Usage-Triggered Asset Renewal

Usage-triggered asset renewal (auto-renewal) grants assets in real-time during usage when rating would normally fail due to insufficient balance quantities or expired balances.

For example, if a subscriber is currently in an ongoing data session and a usage charge cannot be applied because all asset balances are empty, instead of ending the data session and redirecting the subscriber to a top-up portal, a product offer with auto-renew components can be selected to provide an additional N MB of data for X dollars good for Z days.

When usage-triggered asset renewal is triggered, product offers with auto-renew price components are evaluated and processing is performed to determine if the auto-renew price components can be applied to allow rating to continue. If they can be applied, they are and rating continues. If they cannot be applied, the product offer is skipped and the next product offer is evaluated. If a charge cannot be applied in any of the non-supplemental product offers, or if any supplemental offer fails, the configured charging method is applied (such as a denial of usage). When auto-renewal is successful (an auto-renew component is applied and charging succeeds), the Charging Server generates an auto-renew event (MtxAutoRenewEvent) with the highest-priority auto-renewal offer that allows charges to be applied and an auto-renew charge notification (MtxAutoRenewChargeNotification).

For group-owned product offers, subscriber-triggered usage auto-renews balances at the group level.

Note: Because auto-renew is applied to usage charges only, it is specific to the service type of the offer. For example, a data usage event will not trigger the auto-renew components in a voice offer.

Auto-renewal Processing

Auto-renewal processing occurs in the following order:

During rating, for each event segment, product offers (non-supplemental and supplemental) are evaluated in order of priority (highest priority offer first). For each offer, usage charges for the current offer are evaluated. For information about event segments, see the discussion about event segmentation during rating.
If a charge cannot be applied and the current offer has auto-renew components, auto-renewal processing is triggered.
Auto-renew components are applied to the current offer and processing re-evaluates all offers of a higher priority. An offer that includes auto-renew components will try to satisfy charges from offers at or above the current offer's priority.
Note: When a product offer with auto-renew components is selected, charges from lower-priority offers (supplemental or non-supplemental) which share a balance with the product offer with auto-renew components, might be satisfied.
If a higher priority offer shares a balance with the offer to which auto-renew was applied, and charges can now be applied to that higher priority offer, that offer is selected and rating continues.
Note: Only one non-supplemental product offer with applicable auto-renew components is selected per segment.
If no other higher priority offer can be selected, and charges can be applied to the offer with auto-renew components, it is selected.
Important: No supplemental offers can fail. If one supplemental offer fails, rating fails and the configured charging method is applied (such as a denial of usage). A supplemental offer can be skipped, but if any supplemental offer fails (for example, if there is a $5.00 charge, but the subscriber does not have $5.00), auto-renew fails.
If charges cannot be applied after auto-renew components are applied, any changes to balances caused by the auto-renew components are reversed and processing continues with any offers with a lower priority than the current offer.
Note: If an auto-renew component cannot be applied (for example, if there is a $5.00 charge, but the subscriber does not have $5.00), all previously applied auto-renew components are reversed, including any balance state update components.
Processing continues until an offer can satisfy the charges in one non-supplemental offer and no supplemental offers fail or until rating fails. Auto-renew processing be triggered again.

If a supplemental offer is not assigned a priority in My MATRIXX, it is automatically assigned the lowest priority value (-2147483648). If two non-supplemental or two supplemental offers have the same priority, one offer is arbitrarily assigned a higher priority. MATRIXX Support recommends that two offers do not share the same priority. If a non-supplemental offer and a supplemental offer have the same priority, the non-supplemental offer is processed first and then the supplemental offer is processed.

During quota authorization, auto-renewal might be performed provisionally and used to reserve quota. If an auto-renew balance quantity is already reserved completely at the start of the segment (for example, by other sessions sharing the balance), additional reservations cannot be made against it. For more information about balance reservations, see the related topic about balance reservations and session management.

During auto-renewal, components are applied in the following order:

Balance state update (extends the balance end time).
Auto-renew charge.
Auto-renew discount.
Auto-renew grant.

Note: A failed recurring or first-usage charge might cause a usage charge to fail.

For more information about balance state update components, see the discussion about balance state update components.

Consider the following examples.

Example 1

In the simplest scenario, a subscriber owns one non-supplemental offer which includes auto-renew components. During a session, a charge fails and processing determines that the auto-renew price components can be applied successfully. Auto-renew price components are applied, charges are satisfied and rating continues. If there were also supplemental offers, each supplemental offer would have to apply zero or more charges with no failures for auto-renewal to succeed and rating to continue. MtxAutoRenewEvent and MtxAutoRenewChargeNotification are generated.

Example 2

In this scenario, a subscriber owns two non-supplemental product offers (N1 and N3) and three supplemental product offers (S2, S4, and S5). The highest priority offer is N1 and the lowest priority offer is S5.

5 — N1
4 — S2
3 — N3
2 — S4
1 — S5

Offer N3 includes auto-renew price components. Rating processes each of these offers in order and determines that offer N1 has charges which failed. Auto-renew processing is triggered and determines that auto-renew components in offer N3 will allow charges to be applied to offer N1. Finally, processing determines that supplemental offers S2, S4, and S5 will not fail. Auto-renewal is successfully applied and rating continues. MtxAutoRenewEvent and MtxAutoRenewChargeNotification are generated.

Example 3

In this scenario, the subscriber owns the same offers as in Example 2—two non-supplemental product offers (N1 and N3) and three supplemental product offers (S2, S4, and S5). The highest priority offer is N1 and the lowest priority offer is S5:

Offer S4 includes auto-renew components. Rating processes each of these offers in order and determines that supplemental offers S2 and S4 have charges that failed. Auto-renew processing is triggered and determines that auto-renew components in supplemental offer S4 will allow charges to be applied to offers S2 and S4. Finally, processing determines that S5 will not fail. Auto-renewal is successfully applied and rating continues. MtxAutoRenewEvent and MtxAutoRenewChargeNotification are generated.

Configuring Auto-renewal

Auto-renew price components (charges, discounts, and grants) can be included in subscription product offers owned by devices, subscribers, and groups, but not in global product offers. Auto-renew price components can be added as override components to a product offer in a bundle. For more information about override components, see the discussion about bundle components.

For more information about auto-renew price components, see My MATRIXX Help.

Product Offer Priority Reordering

In some situations during auto-renew, product offer priorities might change. For example, assume product offer N1 has a balance B1 and product offer N2 has a balance B2. If the product offers are prioritized by the expiration dates of their primary balances (B1 and B2), N1 might originally have priority over N2 because B1 expires before B2. However, when B1 expires, N2 has priority over N1. When B1 and B2 are both expired, the offers are prioritized without regard to their balance expirations.

Because product offer priorities can change dynamically based on their balance expirations, pricing administrators should use caution when using balance expiration to prioritize auto-renewal. For information about balance selection, see the related topic about balance selection during rating.