Announcement Variable Properties

An announcement variable defines the source for a variable value that you want to use in announcements. You can specify to use either an MDC field, or a balance value.

Announcement Variable Properties describes general properties of all announcement variables.
Table 1. Announcement Variable Properties
Property Description
Name A unique name for the announcement variable.
Description Information about the purpose of the variable.
External ID An optional field that can be set on MATRIXX pricing objects.
Variable Type The type to use for this variable. For field variables, select one of:
  • Integer
  • Number
  • Time
  • Date
  • Price
For balance variables, select one of:
  • Integer
  • Price
Field Announcement Variable Properties describes the properties you can configure for MDC field announcement variables.
Table 2. Field Announcement Variable Properties
Property Description
Container The name of the source MDC to which the source MDC field belongs.
Field The name of the source MDC field. Fields containing an array might not be used.
Note: For menu announcements, variable values are generated through configuration. This configuration is set in the menu FTL files and stored in the ServiceInfo.VcsInfo.MenuVariableDataList field in the MtxDiamRoMsg MDC or a descendant of the MDC. When configuring menu announcement variables in My MATRIXX, you must specify this field, and the sequence index value for the required variable. Because an announcement can have up to five variables, the sequence index value must be in the range 1 to 5.
Sequence Index Enabled only for list field variables. An integer that identifies which entry in the list to use. If the specified entry is out of bounds for the list, a warning is logged and the network message is processed without the announcement being played.
Balance Announcement Variable Properties describes the properties you can configure for balance announcement variables.
Table 3. Balance Announcement Variable Properties
Property Description
Balance Type The type of balance to use, one of:
  • Balance Amount — The current balance. Use for balances where credit amounts are stored as positive values, such as post-paid balance amounts.
  • Balance Amount Negated — Negates the current balance. Use for balances where credit amounts are stored as negative values, such as pre-paid balance amounts, to return the balance as a positive value.
    Note: Because the balance value returned in announcements is always a positive value or zero, if you erroneously select a negated amount for a post-paid balance amount, or a non-negated amount for a pre-paid balance amount, the value returned is zero even if the reported balance is in credit.
  • Available Amount — The remaining credit available for the balance (based on the sum of all the balances, such as group balances, that can feed in to the balance).
  • Available Amount Negated — Allows a negative available amount to be reported as a positive value in an announcement.
Note: When Balance Amount or Balance Amount Negated is selected, the system performs a simple lookup to retrieve the balance value. Because the Available Amount is likely to be based on more than one source, calculating the Available Amount or Negated Available Amount is more complex, and this might mean that performance is impacted. Therefore, usually, the Balance Amount/Negated must be used for reporting the balance value in announcements.
Balance Class The balance class to use. The combined value of all valid balance instances of that balance class is used (all balance amounts are summed).
Balance Template (Optional) The balance template to use (defines attributes of the balance, such as whether the balance is prepaid).