. For example, to own a GPRS bundle, an account might be required to own a GSM bundle.
Mutually Exclusive: Sets up a mutually exclusive relationship between two bundles so that if an account owns one of the bundles, it cannot own the other. For example, if you set up a mutually exclusive relationship between a Corporate Voice bundle and a Residential Voice bundle, customers who purchase one cannot purchase the other.

Transitioning between Bundles

You can configure rules for transitioning from one bundle to another. PDC supports the following types of transitions:

Upgrade to a bundle that is typically more expensive and has more features.
Downgrade to a bundle that is typically less expensive and has fewer features.

Transition rules enable you to limit the bundles that customers can transition to and remain fully provisioned. While transitioning from one bundle to another, your customers retain their devices, such as phone numbers, and their services.

Note:

Transitioning between bundles affects only the charge offers and discount offers related to the service to which the bundle applies; the service itself remains the same. To define a transition that adds a new service, you create a transition for a package. See "Transitioning between Packages" for more information.

For information about customizing bundle transitions, see "Customizing Bundle Transitions" in BRM Opcode Guide.

Prorating Charges During Bundle Transitions

You can also configure how PDC handles charges when customers transition bundles in the middle of their billing cycle. Charges can be applied from the original bundle, applied from the new bundle, or prorated for both bundles.

For example, assume a customer's billing day of month (DOM) is the 15th and on June 30 he transitions from Bundle A to Bundle B. If you configure PDC to:

Prorate the charges, the customer's July 15 bill would include charges for Bundle A prorated from June 15 through June 30, and charges for Bundle B prorated from July 1 through July 14. This is the default.
Apply the original bundle's charges, the customer's July 15 bill would include charges for Bundle A only.
Apply the new bundle's charges, the customer's July 15 bill would include charges for Bundle B only.

You configure how to prorate charges during bundle transitions by using the following:

The PDC UI. For information, see "Defining Transition Rules for Bundles" in PDC Online Help.
The ImportExportPricing utility. In your input XML file, set the <prorationType> element under the <bundleTransition> element to one of the following:
- PRORATE_CHARGE: Specifies to prorate charges for both bundles. This is the default.
- ORIGINAL_CHARGE: Specifies to apply the full charges from the original bundle.
- TRANSFER_CHARGE: Specifies to apply the full charges from the new bundle.
For information, see "Transitioning Bundles".