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MATRIXX Pricing and Rating
Pricing
Pricing Plans
Pricing plans define the pricing and policies that allow you to control how you provide services to subscribers and how you are paid for those services. Pricing plans are comprised of catalog items, offers, bundles, and supporting objects required to implement pricing.
Bundles
Bundles group one or more product offers together so they can be purchased as a unit. You can also create bundle-specific charges, grants, and discounts that override or supplement the existing price components defined in individual product offers.
Adding Catalog Item Template Fields
You can add more catalog item template fields to default product offers and bundles by creating new custom MATRIXX Data Containers (MDCs). Some default offer and bundle templates include useful example fields, but you should extend that list. Your new custom MDCs extend a base MDC with the template fields that your MATRIXX implementation requires. Pricing Users then decide on a per-offer or per-bundle basis whether to make the new fields available to Catalog Users to configure for catalog items. Only simple data types are allowed.

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MATRIXX Pricing and Rating
- About Pricing and Rating
  MATRIXX Pricing and Rating provides an introduction to MATRIXX pricing and rating functionality and describes how to define the catalog components necessary for rating and policy selection. It also provides an overview of the MATRIXX rating process and an introduction to My MATRIXX, a web-based user interface application you use to create and manage product catalogs.
- Rating
  The following information describes MATRIXX Charging Application rating functionality.
- Pricing
  - Pricing Overview
    The MATRIXX pricing model is highly flexible and enables you to create innovative service offerings and tailor pricing to subscriber needs. It is compatible with the TM Forum (TMF) Shared Information/Data (SID) model.
  - Pricing Data
    The MATRIXX Engine pricing data model is compatible with the Shared Information/Data (SID) standard, as defined by the TM Forum (TMF).
  - Pricing Corrections and Revisions
    Make corrections and revisions to all pricing items except balance classes, meter classes, balances, meters, and products. For information about product offer versions, see the discussion about product offers.
  - Updating Pricing After Purchase
    Not all pricing items can be updated after pricing is loaded and subscribers are using it.
  - Pricing Plans
    Pricing plans define the pricing and policies that allow you to control how you provide services to subscribers and how you are paid for those services. Pricing plans are comprised of catalog items, offers, bundles, and supporting objects required to implement pricing.
    - Balances and Meters
      When you define rates, you specify which balances and meters to impact when rating occurs. The impacts are a result of the price components applied, and represent the financial liabilities to subscribers and groups.
    - Thresholds and Credit Limits
      Create thresholds and credit limits when you create or change balances and meters.
    - Decision Tables
      Decision tables consist of a number of _glossary/normalizer.html columns that define a set of business logic (one or more condition sets) that can be reused in different circumstances. Decision tables can be combined with a set of results into any type of component table, such as a policy table, rollover table, rate table, _glossary/gl_transaction_type.html table and account table, filter, or priority generator.
    - Contracts
      You can create finance or service contracts. A finance contract defines the terms and conditions of a contract. A service contract defines the terms and charges for a service, for example, voice or data.
    - Final Unit Indication
      You can configure Diameter Final Unit Indication (FUI) information to be static or dynamic.
    - Announcements Components
      MATRIXX Engine uses announcement pricing components for determining the list of announcements to play to a subscriber during a voice call, and the language they must be played in. You configure announcement data to be dynamic, so a different result occurs based on conditions that are valid at the time of rating.
    - Data Modifying
      You use the data modify interface in My MATRIXX to configure data modify actions, data modify profiles, and data modify profile selectors.
    - Filters
      Filters are independent, reusable, pricing items that can be associated with balances, meters, subscription product offers, and notifications.
    - Normalizer Templates
      Normalizer templates identify the MATRIXX Data Container (MDC) and its fields, catalog item parameters, balances, quantities, or times that are normalized during rating to determine which rates to apply. The fields can be located in a network message or in a MATRIXX database MDC, such as a subscriber, device, group, or purchased offer MDC.
    - Normalizer Instances
      Normalizer instances condense large sets of discrete field values into a manageable set of parameters. Each parameter represents the aggregate value set, so that assigning a result to every possible field value is not required.
    - Parameters
      You can configure definitions for parameters that you can use in pricing items such as catalog items, bundles, product offers, and price components.
    - Products
      A product represents the provisioning of a service type when a _glossary/catalog_item.html is purchased for a _glossary/subscription.html, _glossary/device.html, or _glossary/group.html. The products identify the service type, which in turn determines the pricing that can apply.
    - Catalog Items
      Catalog items are customizations of offers and bundles that are offered to a specific group of subscribers.
    - Catalogs
      A catalog contains catalog items and eligibility rules. The eligibility rules determine which catalog items are included or excluded from the catalog. You can also add metadata fields to further define the catalog.
    - Eligibility
      Eligibility rules define requirements and exclusions.
    - Product Offers
      Product offers are the basis for the pricing components that subscriptions, groups, and devices purchase, either singly or in bundles.
    - Bundles
      Bundles group one or more product offers together so they can be purchased as a unit. You can also create bundle-specific charges, grants, and discounts that override or supplement the existing price components defined in individual product offers.
      - Proportional Charge Bundle
        A bundle can be configured with proportional charges across the included offers. A proportional charge bundle allows the user to configure pricing for charge and discount at the bundle level. The bundle price is distributed to the constituent offers. The charge amount for each offer is calculated based on the distribution method and distribution percentage for that offer. For more information, see the examples further on in this topic.
      - Bundle Components
        Within a bundle, you can associate additional price components with a product offer that are not part of the product offer definition. These bundle-specific price components (bundle components) can replace or supplement the price components already in the offer.
      - Bundle Usage Rating
        The usage rating process is the same for individual product offers and bundles.
      - Bundle Normalization
        Bundles can be extended to include additional fields to hold provider-specific information. Normalizers can be applied on individual product offer data or on bundle data.
      - One Time Bundles
        A one time bundle groups one or more one time offers that can be purchased as one unit. Like the one time offers that they contain, one time bundles provide instant pricing when they are purchased.
      - Bundle Notifications
        You can configure bundles to trigger notifications when they are purchased, canceled, and expire.
      - Purchasing Bundles
        Bundle versions can be purchased as catalog items for a subscriber, group, or device and can be configured to trigger a purchase notification. When a bundle is purchased, all product offers in the bundle can be used for rating and policy decisions.
      - Extending Bundles
        Bundles can be extended during configuration to allow normalizations on custom fields. This makes it possible for rating results to be different for a product offer when it is standalone and when it is part of a bundle. In addition, rating results can be different between each bundle in which a specific product offer is included.
      - Adding Parameters
        You can add a list of pre-defined parameters to pricing items, such as catalog items, bundles, offers, and price components.
      - Adding Catalog Item Template Fields
        You can add more catalog item template fields to default product offers and bundles by creating new custom MATRIXX Data Containers (MDCs). Some default offer and bundle templates include useful example fields, but you should extend that list. Your new custom MDCs extend a base MDC with the template fields that your MATRIXX implementation requires. Pricing Users then decide on a per-offer or per-bundle basis whether to make the new fields available to Catalog Users to configure for catalog items. Only simple data types are allowed.
      - Canceling Bundles
        Bundles can be canceled at any time for a subscriber, group, or device and can be configured in My MATRIXX to trigger a cancelation notification. Product offers within a bundle cannot be canceled individually when purchased as part of a bundle. Only the product offer bundle can be canceled.
      - Suspending and Resuming Bundles
        Bundles can be suspended or resumed for a subscriber, group, or device and can be configured in My MATRIXX to trigger a notification to be sent upon suspension, resumption, or when the suspend or resume fails.
      - Event Bundle Information
        An Event Detail Record (EDR) contains information about purchased, canceled, and applied bundles.
      - Bundle APIs and Status Life Cycles
        The same APIs used for purchasing and canceling an offer catalog item are used for purchasing and canceling a bundle catalog item.
    - Price Components
      MATRIXX price components are reusable pricing items that can be included in any number of product offers. They include charges, discounts, grants, refunds, and forfeitures.
    - Policies
      Policies provide the business logic for real-time policy decisions and rules, allowing you to track subscribers' service usage in real-time and change the behavior of a service based on that usage (for example, by throttling bandwidth).
    - Inbound Roaming
      Configure inbound and emergency roaming requests to define the agreements with third-party operators that allow requests for subscribers that are not identified in MATRIXX.
    - Denial Codes
      Denial codes are a way to deny service access to subscribers for a specific reason. You define them in My MATRIXX and add them to rate table rows in place of a rating formula, so the value is returned to the network based on the row selected during rating.
    - Offer Life Cycle Profiles
      An offer life cycle profile consists of a set of offer statuses, a set of policies associated with each offer status that describe behavior that can be executed in this status, and a set of transitions that can have conditions defined that can trigger a transition and actions defined that are executed after the transition is performed. Both offers and bundles can have an offer life cycle profile defined. Use offer life cycle profiles to customize the behavior of MATRIXX for your business processes.
    - Status Life Cycles
      A status life cycle is a collection of object states, policies, and transition rules that are defined for a specific object type. You can define a status life cycle for user, device, subscription, group, and offer objects to customize the behavior of MATRIXX for your business processes. For example, a device life cycle can begin with a provisioned status, transition to an active status, and finally transition to an inactive status.
    - Status Notification Profiles
      Notification profiles are reusable pricing components that define when expiration and recurring processing failure notifications are sent and the frequency with which those notifications are sent. Notification profiles can be assigned to each status in status life cycles. For a complete list of possible notifications, see the discussion about notifications in MATRIXX Integration.
    - System Attributes
      System attributes are custom properties you can attach to product offers, price components, rate tables, and rate table rows to add metadata to the object in the pricing database. They contain a mapping of attribute values to _glossary/mdc.html fields. The MDC fields get populated with the attribute values during rating and returned to the network in an MDC message.
    - Virtual Fields
      You use virtual fields to avoid creating multiple pricing configurations if your MATRIXX environment accepts multiple rating message types, for example, messages from Diameter and 5G networks.
    - Usage Triggers
      Use usage triggers to add lists of re-authorization triggers to the charging response messages for a session or rating group. Usage triggers are available for both Diameter Gy and 5G charging messages.
    - Usage Trigger Gy and 5G AVPs
      You trigger re-authorization for a session or rating group by assigning the Diameter Gy Trigger-Type and 5G triggerType AVP values listed here to usage trigger profiles.
    - Metadata
      Metadata summarizes basic information about other data and makes working with specific data easier. Metadata provides information about pieces of information that have meaning in relation to another piece of information in My MATRIXX.
  - Planning a Pricing Plan
    Before you create a _glossary/pricing_plan.html, determine how you want to name, organize, and set up the items that form planning a pricing plan.
  - Deploying a Pricing Plan
    Deploying a pricing plan involves compiling the pricing plan into a configuration file and loading the configuration file into the pricing database. During compilation, the pricing schema is validated and any errors that occur are displayed.
  - Group-Owned Pricing
    Groups can own product offers that define service pricing for group members. The product offers can define pricing for both usage and non-usage event types.
  - Taxation
    MATRIXX supports two types of taxation: tax classes and selectors, and US taxation. Tax classes specify tax rates or fixed taxes, and tax selectors dynamically select the tax rate, and apply one or more taxes to a charge. US taxation determines the taxes for a given location, and specifies the tax type, product category the tax applies to, and the tax authority who receives the tax based on CCH tax data.
- Appendices
MATRIXX Pay Now
MATRIXX Subscriber Management
MATRIXX Subscriber Management API
MATRIXX Business API SDK
My MATRIXX Help
MATRIXX Backoffice Customer Tool Help
MATRIXX Third-Party Licenses
Glossary

Adding Catalog Item Template Fields

You can add more catalog item template fields to default product offers and bundles by creating new custom MATRIXX Data Containers (MDCs). Some default offer and bundle templates include useful example fields, but you should extend that list. Your new custom MDCs extend a base MDC with the template fields that your MATRIXX implementation requires. Pricing Users then decide on a per-offer or per-bundle basis whether to make the new fields available to Catalog Users to configure for catalog items. Only simple data types are allowed.

Once you create and configure the new custom MDCs, the new fields are accessible from the My MATRIXX Template Fields tab for an offer or bundle (as a Catalog Item Template).

You use the create_config.py script to create new custom MDCs by extending the MtxTemplateAttr or MtxSampleTemplateAttr MDC as a base.

Note: The allowed data types are string, integer, decimal, Boolean, or long.

The MtxTemplateAttr MDC is empty by default. MtxSampleTemplateAttr has the default fields described in MtxSampleTemplateAttr Default Fields.

Table 1. MtxSampleTemplateAttr Default Fields
Field	Data Type
DataPurchaseChargeAmount	Decimal
DataPurchaseGrantAmount	Decimal
DataRecurringChargeAmount	Decimal
DataRecurringGrantAmount	Decimal
SmsPurchaseChargeAmount	Decimal
SmsPurchaseGrantAmount	Decimal
SmsRecurringChargeAmount	Decimal
SmsRecurringGrantAmount	Decimal
VoicePurchaseChargeAmount	Decimal
VoicePurchaseGrantAmount	Decimal
VoiceRecurringChargeAmount	Decimal
VoiceRecurringGrantAmount	Decimal
BalanceExpirationSelection	UINT32

For information about creating custom MDCs and adding fields to MDCs, see:

The discussions about extending MATRIXX Engine functionality and custom MDCs in MATRIXX Integration.
The discussion about working with custom MDCs in MATRIXX Subscriber Management API.
The discussion about field definitions in My MATRIXX Help.

After you create the new custom MDCs, you must configure My MATRIXX to point to the MATRIXX Engine containing the latest schema changes or have access to a local up-to-date system configuration. In other words, My MATRIXX and the MATRIXX Engine must have access to your new MDC definitions. For information about pointing to a running MATRIXX Engine, see the discussion about configuring My MATRIXX in MATRIXX Web App Administration.