When you create a new pricing plan, you select a pricing plan category that will be associated with that pricing plan. The category controls which pricing plan is used first in the hunting mechanism when Rating occurs.
When rating, the hunting mechanism for selecting the correct pricing plan is based on the start and end date of the product and the category of the pricing plan. You may have two pricing plans of the same category assigned to a service, but their active dates cannot overlap.
With this method, the IDI platform finds eight valid pricing plans by starting the search for from the most specific to the more general levels. The most specific is at the service number level, then the customer level for any pricing plans limited to the appropriate service type, and finally at the customer level with no limits on the pricing plan. The eight pricing plan categories are local, intralata, intrastate, interstate, international override, international, default, and wholesale. The system hunts for the eight pricing plans to hold before looking at the details of the pricing plans. In other words, it fills all the eight pricing plan “slots” before it picks a pricing plan to hunt through to find a match for rating.
The system can hold only one pricing plan category in memory for each distance type. For example, if a pricing plan has been found in the appropriate pricing plan category (distance type) at the service number level, but no match can be made, the system will NOT look at the same pricing plan category at the customer level at all. It will look at the default category pricing plan at the service number level, if there is one is assigned. If there is not a pricing plan there, it will look for a default pricing plan at the customer level limited to the service type of the call, if there is one assigned. If there is no pricing plan at that level, the system will look at the customer level for a default pricing plan.
Notes:
Pricing Plan Categories are used only if the Use Pricing Plan Groups option has been disabled under Business Rules > Backoffice Settings > Rating in Admin Console.
Pricing Plans for Canadian 1+ usage must be in an International Override, International, or Default Pricing Plan Category.