AdvancePay Products

Support for selling and managing AdvancePay products in IDI web modules is the latest enhancement in a continuing effort to provide a complete and robust web front office experience for service providers. This new functionality includes:

• In the Orders web module:

  • selling and renewing AdvancePay products on a web transaction.

  • voiding transactions with AdvancePay products.

• In Workflow, the Billing System Update (BSU) now supports AdvancePay products and their price point(s) in the above listed transactions.

• Customer Care supports viewing and Managing AdvancePay products and their price Points on an account.

Notes:

• To facilitate advance configuration in support of the above functionality, the ability to configure AdvancePay products with browse tags and assignment templates was added with the IDI platform 25.04 release.

• Additional functionality for managing AdvancePay products in web transactions will be provided in a future release.

Setup

Prerequisites

You must be licensed to use AdvancePay. If you are not already licensed and need to use AdvancePay, contact your IDI account manager. In addition, you need to have a thorough understanding of AdvancePay as supported in the IDI platform. Refer to the applicable topics in IDI Desktop Client help for details.

Permissions

A Renew AdvancePayFeature permission is available in the Security web module under Orders. This permission is required to make the Renew AdvancePay action available in the Modify Item Options drop down menu during order assembly. The permission is provided with the Orders Admin role and can be added to other roles as needed.

Assigning Browse Tags and Assignment Templates

This functionality resides in the IDI Desktop Client Product Catalog with IDI platform release 25.4 or later. The Add/Edit AdvancePay Product form has a Browse tab similar to other products. Browse tags and assignment templates are covered in detail in the related knowledge articles. Start with Getting Started with Browse Tags and Assignment Templates.

Getting Started with an AdvancePay Transaction

This process starts the same as when using browse tags and assignment templates to find and add other products to a transaction. Begin as you normally would, either by initiating a starting block or beginning a new order and selecting the customer.

Note:

AdvancePay products can only be sold at the service level and are not supported at the account level in web transactions, so you’ll need to either add a new AdvancePay service or select an existing one and add AdvancePay products to it. The following example shows adding a new AdvancePay service.

Once you’ve selected the service where the AdvancePay product is being added, you can use any of these methods to find the product – Browse, Add By SKU, or Search by Description. Below shows using the AdvancePay browse tag assigned to AdvancePay products in the Product Catalog.

In this example, you can choose to add a Feature or Plan.

Below shows the available products for Plan.

Managing Price Points on an AdvancePay Product

Price points are assigned to AdvancePay products as part of their setup in the Desktop Client Product Catalog. When you add an AdvancePay product to a web transaction, you can select which price points to include at your customer’s request. Clicking an Available Item displays the Select AdvancePay Price Points dialog for this purpose.

All price points assigned to the product in the Product Catalog are listed in ascending alphabetical order by description. A scroll bar is provided as needed to let you browse the complete list. Use the Favorite Price Point selector to designate one as favorite.

Note:

This is optional. You are not required to designate a favorite.

The name, duration, and charge as configured in the Desktop Client Product Catalog are displayed for each price point. Enter a quantity for each price point to be sold with the AdvancePay product.

On saving the price point specification, the AdvancePay product will be staged as a parent, with the selected price points as the children. From here you can change the designated the Favorite Price Point, and edit the quantity of any of the price point as needed. Clicking the Select Price Points link under the product lets you change the price point selections.

Note:

In this dialog, items are re-ordered with items having a quantity greater than zero listed alphabetically at the top, and price points having a prior quantity of zero listed alphabetically below.

Discounts and Tax Using method can be viewed and managed at the price point level.

Once added to the transaction, the page will contain the AdvancePay product as a parent to the price point children, with different icons to indicate the AdvancePay product (briefcase) and its price points (briefcase with a clock). These will appear green when being added/sold.

From here you can update the quantity for a price point without having to restage it by selecting the price point and clicking edit.

Clicking the Edit Price Points link on the selected AdvancePay product lets you reselect all price points and the favorite price point without restaging.

Note:

There must be at least one price point (quantity greater than 0) under an AdvancePay product in order to proceed past the transaction assembly page; otherwise, an error is thrown upon clicking Review.

Renewals

When you choose to modify a feature, the Action menu in the staging (right) pane provides a Renew AdvancePay option.

Note:

This option is only available for users with Renew AdvancePayFeature permission. If the specified customer has one or more AdvancePay products, selecting this option will list the AdvancePay products under their respective services.

Selecting a product will display the Edit Price Points dialog for that product, listing all price points that were added in a previous transaction. All price points will have a quantity of 0 initially. From here you can specify the quantity to renew for each price point (or choose not to renew by leaving the quantity 0).

Note:

The Unit Balance section can be helpful when discussing renewal options with your subscribers. Expanding this section shows the expiration date and remaining amount for each price point.

Once saved, price points selected for renewal will stage in the cart with black icons (for renew). From here you can proceed through the rest of the transaction as you would any other.

Voids

Voids are now supported for transactions containing AdvancePay products. AdvancePay voids work the same as for other products.

Viewing and Managing AdvancePay Products in Customer Care

This release provides support for viewing and managing AdvancePay products on accounts in Customer Care.

Order History

The Order History page in Customer Care (Orders > Order History) facilitates viewing AdvancePay transaction histories. You can view AdvancePay transaction histories on the Features tab. AdvancePay products that have been added, disconnected, or modified on an order have row entries in the Features table.

Also, the Retail tab lists AdvancePay products, their respective Price Points, and any applicable retail discounts.

Services and Features

AdvancePay products under services are displayed when viewing Services and Features on an account in Customer Care (Services > Services and Features).

Note:

Price points are retail products; therefore, they are not presented in this view.

Upon clicking an AdvancePay product, the details section displays information related to the selected item.

The Start Date, End Date, Billing Status and Favorite Price Point can also be edited from here.

AdvancePay Renewal

The renewal page (Account > AdvancePay Renewal) has been improved with updates to formatting, layout, and titles:

• The page has been renamed AdvancePay Renewal.

• The following caption has been added to the page: The automatic renewal purchase of AdvancePay products requires services assigned to a Payment Method.

• The Wallets selector has been renamed Payment Methods.

• Wallet Types have been renamed as the applicable Payment Method (e.g. Credit Card, Debit Card, etc).

• The Payment Methods column has been renamed as Number (since this displays a Credit Card or Checking account number).

• Services set for Auto Renewal has been renamed Assigned Services.

• The Add Services button has been renamed Assign Services.

Additionally, when you remove an Assigned Service from a Payment Method, the removal dialog has been updated with similar format, layout, and text updates:

• The Delete Auto Renewal Services dialog has been renamed Remove Assigned Service.

• Dialog messaging has been updated to read Please confirm you want to remove service “##########” from being assigned to Payment Method “VISA (####)” for Auto Renewal Purchases.

• The Delete button has been renamed Remove and moved to right side to be consistent with the location of similar buttons in other dialogs