Parameters provide a flexible way of changing pricing options without having to create
new price components or revisions of price components.
You first create definitions for parameters in My MATRIXX. You can then add parameters with those definitions to catalog items, offers, bundles, or price components. You must specify the default value for the
parameter when you add it to a pricing item. Your catalog items can be purchased
with the parameter default values, or you can assign new values to those parameters
at purchase time using the PurchaseOffer SubMan API or after purchase time using the
ModifyOffer SubMan API. You use these parameters values to affect rating formulas,
such as in the scale coefficient (slope), constant (intercept), or unit factor
(multiplier).
For example, you could create a purchase discount pricing component configured to accept a
DiscountPercentage parameter that it uses to calculate the percentage discount for a
purchase. The offer that uses this discount component can have a DiscountPercentage
parameter that it passes to the discount pricing component to be used as the
DiscountPercentage. A 10% discount catalog item configured for this offer could pass
a constant of .10 to the offer, which then passes it to the discount component,
which results in a 10% discount. A second catalog item, Special Discount, can be
configured that accepts a higher DiscountSpecial parameter that it passes to the
offer. At purchase time the discount percentage can be set to any valid value
without changing the underlying pricing.
Note: Parameters are unusual in My MATRIXX in that they require you to enter a decimal number for percentages. For
example, for a 10% discount enter .10, and for a 20% discount,
enter .20.
To show how catalog item parameters and parameters from other pricing objects interact, assume
a catalog item has two parameters: DiscountPercentage and ChargeAmount. Assume that
a bundle template used by the catalog item has three parameters: DiscountPercentage,
ChargeAmount, and GrantAmount. The catalog item could define parameter binding for
the bundle template like this:
- Bundle.DiscountPercentage = CatalogItem.DiscountPercentage
- Bundle.ChargeAmount = CatalogItem.ChargeAmount
- Bundle.GrantAmount = 500.00
Note: The two parameters specified in a binding rule must have the same data
type. So in this example, Bundle.DiscountPercentage and
CatalogItem.DiscountPercentage must have the same data type, and
Bundle.ChargeAmount and CatalogItem.ChargeAmount must have the same data
type.
For information about using the SubMan APIs to change parameter values, see the discussion
about catalog item management in MATRIXX Subscriber Management API.
