Balance and Meter Notifications

Configure notifications to be triggered when balances and meters are created and expire, when they reach a threshold amount and credit limit, and when a recurring processing failure occurs. The threshold settings are not mutually exclusive — any combination of notifications can be specified for any balance or meter template.

Notifications are sent to the contact specified for the subscriber, group, or device that triggered the notification. If the notification is triggered by a group member, the notification is sent to the administrator(s) or group member associated with the group as determined by the group setting. Balance threshold notifications are sent to the administrator(s) or group member associated with the group as determined by the GroupNotificationPreference setting in the balance threshold. The contact information associated with a subscriber or group includes the contact's first and last name, email address, phone number, language preference, and the notification format—email or SMS.

Composite meter notifications are comprised of the component and composite values, including the field name and value pairs, and the aggregation selector name and value pairs that define the aggregation grouping.

Creation Notifications

Creation notifications trigger when a balance or meter instance is created in a subscriber or group wallet. If the instance is periodic, a notification is triggered when the instance is created and when each individual entry in the instance is created.

Note: Setting creation notifications on periodic balance entries can impact system performance.

Expiration Notifications

Notification profiles can be assigned to balances and meters to define how notifications are sent when a balance or meter instance expires. Notification profiles can be configured to send a notification on expiration and multiple notifications (hours, days, weeks, months, or years) before and after expiration. If the instance is periodic, a notification is triggered when the instance expires and when each individual entry in the instance expires.

Balance expiry notifications are calculated and sent at the time of maintenance operations.

In addition to notifying on a specific balance expiration, notifications can also be sent when the last balance of a specific balance template or a balance class expires. Notifications at the balance class or balance (template) level can be enabled by turning on a flag and associating a notification profile. When the balance class level notification is enabled, the notification profile associated with the balance class is used to determine when the notification must be sent. The end time of all balances in all the templates in the class are considered to get the last expiring balance. If a balance is valid forever, then it is not considered in the calculations. A notification processed count at the class level keeps track of the notifications sent for the last expiring balance of a class. Similarly, when the balance template level notification is enabled, the notification profile at the template level is used for determining when the notification must be sent, and the latest end time is calculated from all balances in that template.

Notifications can be enabled both at the balance class level and at the balance template level at the same time. In such cases, multiple notifications are sent (notifications for the last expiring balance for the class and for the last expiring balance for the template).

For more information about creating notification profiles, see the discussion about creating notification profiles in My MATRIXX Help.

Note: Setting expiration notifications on periodic balance entries can impact system performance.

Recurring Processing Failure Notifications

Configure balance templates, billing profile templates, and product offer cycle data in My MATRIXX to reference a notification profile that defines when notifications are sent after recurring processing fails (the failure to apply recurring charges). Notifications include the following information:
  • If the failure was for a balance cycle, billing cycle, or purchased item cycle.
  • If the failure was for a balance cycle, the balance template ID, and the balance resource ID.
  • The OID and external ID of the purchased item owner.
  • If the failure was for a purchased item cycle, the resource ID of the purchased item, the catalog item ID of the purchased item, and the external ID of the catalog item.
  • The start time and end time of the cycle period for which recurring processing failed.
  • An estimate of recurring charges and grants (advice of charge) for the cycle.
    Note: This information can be used to determine the amount of a balance recharge or payment. Credit limits of currency balances are ignored, and balances are not updated in the database. If recurring processing fails due to insufficient funds in a pseudo-currency balance or an asset balance, no estimate is provided. The advice of charge information is included in the MtxNotification balance impact fields.
Note: If a purchased item is in a recoverable state when recurring processing fails, a recurring failure notification and event are not generated.

Each recurring processing failure notification profile can be configured to send a notification upon a failure and multiple notifications (minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years) relative to the time of the initial recurring failure for the period in which the failure occurs. If the balance instance is periodic, a balance expiration notification is triggered when the instance expires and when each individual entry in the instance expires.

If a recurring failure notification profile is defined on an event and the offer fails, a recurring failure notification is sent for the initial recurring failure. If you do not define the profile to send multiple notifications, later recurring failures within the same cycle do not generate a notification.
Note: Recurring processing failure notifications stop when recurring processing is successful. If recurring processing succeeds (for example, due to a product offer purchase) after a failure and before the time to generate the notification, the notification is not generated. For example, if the recurring failure event is set to be five minutes after the event, and recurring processing succeeds before the notification is scheduled to be sent, no failure notification is sent.

For more information about configuring balance templates, billing profile templates, and notification profiles, see My MATRIXX Help.

Credit Limit and Threshold Notifications

Credit limit notifications trigger when the credit limit value is reached. Threshold notifications trigger at a specified amount or percentage below the credit limit. Balance-floor threshold notifications trigger when the maximum allowable available amount is reached. Define a system credit limit and threshold value in the balance template. If a threshold is not locked, CSRs and subscribers can set personal thresholds that are less than the balance threshold but cannot change a credit limit. Thresholds can be configured to trigger when the balance or meter amount increases to the threshold amount or decreases to the threshold amount. If notifications are enabled, they are sent when the threshold triggers and when the credit limit is reached. Notifications apply to the gross balance amount.

If Report Highest Threshold Breaches Only is selected on a balance or meter template, only the highest threshold breach is reported in events and notifications.

The engine reports the highest threshold breach on a per-message basis. Therefore, a SubMan multi-request (MtxRequestMulti) might still evoke multiple recorded breaches, but only the highest for each individual component request is reported.

If multiple thresholds are triggered by the same message on the same balance amount, the last processed threshold is the one reported.

For example, if a prepaid balance of -100 units has the following thresholds:
  • A fixed threshold at -50
  • A percentage threshold at 50%
Then usage of 50 units triggers both thresholds, but only the last one processed is reported.

For more information, see the discussions about configuring balance template general properties and configuring meter template general properties in My MATRIXX Help.

When an MtxBalanceNotification, for example, an MtxBalanceThresholdNotification, is returned on a purchased item containing a private balance, the notification also includes MtxPurchasedOfferInfo. For more information, see the discussions about MtxBalanceNotification and MtxPurchasedOfferInfo in MATRIXX Integration.

For composite meters, the credit limit and threshold notifications apply to the composite value, not to the component values.

For more information about setting up credit limits and thresholds, see the discussion about thresholds and credit limits.

For a complete list of possible notifications, see the notification overview in MATRIXX Configuration.