Understanding Eligibility Rules
A catalog is a collection of catalog items. A catalog is a set of requires and excludes eligibility rules evaluated against the catalog items.
Pricing planners configure eligibility requirements and exclusions in My MATRIXX to specify which subscribers, groups, and devices are eligible to purchase certain catalog items. After eligibility rules are defined, they are loaded into MATRIXX Engine as part of pricing, and evaluated during query, purchase, and cancelation. During an offer purchase, requirement and exclusion criteria are evaluated, ensuring that rules defined in the offer or bundle, and components included in the offers, are evaluated against the subscriber, group, or device attributes defined in the eligibility rules. All eligibility requirements must be met, or the catalog item purchase is rejected. A catalog item can be standalone or belong to one or more catalogs.
When you create an eligibility rule in My MATRIXX, you specify the object type and select whether the rule applies to an attribute or an eligibility feature.
Defining Eligibility Rules Using Attributes
An attribute is based on an MDC and is used for eligibility verification. An attribute must be a simple field in the entity being evaluated or in its extension object. To define a rule using an attribute, you select the MDC container, select an MDC attribute name, and enter an alphanumeric attribute value for the rule.
Defining Eligibility Rules Using Eligibility Features
An eligibility feature is a property a catalog item provides for use in eligibility rule evaluation, and is defined as an integer, decimal, or string value. To define a rule using a feature, you select from the defined eligibility features and enter the associated value. For eligibility features, a catalog item provides a feature, and another catalog item requires or excludes a feature. When evaluating an eligibility rule that uses features, features provided by the purchased items in the purchased item array are checked. Purchased items with an Inactive status are excluded.
Evaluating Rules During Offer Purchase
During an offer purchase, eligibility requirement and exclusion criteria are evaluated ensuring that rules defined in the offer or bundle, and components included in the offers, are evaluated against the subscriber, group, or device attributes defined in the eligibility rules.
All eligibility requirements must be met, or the catalog item purchase is rejected.
Enforcing Eligibility Rules
Eligibility rules are enforced during catalog item purchases, cancelations, and queries. If a catalog item does not pass the eligibility check, the catalog item purchase fails. Eligibility rule dependencies determine which catalog items are excluded based on items owned or being purchased.
An eligibility rule is a rule on an attribute or a feature. Rules in the Requires Rules list on a catalog item are evaluated using the AND condition, and rules in the Excludes Rules list on a catalog item are evaluated using the OR condition. Only rules that apply to the object type of the SubMan API request—subscription, group, or device—are evaluated.
For an example of enforcing eligibility rules, see the discussion about eligibility rules for catalog items.
Querying Catalogs Based on Eligibility
You can query catalogs based on eligibility using the SubMan APIs. Eligibility rules are evaluated and enforced during catalog queries. All require and exclude rules must pass for a catalog item to be included in the query response. For information about querying detailed information about a specific catalog, including a list of catalog items that satisfy the eligibility rules for the catalog, see the discussions about the eligibility rules API, catalog REST APIs, and catalog APIs in MATRIXX Subscriber Management API. For information about configuring eligibility rules, see the discussion about eligibility in My MATRIXX Help.