Version 26.7
Support for Electronic Bill Notifications - Bill notifications can be automated through Workflow and emails managed in the Communications module. This replaces the OnlineBill Mailer in the Desktop Client. Bill notification emails for a Bill Period are automatically created once the invoices are approved for customer viewing. The notifications are sent to Customer Portal subscribers and/or account Billing Contacts that opt into bill notifications. This functionality requires setup in the Workflow, Communications, Product Catalog, and Customer Care web modules.
See Electronic Bill Notification Configuration in this guide to learn how to complete the required setup in the Product Catalog.
Complete instructions for implementing and using this functionality are provided in the Electronic Bill Notifications article in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Version 26.6
Exclude individual accounts from paperless billing incentive - Paperless Billing Incentive setup in the web Product Catalog lets you specify accounts to omit from Paperless Billing incentive based on a tag present on the account.
Note
In addition to Paperless Billing configuration in the web Product Catalog, this requires you to create a special tag intended to designate accounts for Paperless Billing in Customer Care and then add the tag to individual accounts as needed.
See Paperless Billing Incentive Setup in this guide to learn how to complete the Product Catalog configuration.
Complete instructions for implementing this functionality, including how to create a tag in Customer Care and then add the tag to individual accounts, are provided in the Incentivising Paperless Billing article in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Version 26.5
Exclude states from paperless billing consideration - Paperless Billing Incentive setup in the web Product Catalog lets you specify states to not consider for Paperless Billing. See Paperless Billing Incentive Setup.
Version 26.4
Exclude Account Statuses from paperless billing incentive - Paperless Billing Incentive setup in the web Product Catalog lets you specify Account Statuses to not consider for Paperless Billing. See Paperless Billing Incentive Setup.
Version 25.10
Service Qualification Enhancements - Service qualification is part of a larger development effort to support a Service Activation Portal. This functionality will be deployed over several releases. When fully deployed, this will let prospects determine whether service and what service offerings are available at their location.
To support this future functionality, the 25.10 release:
Introduces serviceable addresses in the IDI platform to support service qualification, and provides a new bulk import for importing them into your IDI platform.
Ports existing client-based NPA/NXX zone management to the Product Catalog web module. Zones are renamed to pricing zones, and two new fields are provided on pricing zones to support service qualification.
Note
Zones can still be managed in the client if you don’t need to use the new fields.
Introduces qualification tags in the IDI platform to support service qualification. These tags will support customizable rules for the availability of offerings by geographic zone.
Provides new pages in the Product Catalog web module for viewing and managing serviceable addresses, pricing zones, and qualification tags.
Note
The ability for prospects to actually use service qualification will be provided in a future release.
Version 25.7
Billing taxes calculator - This lets you validate addresses and calculate taxes for different billing scenarios based on tax jurisdiction, account type, and selected catalog items without having to create/update an account or service.
These enhancements can help tax, finance, and billing managers and shorten implementation/configuration time frames. See Managing the Billing Taxes Calculator.
Note
This functionality requires the IDI Tax API, which is available for an additional service fee, and is restricted to authorized users. Contact your IDI account manager regarding the IDI Tax API.
Version 24.11
Support for Broadband Labels - In compliance with FCC order 22-86 for broadband service providers, the Plans & Services page in Customer Portal has been enhanced to provide a visual indicator and a clickable link when a service has a broadband label. The new link is named View Broadband Facts. Clicking it displays the corresponding broadband label.
The Product Catalog web application supports configuring and managing broadband labels. Product Catalog users with Allow Log On permission can view broadband labels. Administrators with a new Manage Broadbands permission can:
Configure (add/edit) broadband labels in the web Product Catalog.
Associate a broadband label to a single SKU that resides in the IDI Desktop Client Product Catalog.
Download a CSV file of all your active Broadband labels.
Version 24.7
New options in starting block configuration for credit scoring and manually adding deposits on a transaction.
Version 24.3
New landing page - A new landing page provides links to the various functional areas supported in the Product Catalog web module. This page replaces landing on the Associated SKUs page.
New permissions related to Product Catalog functions - Two new permissions in Security govern access to managing starting blocks and protection plan profiles. See Permissions.
Version 23.10
Web Sales Starting Block Configuration Enhancements:
New default (seed) starting blocks for bill payments, returns, and voids. These default block configurations can be used as is or modified, or completely new starting block configurations can be added to support these transactions.
Behavior options for order pages when not applicable for the current transaction (for instance, a disconnect customer or hotline service). You can choose to skip one or both of the following pages when the starting block’s and/or Order Field configuration provide the required information:
Skip New Transaction (Basic Information) page and begin on the Details (Assembly) page.
Skip New Transaction and the Details pages and begin on the summary (either the Review Cart or the Summary page).
Display New Transaction page and then skip Details page. After saving the basic information, the transaction resumes at either the Review Cart or Summary page.
Additional starting block options for certain starting actions – Additional options are presented for starting block configuration when applicable for the selected starting action. This lets you prepopulate the required information on the order to streamline the process and potentially avoid errors. The options depend on the selected starting action. For example, when Starting Action = Return Item, drop-down menus are provided for selecting a return reason and inventory status.
Paperless billing incentive setup - New functionality lets you set up rules to give customers incentive to opt for paperless billing. You can set up the system to provide a discount when customers opt in, or apply a fee when customers opt out. See Paperless Billing Incentive Setup.
Once set up, you can manage this functionality in Customer Care.
Version 23.6
E-Rate - With this release the IDI system fully supports servicing E-Rate accounts. It provides the following enhancements:
A new E-Rate discount product in IDI Desktop Client Product Catalog to facilitate automated billing. As with other discounts, E-Rate discounts will be accounted for in invoice XML, General Ledger and IDI reports.
The ability to associate products and services to an FRN in the Product Catalog.
The ability to monitor E-Rate funding for an account in Customer Care.
For details see the article on Managing E-Rate in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Version 23.3
E-Rate - E-Rate is a federal program that provides funding to help schools, libraries, and consortia obtain affordable broadband. E-Rate is administered by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) under the direction of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). USAC is responsible for processing applications, confirming eligibility, and reimbursing service providers for discounted services.
Support for E-Rate in the IDI system lets service providers offer discounts to their customers who are eligible for E-Rate funding, and submit requests to USAC for reimbursement. It helps service providers improve efficiency, accuracy and visibility when servicing E-Rate eligible accounts.
Briefly, USAC assigns a unique Funding Request Number (FRN) when an application request for E-Rate funding has been approved. Authorized users can create FRNs, log usage against the FRNs, and then create an FCC reimbursement form 474 for submission to USAC.
Milestone 1 provides the ability to configure E-Rate funding in the Product Catalog, manually log utilization for each Funding Request Number (FRN), and generate the reimbursement (474) file.
Note
For this release, submitting this form is done manually outside the IDI system. Also, a new E-Rate Utilization Manually Created trigger in the Workflow module lets you automate generating adjustments on the account for manually logged utilization. For details on this trigger see the article on Managing E-Rate in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Milestone 2 will be delivered in a future release and will support the automatic generation of E-Rate utilization and discounts during billing.
See Managing E-Rate.
Refresh Service Starting Block - When a service number in the IDI system gets out of sync with information in the switch, the refresh service provisioning action lets you reprovision the service without having to disconnect and reconnect. This action uses the existing task plan/execution plan as set up in IDI Desktop Client to provision the refresh. Notes:
The Refresh Services starting block is only available to users with Refresh Services permission as set up in the Security module. Also, this starting block is only available on services with provisionable products.
For details on executing a refresh service action refer to the article for Refresh Service Via Web Applications in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Version 22.12
Starting block configuration enhancements - The New/Edit Starting Block form now presents configuration options on two tabs – Main and Policy. The Policy tab contains location, email and receipt configuration options to support tendered retail transactions. For direct invoicing receipt configuration options are replaced with invoice configuration options.
Version 22.4
Direct Invoice starting block - This release aligns direct invoicing functionality with web sales and starting blocks. This includes an out-of-the-box starting block for initiating a Direct Invoicing transaction. In the Product Catalog, authorized users can modify the default configuration of this starting block and/or create additional starting blocks for direct invoicing as needed.
Version 22.1
Starting Block Configuration
This release introduces . This includes Starting Block configuration in the Product Catalog, and the ability to use Starting Blocks in both the Orders and Customer Care web modules.
Starting Blocks
Configurable Starting Blocks facilitate order entry. Starting block configuration and maintenance is done in the Product Catalog web module. Leveraging starting block configuration, you can initiate either a front office sale transaction (remote customer presence) or back office order transaction (no customer presence) in the Customer Care and/or Orders web modules. The type of transaction you initiate drives order or sale-oriented functionality during the transaction assembly, review (if applicable) and summary.
When you configure a starting block, you can also define parameters to streamline the order/sale process by setting default values and/or limiting options for selection during assembly. For sale transactions, you can assemble, review, and finalize a remote sale containing billing items that can be assigned to either an account or to any type of service.
The new functionality in Product Catalog is described in Configuring Starting Blocks.
For details regarding version 22.1 functionality in all impacted modules, refer to the article on Web Sales - Milestone 1 in the IDI Knowledge Center.
Version 21.7
Protection plan profile configuration - Ability to add Custom Queries – This lets you add provisioning actions (in addition to Enroll and Cancel) as may be required by your third-party protection plan administrator. The queries you add are actually Provisioning Profiles configured in the Provisioning web application. Any custom queries you add will be available in the Actions drop-down menu on the protection plan’s Detail view in Customer Care.
Version 21.6
Ability to verify a protection plan profile - Protection plan profile setup lets you choose to require verification. Any protection plan that uses this profile must be verified by the 3rd party plan administrator before you add the plan to a customer’s account and enroll the customer in the plan.