1. Administering Pricing
  2. Manage Price Lists That Have Rate Plans

Manage Price Lists That Have Rate Plans

Set up a rate plan in a price list so you can create and manage charges for each of the subscriptions that you have in Oracle Subscription Management.

Set up usage charges for your rate plans so you can bill your customers according to usage.

A usage charge is the rate that you pay according to how much you consume. The price that you pay for a subscription or coverage often has fixed charges and variable charges. For example, a service plan for home internet might charge you a one time $150 installation fee and a $100 monthly subscription fee.

You multiply the usage charge with the actual usage to determine the billable amount. For example, if a subscription has a $100 monthly usage charge, then the yearly rate is $100 multiplied by 12 months, or $1,200.

The charge might also be variable. For example, you might charge $1.00 for each minute of cell phone usage for zero to 300 minutes of usage during the month, and $0.50 for each minute over 300.

Other examples include utilities, phone charges, home maintenance, and so on. In some cases, you have to pay the monthly fee whether you use the service or not, or you might have to pay the same fee even though you use the service only 1 hour a week while your neighbor uses that same service 40 hours a week.

You can set up Oracle Pricing to price according to a usage charge, and that charge can vary depending on how much you use the subscription or service. To do this, you set up a rate plan, which is a collection of one time, recurring, and usage charges for a subscription.

The rate plan includes:

  • Rate plan details, such as the name, description, and so on.
  • A calculated price that includes the charge and charge components for each one time and each recurring charge.

You can:

  • Associate your rate plan with a subscription item on the price list.
  • Price a subscription according to a default rate plan.
  • Apply tier adjustments or attribute adjustments.
  • Create, update, or delete charges that are recurring or that happen one time in your rate plan.
  • Assign as many rate plans as you need to the subscription item in the price list.

Pricing returns the usage charges that you use with the rate plan when it prices the subscription but it doesn't return any charge components. This behavior is different from calculating a one time charge or recurring charge because Pricing also returns the charge components for one time and recurring charges.

For more about rate plans, see Use Rate Plans with Your Subscriptions.

Try It

Assume you need to set up a rate plan for a telephone subscription. You change the rate according to how many minutes your customer uses.

  1. Make sure you have these privileges:
    • Manage Price Lists (QP_MANAGE_PRICE_LISTS)
    • Manage In-Progress Price Lists (QP_MANAGE_IN_PROGRESS_PRICE_LISTS)
    • View Price Lists(QP_VIEW_PRICE_LISTS)
    • Approve Price Lists (QP_APPROVE_PRICE_LISTS)
  2. Enable the features:
    • Go to the Setup and Maintenance work area, select the Sales offering, then click Change Feature Opt In.
    • Click the pencil in the row that has Subscriptions in the Name column.
    • Enable these features:
      • Rate Usage with Events
      • Integrate Order Management with Subscription Management to Process Subscriptions
  3. Go to the task.
    • Offering: Order Management
    • Functional Area: Pricing
    • Task: Manage Pricing Charge Definitions
  4. Define the usage charge.
    Attribute Value
    Code CALL_CHARGE
    Name Call Charge
    Applies To Price
    Price Type

    Usage

    You must use this value.
    Charge Type Call
    Charge Subtype Price
    Usage UOM Class

    Time

    Specify how you will measure usage. In this example, usage is according to minutes, so you use the Time class.

    A class contains a set of values. You use this attribute to specify the set of values that you want to allow for the usage.

    For details, see Manage Pricing Charge Definitions.

  5. Create the rate plan and specify the usage charges for your subscription. For details, see the Manage Rate Plans for Subscriptions section later in this topic.
  6. View your charges.
    • Go to the Subscription Management work area, then search for your subscription number, such as CDRM_19012.
    • On the Subscription Number page, in the Products area, use the Pricing tab in the subscription product to view details that describe the rate plan.
    • Examine details about the usage charge, pricing matrix, tired adjustments, and attribute adjustments.
    • In the List Price column, click View Usage Charge, then examine the charges.

For a detailed walk through with screen prints, go to Technical Reference for Oracle Pricing (Doc ID 2248583.1), then download the Set Up Pricing for Rate Plans attachment.

Manage Rate Plans for Subscriptions

Create and update the rate plan that you use for each subscription item. You can create and update the rate plan's one time charges, recurring charges, and usage charges.

Assume you need to manage a rate plan for the My Subscription item on the Corporate Segment Price List.

  1. Go to the Pricing Administration work area, then click Tasks > Manage Price Lists.
  2. Search for and open Corporate Segment Price List for editing.
  3. On the Edit Price List page, search for the My Subscription item.
  4. In the search results, click Manage Rate Plans.
  5. On the Rate Plans page, click Create Rate Plan.
  6. In the dialog, enter the value, then click Create.
    Attribute Value
    Name Rate Plan for My Subscription

    Note that you can use this rate plan only with a subscription that you manage in the Order Management work area. You can't use it with a subscription that you import.

  7. Specify one-time charges, recurring charges, usage charges, and so on.

    Click here for a handy demonstration that walks you through the set up. It starts at 01:50 in the presentation.

Specify Usage Charges According to Attribute Values

You can use the Pricing Administration work area to set up a rule on a rate plan that uses your customer's attributes, the subscription's attributes, or the sales order's attributes to determine the base price for the subscription's usage charge.

  • Specify a wide range of attributes from more than one source to determine the base price on your rate plan.
  • Specify these attributes when you can't use only the usage quantity to determine the base price.

Click here for a demonstration. It starts at 2:30 in the presentation.

You can also use the Manage Price Lists REST API to import these details instead of using the Pricing Administration work area. For example payloads, go to Technical Reference for Order Management (Doc ID 2051639.1), then download the Integrate Subscriptions attachment.

Guidelines

  • You must already have a rate plan to add a usage charge to your subscription.

  • The charge period determines how often Pricing and Subscription Management add up the usages for each usage charge. You must specify a time UOM, such as Day, when you set the UOM attribute for the charge period. Pricing uses the UOM class that you set for the RCS_DEFAULT_UOM_CLASS_CODE_FOR_SVC_DURATION profile option to validate the charge period that you set. For details about this profile option, see Integrate Order Management with Subscription Management.
  • For details about the attributes that you can use for a rate plan's charge, including the charge period's UOM, go to REST API for Oracle Supply Chain Management Cloud, then expand Order Management > Price Lists > Price List Items > Rate Plans > Rate Plan Charges.

Different Ways That You Can Apply Usage Charges

  • Apply a simple usage charge.
  • Create a condition in a rate table that specifies the usage charge.
  • Apply an attribute adjustment to the usage charge.
  • Apply a tiered adjustment to the usage charge. You must use the Rate Plans REST API to apply a tiered adjustment.

Pricing Administration Work Area

Note these guidelines when you use the Pricing Administration work area to specify your usage charge.

  • To use the Manage Rate Plans button, you must first add your subscription to the price list, then click Save.
  • If you change the value in the Calculation Method attribute from Price to Pricing Matrix for an existing usage charge, and if you don’t click Add Columns and add at least one column, then Pricing Administration will display only the required columns. You won't see any optional columns.
  • The dates that you see for the rate plan's charges come from the rate plan. However, if you use the Pricing Administration work area to create the charges, then the end date for each charge will be empty. Note that the start date and end dates aren't visible on the rate plan's charge.
  • You can use the Rate Plan page in Pricing Administration to add up to 500 rows to your pricing matrix. Each row represents one rule. If you need more than 500, then you must import them through REST API.
  • The Rate Plan page doesn't display a column's default value even if the matrix class specifies a default value. Instead, you must manually enter the value. For background, see Pricing Matrix Class.

Import

You can import:

  • One time and recurring charges
  • Charge rules that apply usage charges according to how much you consume
  • Manual price adjustments, including periodic adjustments

If you price a subscription before you import it, then your import usually includes the calculated price and the usage charges. The calculated price usually includes one time charges, recurring charges, adjustments, and discounts. The usage charge includes the charges that you will bill according to the actual amount that your customer consumes. Oracle Pricing uses a rate plan to capture these pricing details when you import.

For more about import, see Use Rate Plans with Your Subscriptions.