Rating Formula Options

Rating Formula

The rating formula tells the MATRIXX Charging Application to use the defined algebraic formula to rate the event. The formula can be based on any ratable attribute and can be comprised of a variable rate, a fixed rate, or both. The formula also defines the measurement unit to use during rating, such as seconds, bytes, or numbers.

Variable Rate

You can enter a variable rate, or select a variable rate parameter. The variable rate bases rating on an amount that changes and applies the rating formula on a per-increment basis. The increment is determined by the measurement unit of the quantity, which can be the usage quantity, balance value, MATRIXX Data Container (MDC) field quantity, or charge quantity. These options are located in My MATRIXX in the rating formula's Quantity Definition list and define the scale basis for the rates.

• Usage Quantity — A rating formula based on a usage quantity applies a price based on the duration or volume of a usage event type. For example, you can define a rating formula that charges a price based on the length of a phone call or number of megabytes downloaded. The unit to which the price applies is determined by the event type unit. It can be the same as the event type unit, or a derivative of it, that is defined for the event type. For example, an event type might have a unit of kilobytes and also have megabytes and bytes defined.
• Balance Value — A rating formula based on a balance quantity applies a price based on the quantity that exists in the specified balance at the time of rating. For example, you can define a rating formula that gives subscribers 10 free minutes if their voice minutes balance is under a certain amount. The Unit Type available for the balance quantity is based on the Unit Type assigned to the balance class of the specified balance — Volume, Duration, or None. The Units available are based on the units specified in the balance template or the balance class, if a class is specified. If the scaled quantity unit is different from the balance unit, the balance amount is converted to the scaled quantity unit to calculate rates. A balance that is private to the product offer being applied, or is private to another offer in the same bundle as the offer that is being applied, is included in the formula scale basis. Private balances from other purchased items are not included.
  Note: Using a balance as the basis for a rating formula can be complex if the balance is aggregated or prepaid. Contact your MATRIXX Support person for guidance in configuring it correctly.
• Meter Value — A rating formula based on a meter quantity applies a price based on the quantity of the meter at the time of rating.
• Field — A rating formula based on a field quantity applies a price based on the numeric value in an MDC field. The field can be in the following MDCs, an extension of these MDCs, or in the network message:
  • MtxChargingSessionExtension
  • MtxMsg
  • MtxMultiServiceData
  • MtxPolicySessionExtension
  • MtxSubscriberObject
  • MtxDeviceObject
  • MtxGroupObject
  • MtxUserObject
  • MtxUserExtension
  • MtxBundleExtension
  • MtxTemplateAttr
  • MtxProductOfferExtension
  • MtxPurchasedOffer
  • MtxWalletObject
  For example, you can set up group pricing based on the number of members in the group. In this case, the MDC is GroupObject and the field is SubscriberCount. You define the fields available for rating by using My MATRIXX. After they are defined, the fields appear in the Rate Table Definition panel for price components.

  Note: When applying a rating formula whose scale basis is a field, if the scale coefficient in the formula is zero, there is no error if the field is not set.
• Charge Quantity — A rating formula based on a charge quantity applies a price based on the charges accumulated during the event or session. It can be applied to the original charge amount, before any discounts are applied, or to the remaining charge amount, after discounts have been applied. Generally, rates that are based on charge quantity are associated with discounts.

You choose the quantity type for a rating formula from the Quantity Definition list in the Rating Formula Options screen.

Fixed Rate

You can enter a fixed rate, or select a fixed rate parameter. The fixed rate can be used two ways. It can be used to base pricing on the occurrence of an event, such as a charge per SMS message or music download, or it can be used as an additional fixed amount that gets added to a variable rate. For example, you can create a price component that charges a $5.00 flat rate for international calls, plus $0.10 for every minute a subscriber is connected. If a call is made and lasts 60 minutes, the total charge is $11.00:

Fixed rate + scaled quantity × usage quantity = $5.00 + ($0.10 × 60) = $11.00

If a rating formula has a fixed rate, it is applied only for the first authorization and charging operation of the session. If there is no fixed part in the formulas for the first section, then even if the formulas selected for subsequent parts of the session have fixed parts, they are not applied. Similarly, for sessions that incur segmentation during rating due to valid boundaries being crossed, for example, when a time normalizer causes a rate change based on a peak to off-peak time period to be crossed, the fixed amount is applied only once, and only if it is present at the onset of rating. This logic is applied on a per-service context basis.

When the rating formula is based only on a fixed rate, the Quantity Definition for the rating formula is None.

Unit Quantity (Called the Unit Multiplier in My MATRIXX)

Rating formulas can also have a unit quantity other than one, which is the number by which the total quantity is divided to determine the total charge, discount, or grant amount. For example, you can charge $5 for every 15 minutes of talk time. In this case, 15 is the unit quantity. The following formulas are used to determine the total amount.

• total usage quantity ÷ unit quantity = ratable amount
• ratable amount × rate = total

During rating, if a credit limit does not allow the entire multiplier quantity to be recorded, the usage is only authorized up to the previous multiplier count.

Note: Discounts do not have a rate multiplier. Instead, they use the multiplier defined for the associated charges.

Units

The measurement unit in a rating formula determines the increment at which to apply the rates. It does not have to be the same as the event type unit; it can be based on a multiple or a fraction of the event type measurement unit. For example, if the measurement is time, the rating formula unit can be seconds or minutes, however, it cannot be bytes or kilobytes. During rating, the MATRIXX Charging Application converts the event unit to the rating formula unit to calculate prices. Rates based on usage amount can also have a beat that defines when the formula is applied. If the selected balance in the rate table references a turnstile meter, the Units value is set to none because turnstile meters are defined to count a usage or charge occurrence and do not have a quantity unit.

Fixed Values and Parameters

If the parameter you want to use does not exist already, you can create it dynamically from the Edit Formula dialog. For more information, see the discussion about creating a rate table parameter. Parameters added to the rate table are automatically assigned to the parent price component.

For more information about the rating formula fields, see the discussion about the rating formula properties. For more information about parameters, see the discussion about parameters.

SKIP

SKIP tells the MATRIXX Charging Application to move on to the next rate table in the price component. This might be the case when a rate table references more than one normalizer and one of the parameter value combinations does not apply to your pricing but you need to continue rating based on parameter values specified in a subsequent rate table. The skip option is available so you can be thorough when you set up rate tables for consistency. Typically, when you set up a rate table that has multiple normalizers, you define one row (rating formula) for every possible combination of values to ensure you did not miss any value combinations of importance. For normalizers that have several values, this can result in extremely large rate tables. For example, if you have 5 normalizers, each with 3 parameter values, the total number of rows in the rate table is 243 (3 × 3 × 3 × 3 × 3). If you are only concerned with a subset of the parameter combinations, you can omit the meaningless combinations from the rate table or define them with the skip value. When the pricing plan is compiled for deployment, all missing rows are populated with the skip value. If the final result during rating is a skip value, an error result is returned in the response to the network. The default is 5012 (UNABLE_TO_COMPLY).

The method you choose depends on your company practices. If multiple users will be maintaining the pricing, it might be better to explicitly define all possible combinations for clarity. Likewise, you might want to define them explicitly to ensure you do not omit pricing for a value combination that does apply to your pricing.

DENY

DENY tells the MATRIXX Charging Application to add an error code to the network message and return it to the network rather than rating the event. The error is based on the combination of normalizer parameter values in the rate table row. For example, you can return an error code when required data is missing from the Diameter message or is invalid, such as an APN not present. Error codes are numeric values that are typically provided to you by your company. You can enter them manually and provide a text description of the condition that results in the error.