Activation by Time

When you purchase a catalog item (product offer or bundle) in a pre-active state, you can specify a time at which the offer or bundle is activated if it has not been activated.

You can specify activation by time as an absolute time, as a relative offset from the purchase time, or as the end of a cycle period for an existing purchased item that has an active cycle.

When specifying the end of a cycle for an existing purchased item, you must identify the purchased item by its resource ID and the existing purchased item must be owned by the same subscription, group, or device that is purchasing the new catalog item.
Note: The end time of the cycle period is determined at purchase time and that time is used as the automatic activation time, even if the cycle is changed after purchase.

You can specify only one method of time activation during the purchase operation. The purchase operation fails if more than one method is included for the same catalog item. You cannot specify both an automatic activation time and an activation expiration time for the same purchased item. The purchase fails if both are specified for the same catalog item.

There can be a short delay between the time a pre-active purchased item is configured to be activated and the time when the Task Manager sends a message to the Charging Server which triggers the activation. During this time, if any network message is received that could apply to that purchased item, the automatic activation is done before processing the network message.

Upcoming Automatic Activations

When authorizing usage, the Quota-Validity-Time (QVT) is limited by the earliest upcoming automatic activation time if there is one. For duration-based quota, the amount of quota granted is also limited by the earliest automatic activation time. To prevent service interruption for duration-based quota, if the service context type has a minimum authorization amount, and the upcoming automatic activation time would make the quota amount be less than the minimum, then the quota amount and validity time are increased to be the minimum. When this happens, the Time-Quota-Threshold (TQT) is increased so that the client re-authorizes quota at the time the new offer is activated. Even if a TQT is not configured for the service context, a TQT is returned to make the client re-authorize when the new offer is activated.

When processing Sy or Gx messages, the look ahead time for activating or deactivating policy counters or PCC rules, respectively, is limited to the earliest upcoming automatic activation time if there is one.

Configuring Activation by Time

Activation by Time Fields describes the fields which can be set in the MtxPurchasedOfferData MDC when a catalog item is purchased in a pre-active state and activation by time is configured.
Table 1. Activation by Time Fields
Field Description
AutoActivationTime The absolute date/time of automatic activation. An error occurs if more than one of AutoActivationTime, AutoActivationRelativeOffset, or AutoActivationCycleResourceId is set. An error occurs if ActivationExpirationTime and AutoActivationTime are both specified.
Note: When a purchased item is activated due to an auto-activation time scheduled during the purchase, the activation occurs as if the time were the exact scheduled activation time, even though the actual activation is slightly after the scheduled time. This makes it possible for an activated offer to have the same cycle offset as an offer that is expiring at the same moment.
AutoActivationRelativeOffsetUnit Type of units for AutoActivationRelativeOffset used to set activation expiration time.
  • 1 = hours
  • 2 = days
  • 3 = weeks
  • 4 = months
  • 5 = years
  • 6 = billing_cycle_inclusive (with current billing cycle)

    With x units of billing_cycle_inclusive, the AutoActivationTime is the end time of the current cycle plus the product of (x-1) * billing_cycle_length.

  • 7 = billing_cycle_exclusive (excluding current billing cycle)

    With x units of billing_cycle_exclusive, the AutoActivationTime is the end time of the current cycle plus the product of x * billing_cycle_length.

  • 8 = minutes
AutoActivationRelativeOffset The number of units relative to the offer purchase time to set the automatic activation time. An error occurs if more than one of AutoActivationTime, AutoActivationRelativeOffset, or AutoActivationCycleResourceId is set. An error occurs if expiration time and auto-activation are both specified.
AutoActivationCycleResourceId The resource ID of a purchased item (for same owner), whose next cycle end time is the time at which this purchased item should be activated). An error occurs if more than one of AutoActivationTime, AutoActivationRelativeOffset, or AutoActivationCycleResourceId is set. An error occurs if ActivationExpirationTime and AutoActivationTime are both specified.

For a complete description of the MtxPurchasedOfferData MDC fields, see the discussion about MtxPurchasedOfferData in MATRIXX Subscriber Management API.

Activation Failure

For time-based activation, activation can fail if there are insufficient funds to pay for the activation charge and the recurring charge. You can allow the scheduled activation to succeed if there are enough funds to pay for the activation, but insufficient funds to pay the recurring charge, by setting Auto Activation Time Recurring Failure Allowed in the product offer cycle data (disabled by default). When this option is enabled, activation is successful and the purchased item status transitions based on the grace period profile for recurring failure. When this option is disabled, if activation fails due to insufficient funds to pay the recurring charge, the purchased item remains in a pre-active state and the auto activation time (if set) advances by the retry interval (1 hour).

The MtxStatusConditionAutoActivationTimeFailure offer life cycle status condition triggers a purchased item status transition if the scheduled activation fails because there are not enough funds to pay for the activation charge and initial recurring charge. For more information about offer life cycles, see the discussion about offer life cycles in MATRIXX Subscriber Management API.