When you create a new customer in Customer Care, default Bill Cycle assignment is based on rules configured in the IDI Desktop Client (Applications/BackOffice Management/RateBill/Bill Cycle Assignment Configuration). These rules determine the Bill Cycle based on Account Type, Market, Activation Type and Date (Current, Activation or Fulfilled).
Users in Customer Care can subsequently change the Bill Cycle manually on an existing customer as needed. When changing the Bill Cycle manually, the Destination Bill Cycle options are limited to a list of recommended Bill Cycles.
With this enhancement, a new Modify Customer Bill Cycle action lets you automate changing a customer’s Bill Cycle based on the Bill Cycle Assignment rules configured in the Client. The action can be embedded in a workflow or be tied to a trigger (for example Customer Modified).
The logic detects conditions where the Bill Cycle cannot be changed:
There is a pending Bill Cycle change.
The account is part of a corporate structure and cannot be moved to a separate Bill Cycle.
No Bill Cycle Assignment configuration exists in the CostGuard Client.
In any of these cases, no Bill Cycle change is made.
In addition, the logic detects whether or not the Bill Cycle can be updated directly. The Bill Cycle can be updated directly if the account is a non-corporate account that has not yet been billed, and there is no usage in the current bill period. When a direct update is not appropriate, a Bill Cycle change request goes to pending status.
Using the Modify Workflow Action
An example application for the Modify Customer Bill Cycle action is shown below.
Action Parameters:
Customer ID (required)
Date (optional): if not supplied, the current date is used
Note:
This field is labeled Order Date in version 20.6.
Return Value:
When the action successfully updates the customer’s Bill Cycle, the action will return a value for the New BillPeriodID and New BillCycleID which can be accessed when using the action in a workflow. These values cannot be accessed when using the action in a trigger. To access the values for the new bill period and new bill cycle, User-Defined Extended needs to be added to the workflow definition for New BillPeriodID and New BillCycleID.
Note:
Only New BillPeriodID is available in version 20.6.
