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MATRIXX Pricing and Rating
Rating
The following information describes MATRIXX Charging Application rating functionality.
Rating Sessions
MATRIXX Charging Application supports the 3GPP Session Charging with Unit Reservation (SCUR) and Event Charging with Unit Reservation (ECUR) to handle authorization and accounting for subscriber usage.

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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.
  - Rating Overview
    MATRIXX Charging Application can perform both online and offline rating in support of next-generation networks and legacy systems. It can also handle hybrid sets of convergent, prepaid, and postpaid services, enabling service providers to have a diverse subscriber base.
  - Usage and Non-Usage Rates
    Rates can be based on service usage and on activities not related to service usage, such as cycle processing, first use of a balance, catalog item purchases, and product offer cancelations.
  - Event Types
    MATRIXX Engine supports multiple built-in event types that are defined in a tree hierarchy based on pricing configuration and stored in the pricing database. You can define custom subordinate event types (sub events) for an event type.
  - Operation Types
    Use operation types to customize non-usage events. The operation type in an event mapping must match an event type. For example, the recurring_subscriber operation can only correspond to a recurring event, such as SubscriberCustomRecurringEvent.
  - Service Types
    Each network message received for subscriber usage is associated with a service type, and each category of usage within the network message is associated with a service context.
  - Device Types
    The MATRIXX Engine supports mobile and login devices. A mobile device uses one or more associated phone numbers to identify the subscription associated with the device. Login devices use a string value (SIP URI (Session Initiation Protocol Uniform Resource Identifier), an NAI (Network Address Identifier), or a PrivateId) for identification.
  - Normalization
    MATRIXX Engine uses a process called normalization to condense large sets of discrete field values into a manageable set of parameters. Each single normalizer parameter value represents an aggregate value set, so that assigning a result to every possible field value is not required.
  - Rating One-Time Events
    MATRIXX Charging Application supports 3GPP Immediate Event Charging (IEC) to authorize and charge for one-time events, such as SMS, MMS, or other messaging services (such as purchases of ring tones, media, or mobile Apps) and in-app micro-transactions. Typically the data for event-based requests maps to debit, refund, query, and price checking operation types. If configured, after a successful IEC operation, a notification (MtxEventChargeNotification) is triggered.
  - Rating Sessions
    MATRIXX Charging Application supports the 3GPP Session Charging with Unit Reservation (SCUR) and Event Charging with Unit Reservation (ECUR) to handle authorization and accounting for subscriber usage.
    - Subscriber Authorization
      Authorization is the process of verifying the subscriber's balance has the amount required to allow usage. MATRIXX Engine supports service authorization and cut-offs to ensure subscriber usage is valid and revenue loss does not occur.
    - Balance Reservations and Session Management
      After a subscriber has been authenticated, MATRIXX Charging Application retrieves all of the data required during rating and performs an authorization check before calculating rates. The authorization check determines the amount that is authorized for consumption. This amount is reserved during service usage to ensure that other sessions impacting the same balances do not consume more than is available.
    - Diameter Multiple-Service Credit Control (MSCC)
      A single network message using the Diameter Credit Control Application (DCCA) can include usage for multiple service contexts in one session. In such cases, the MATRIXX Charging Application rates usage for each service context individually and creates a separate Event Detail Record (EDR) for each one.
    - Gy Re-Auth-Request (RAR) Message
      MATRIXX Engine sends a Re-Auth Request (RAR) to the network for a subscriber-management (SubMan) request, when an open session is perceived as inactive, or on content quota expiration.
    - Removing Old Sessions
      Sessions that have been idle for a configured period of time are removed from the Activity database after a configured amount of time. The scan and removal operations occur as background processes and do not interrupt transaction processing.
    - Extending Session Objects
      Service providers can extend charging and policy session MATRIXX Data Containers (MDCs) to contain additional fields to hold provider-specific information. Fields can be added from the network message to the session to be used as the basis of normalizations during rating and policy calculations. In addition, subscriber data and custom fields in charging session objects can be used in event field maps to map incoming fields to event type MDCs so that the fields are included in the associated Event Detail Record (EDR).
  - How Rating Is Performed
    When events are received in MATRIXX Engine, a list of candidate product offers is created and examined for each event segment to determine which ones apply. Determining the candidates involves identifying the valid price components, which is dependent on the validity of the balances and normalization values.
  - Advice of Charge
    MATRIXX Engine supports Advice of Charge (AoC) for usage and non-usage rating.
  - Detecting Duplicate Network Messages
    MATRIXX Engine can detect when a duplicate network message is received and does not repeat the processing for the duplicate message.
  - Using Time Zones for Rating
    You can configure rates based on the time zone of MATRIXX Engine, the time zone of the subscription, or the UTC offset in the network message.
  - Generating Notifications During Rating
    Real-time notifications enable you to alert subscribers and group administrators immediately when product offers are purchased, canceled, or expire, when balances expire, and when balances are nearing credit limits and assets are about to expire, so they are aware of their current spending situations.
  - MATRIXX Event Detail Records
    MATRIXX Engine generates an _glossary/edr.html for all activities that can trigger rating, such as usage, catalog item purchases and cancelations, recurring cycle processing, or the first use of a balance. MATRIXX Engine also generates EDRs for non-rated events such as forfeitures. You configure event generation in My MATRIXX, including the events to generate and whether to add a custom container with additional mapped fields.
  - Processing Call Detail Records
    The MATRIXX Engine can rate call detail records (CDRs) in Solution42 format and save the results to MATRIXX Event Detail Records (EDRs) so the information can be imported into a third-party system for billing or analytical processing.
  - MATRIXX Event Files
    MATRIXX Event Files (MEFs) contain a list of usage and non-usage event types generated during transaction processing. MEFs are meant to be published to, and consumed outside of, MATRIXX, and can be input to third-party applications.
  - Multi-Tenancy Support
    MATRIXX supports multi-tenancy for service providers who want to host more than one tenant on the same sub-domain, where a tenant is a subset of the subscribers within a subscriber base that use the same pricing configuration and that have the same set of business behaviors, such as prepaid or postpaid, or the same Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO).
  - 5G AMF Charging
    MATRIXX supports charging for usage related to the 5G Access and Mobility Management Function (AMF).
  - Other 5G Service Charging
    MATRIXX supports charging for the following services in the 5G Release 17 Specification:
  - Network Exposure Function Charging
    MATRIXX supports charging for the Network Exposure Function (NEF).
  - Cycle Processing
    The Charging Server supports balance cycles, billing cycles, and purchased item cycles.
- Pricing
- 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

Rating Sessions

MATRIXX Charging Application supports the 3GPP Session Charging with Unit Reservation (SCUR) and Event Charging with Unit Reservation (ECUR) to handle authorization and accounting for subscriber usage.

SCUR authorizes a session of continuous usage, such as a data or voice session, with a series of Diameter Credit-Control-Request (CCR) messages, first to reserve a balance quantity before authorizing usage, and then to charge for what was used. The CC messages received include an INITIAL_REQUEST for authorization, one or more UPDATE_REQUEST messages to report currently used units and to reserve additional units, if required, and a TERMINATION_REQUEST to end the session. ECUR authorizes a single usage event, such as an SMS or MMS, with two CCR messages, first to reserve a balance quantity before authorizing usage (INITIAL_REQUEST) and then to charge for what was used and end the session (TERMINATION_REQUEST).

Each message is handled as a separate transaction. As usage occurs, the rates and authorization amounts are calculated for each message received, throughout the duration of the session. This allows balances to be updated in real-time so subscribers cannot use more than their authorized or available balance amount.

MATRIXX Charging Application sends a Re-Auth-Request (RAR) to the network when there is an open session and a request for further action has not been received from the network after a configurable amount of time. The RAR functionality provides a way to clean up open sessions that are invalid, for example, when the network connection drops and strands the session before it has been terminated.

Credit control for multiple services can be performed in one session, the goal being to limit the use of network and client/server resources. In such cases, the network client uses the Multiple-Services-Indicator AVP indicate support for multiple service and service contexts. MATRIXX Charging Application uses the Multiple-Service-Credit-Control (MSCC) AVP to return information to the network client.

Service providers can configure RAR behavior and the maximum number of open sessions for one device during system configuration. For information about configuring these features, see the discussion about global system configuration in MATRIXX Configuration. For information about MSCC, see MATRIXX Diameter Integration.