2 Configuring BRM to Rerate Events

Learn how to configure Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) to enable rerating.

Topics in this document:

• About Setting Up Rerating

• Configuring BRM to Rerate Events through ECE

• Configuring Rerating Adjustment Events

• Configuring How to Allocate Rerating Results

• Enabling Deferred Tax Calculation During Rerating

About Setting Up Rerating

To set up BRM and ECE to rerate events:

1. Configure BRM to rerate events through ECE. See "Configuring BRM to Rerate Events through ECE".

2. (Optional) Customize how BRM determines whether rerating created different billing results. See "Configuring Rerating Adjustment Events".

3. (Optional) Configure BRM to allocate adjustment items to their original bill during rerating. See "Configuring How to Allocate Rerating Results".

4. (Optional) Configure BRM to apply deferred taxes during the rerating process. See "Enabling Deferred Tax Calculation During Rerating".

Configuring BRM to Rerate Events through ECE

To configure BRM to rerate events through ECE:

1. Open the CM configuration file (BRM_home/sys/cm/pin.conf) in a text editor.

2. Ensure this entry is in the file:

   - cm fm_module BRM_home/lib/fm_rerate.so fm_rerate_config - pin 

3. Set the em_group entry to PCM_OP_RATE_ECE_EVENT:

   - cm em_group rerating PCM_OP_RATE_ECE_EVENT

4. Edit the em_pointer entry to match your ECE EM Gateway configuration:

   - cm em_pointer rerating ip em_gateway_host em_gateway_port

   where:

   • em_gateway_host is the IP address of the machine on which the ECE EM Gateway resides.

   • em_gateway_port is the port of the machine on which the ECE EM Gateway resides.

5. Save and close the file.

6. Stop and restart the CM.

Configuring Rerating Adjustment Events

When you rerate usage events, BRM creates an adjustment event to apply the balance impacts of rerating. The adjustment's balance impact is the difference between the previous rating results and the rerated results.

When the results are the same, BRM does not create an adjustment event. However, even when the results are the same, there might be differences in the rating and rerating results in some of the individual balance impacts contributing to the total charge. Therefore, before it can determine that rerating resulted in no overall change in the balance impact, BRM must ensure that the balance impacts in each rating process are equivalent.

To determine whether the balance impacts of rerating and the previous rating are equivalent, BRM checks a list of values in all balance impacts. For example, BRM determines whether the same charge offer was used for all balance impacts. If the balance impact fields have the same values in the event for both rerating and the previous rating, and the total rerating adjustment is zero, the results of rerating and the previous rating are considered equivalent and no adjustment event is created.

BRM uses the values in the following fields to check the rerating and previous rating results, but you can configure BRM to use additional fields:

• The ID of the impacted balance element

• The ID of the impacted balance group

• The G/L ID

• The tax code

• The charge offer used to rate the event

To configure BRM to use additional fields, modify the pin_rerate_compare_bi.xml file and then run the load_pin_rerate_flds utility to load the contents of the file into the /config/rerate_flds/compare_bi object in the BRM database.

Note:

The load_pin_rerate_flds utility overwrites existing balance-impact comparison fields. If you are updating balance-impact comparison fields, you cannot load new fields only. You must load complete sets of the balance-impact comparison fields when you run the utility. See "load_pin_rerate_flds" for more information.

To customize the fields used to compare the event balance impacts of rerating with the previous rating:

1. Open the BRM_home/sys/data/config/pin_rerate_compare_bi.xml file in a text editor.

2. Add a RerateCompareBalImpacts element for each event balance impact field. The following balance impact fields are mandatory:

   • PIN_FLD_RESOURCE_ID

   • PIN_FLD_BAL_GRP_OBJ

   • PIN_FLD_GL_ID

   • PIN_FLD_TAX_CODE

     Note:

     PIN_FLD_PRODUCT_OBJ is specified in the pin_rerate_compare_bi.xml file by default but is an optional field.

   You can specify any additional field from the /event object's PIN_FLD_BAL_IMPACTS array.

3. Save and close the file.

4. Load the contents of the XML file into the /config/rerate_flds/compare_bi object:

   load_pin_rerate_flds BRM_home/sys/data/config/pin_rerate_compare_bi.xml

   For more information, see "load_pin_rerate_flds".

5. Stop and restart the CM.

6. Verify that the balance-impact comparison fields were loaded by displaying the /config/rerate_flds/compare_bi object by using Object Browser, or by using the robj command with the testnap utility.

Configuring How to Allocate Rerating Results

By default, BRM creates unallocated items for any adjustment items created due to rerating. You can configure BRM to instead allocate adjustment items to their original bill.

• For open item accounting, the adjustment items are allocated to each bill that included events rerated and resulted in adjustments.

• For balance forward accounting, adjustment items are allocated to the last bill only.

If BRM has rerated a /bill object without allocating automatic adjustments (from the rerating) to the original bills, the corrective bill for that /bill object does not include the item adjustments generated by that rerating. If you enable the AllocateReratingAdjustments business parameter and rerun the rerating process for the bill, BRM does not allocate the adjustments. You must manually allocate the rerated items before you generate the corrective bill for such a /bill object.

To allocate adjustment items to their original bill during rerating:

1. Go to the BRM_home/sys/data/config directory.

2. Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params -r BusParamsRerate bus_params_rerate.xml

   This command creates an XML file named bus_params_rerate.xml.out in your working directory.

3. Open the bus_params_rerate.xml.out file.

4. Set the AllocateReratingAdjustments parameter to enabled:

   <AllocateReratingAdjustments>enabled</AllocateReratingAdjustments>

5. Save and rename the file as bus_params_rerate.xml.

6. Load the XML file into the BRM database:

   pin_bus_params bus_params_rerate.xml

7. Stop and restart the CM.

Enabling Deferred Tax Calculation During Rerating

By default, BRM calculates taxes on any deferred taxable amount in rerated events during the subsequent bill run, resulting in rerated taxes appearing on the next invoice.

You can configure BRM to apply deferred taxes during the rerating process instead, allowing deferred tax amounts to appear on corrected invoices.

To enable the calculation of deferred taxes during rerating:

1. Go to the BRM_home/sys/data/config directory.

2. Create an XML file from the /config/business_params object:

   pin_bus_params -r BusParamsRerate bus_params_rerate.xml

   This command creates an XML file named bus_params_rerate.xml.out in your working directory.

3. Open the bus_params_rerate.xml.out file.

4. Set the ApplyDeferredTaxDuringRerating parameter to enabled:

   <ApplyDeferredTaxDuringRerating>enabled</ApplyDeferredTaxDuringRerating>

5. Save and rename the file as bus_params_rerate.xml.

6. Load the XML file into the BRM database:

   pin_bus_params bus_params_rerate.xml

7. Stop and restart the CM.