What's New

Version 26.6

• Managing Account Tags - This release introduces Account Tags in Customer Care as a means to implement specialized treatment for a designated class of accounts. For example, with this release you can create a special tag intended to designate accounts for Paperless Billing, and then add the tag to individual accounts as needed.Tags are managed through MANAGE > Account Tags. Individual accounts can then be tagged via a new Tags tab in the Account Summary InfoCenter. For details on managing Account Tags in Customer Care, see:

  • Creating Account Tags

  • Account Tags Tab

  Complete instructions for implementing this functionality, including how to omit tagged accounts from Paperless Billing in the Product Catalog, are provided in the Incentivising Paperless Billing article in the IDI Knowledge Center.

• Applying One-time Payments to a Specific Invoice - This new functionality is available when your system is integrated with the Paymentus Payment portal. Refer to Paymentus Integration article - Using Paymentus in Customer Care in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 26.3

• Services and Features Page Enhancements - With this release:

  • The Account-Level section is hidden when there is nothing to display.

  • An estimated MRC for the Account-Level charges is provided as applicable.

  • The service and the account sections now list active items (if any), followed by inactive items and are listed by End Date Desc (newer ones first).

  • The left side of the page provides a new checkbox to exclude one-time charges.

  • The left pane can be scrolled independent of the rest of the page.

Version 26.1

• Vewing and managing AdvancePay products on accounts in Customer Care. See Working with AdvancePay Accounts.

Version 25.12

• The Service OmniSearch provides a new Contains selector option that lets you search for service numbers containing a specified value at any part of the service number. Previously, the selector only provided Starts With and Ends With options.

Version 25.11

• Customer Portal Administration has a new page has a new page that you quickly view and export all Customer Portal users.

Version 25.9

• Service management enhancements - These enhancements let you:

  • Update billing status of a service on the Services and Features page.

  • Filter out disconnected services in the Service selector on the Usage Balance page.

Version 25.7

• Enhancements to Customer Portal administrations to improve administrators' and subscribers' overall user experience:

  • Seamless Single Sign-On (SSO): Enables your subscribers to log in to the Customer Portal using a third-party identity provider such as Okta, Microsoft, or Ping. Benefits include reducing password fatigue and lowering password-related service requests. Additionally, if you offer a self-service portal using an internal or third-party application, such as Salesforce Experience Cloud, SSO lets your subscribers seamlessly navigate from that portal to the IDI Customer Portal, and use the same log-in credentials to access both.

  • Enhanced menu configuration: Customer Portal administrators can customize the user experience by choosing to show or hide specific elements. Administrators now have the ability to enable or disable submenus and subsections.

  These new settings are covered in the Customer Portal Administration topic.

Version 25.6

• Viewing and managing unit balances on services - A new Unit Balances page lets you view and manage a discount category’s unit balance(s) for a service. This page facilitates analyzing a service’s discount unit(s) utilization to better help your customer service representatives answer balance-related questions. See Working with Unit Balances.

Version 25.4

• Integrating Zinier field service management - IDI’s field service management solution, powered by Zinier, lets service providers fully automate their entire service delivery process—from order capture and provisioning to customer communications. Service providers can automate scheduling, optimize route planning, and track field activities in real-time.

  Note

  Field service management is distributed across several functional areas in the IDI platform. Service providers will need to coordinate with IDI account management and Zinier to enable and fully integrate the field service management functionality with their IDI platform. Refer to the Field Service Management article in the IDI Knowledge Center for details.

  The following is supported in Customer Care:

  • When Field Service Management is enabled in your system, the Information Center will include a Work Orders tab (truck icon). How to use this tab (when available) is covered in the InfoCenter > Work Orders tab topic.

Version 25.3

• Using driver license number for CPNI verification - Driver License Number is now an option for CPNI Verification in the CPNI Settings in Customer Care (Manage > Settings. CPNI Settings). This option works in tandem with the other verification methods. When enabled, the Driver’s License Number field will be presented on the CPNI Authentication dialog for an account, labeled as Driver License Number with a blank input field. This prompt behaves consistently with other verification options, such as Account Password Prompt or Security Question/Answer Prompt.

Version 25.2

• Customer Portal profile configuration now supports:

  • Ticket integration and helpful links in the Customer Portal to help you reduce call volume and related expenses for your service centers.

    • Integrating IDI tickets functionality lets your subscribers open and view tickets via their portals. Tickets are presented to subscribers as support requests.

    • The ability to add links (urls) on the Customer Portal Support page gives your subscribers quick access to helpful information.

  • Account lock indicators for port outs and SIM changes in Customer Portal. This is similar to the account lock functionality for Customer Care provided in the 24.11 release. With this functionality:

    • Customer Portal administrators can set up portal profiles to enable/disable subscribers’ ability to set and view account lock settings for SIM changes and port outs.

    • Subscribers can set and view account lock status when the functionality is enabled for them.

    Notes:

    • These settings and corresponding indicators are for information only to provide a warning not to perform these actions. They do not prevent users from performing these actions.

    • Any changes made to SIM Protection or Number Lock status will be passed on to the account in Customer Care and be in effect immediately upon toggling.

    • For more on this, refer to the article on Account Lock Indicators for Port Out and SIM Changes in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 24.11

• New Account Lock indicators for SIM Change and Port Out - In support of FCC compliance guidelines, new settings for SIM Change and Port Out are available when you add or edit an account. When enabled, a corresponding indicator is displayed on the account summary view. See Account Summary.

Version 24.9

• CPNI verification enhancements - The following enhancements will support compliance with FCC title 47, CFR 64.2010:

• New options when you configure CPNI Verification in Customer Care > Manage > Settings >CPNI Settings

  • Prompt for the CPNI Account Password (without displaying the password value)

  • Prompt for the answer to the CPNI Security Question (without displaying the answer)

• Hide Account Information: During CPNI verification of an account, the account information will be shielded from the user.

Version 24.5

Support for storing and displaying census and latitude/longitude information when validating contact addresses

Support for service addresses was added with version 24.4 (below). This release adds support for contact addresses.

Version 24.4

• Store and display census and latitude/longitude information when validating service addresses

  This helps you comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) reporting requirements, and helps ensure taxes are properly applied based on the service address.

  • When using standard (USPS) address validation, this information can be entered manually.

  • Providers that use Cotality (Corelogic) (enhanced addresses validation) can choose to have service addresses validated by CoreLogic. In this case, this information will automatically be retrieved and displayed when an address match is made.

Version 24.3

• Managing Provisioning Object Definition (POD) properties - For providers that use the Provisioning web application, support for managing provisioning properties was added in IDI platform version 24.2 (below). With version 24.3, the following enhancements have been added:

  • An indicator (*) for required fields based on the POD configuration. The indicator denotes any item that is configured as always required or required using advanced options.

  • An indication when a required value is not populated. The system will not allow you to save unless all required fields are populated.

  • A message indicating updates to provisioning properties in Customer Care do not update the provider endpoint.

    See Viewing and Editing Provisioning Information.

• Store and display census information from CoreLogic - When using CoreLogic for advanced address validation, census information is viewable in Customer Care and Audit Log. This helps you comply with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements for reporting census information. The information is stored and viewable on addresses for contact types configured to use advanced address validation.

Version 24.2

• Viewing and editing provisioning properties in Customer Care - When you select an item from the list on the left side of the the Services and Features page, the View menu in the right Details panel provides an option for viewing and editing the item's provisioning properties. See Viewing and Editing Provisioning Information.

Version 23.12

• Support for Customer Portal - IDI’s Customer Portal is an intuitive digital platform that lets your subscribers be more self-sufficient in managing their bills and helps you significantly reduce support costs and call volumes. Subscribers can quickly and easily register for a customer portal account and then have access to a wide range of self-service functions.

  • Your Customer Portal administrator configures and customizes the user (subscriber) experience by managing customer portal profiles in Customer Care MANAGE > Customer Portal Administration. Profiles let you define the default user experience and optionally define alternate user experiences based on the subscriber’s market.

  • Subscriber accounts are managed via the Account > Customer Portal Users menu in Customer Care.

  Note

  Customer Portal is deployed with a Purchased Feature toggle. The toggle is off by default. This makes the application available as a preview version. The preview version will have a watermark/label on all pages. Enabling the Purchased Feature toggle removes the watermark in the application. Work with your account manager to toggle the setting on and remove the watermark. Click here for .

  additional deployment requirements

  URL for Subscriber Access

  For customers that are hosted in IDI’s SaaS data center, the URL to login to a customer portal environment will be:  https://myportal365.com/<environment name>/login

  A service request can be opened to set an alias that can be used in place of the environment in the URL string. The service request should be assigned to the Networking (Saas) team using the Config Item on the Service Request form. This supports a more branded URL. For example: https://myportal365.com/IDIBillingSolutions/login

  For managed service customers, the URL will work the same way; however, a sub-domain specific to the customer will be required in the URL string, following this format: .

  Profile-specific login URLs

  When different login logos or color themes are being used in your Customer Portal profiles, the login URL will need a query string appended to properly display the profile-specific logo and button color. Start with your login URL and append ?loginProfile=<profile name>. Note that the URL cannot have spaces, so if there is a space in your profile name, replace the space with %20.

  Examples:

  • Login URL for Profile name ‘Southwest’ for environment ABC01_P_Production:

  • Login URL for Profile name ‘Southwest Broadband’ for environment ABC01_P_Production:

  • Login URL for Profile name ‘Southwest Broadband’ for alias ABCommunications (replaces environment):

    If you have different profiles, but the logo and theme are the same across your profiles, the additional query string is not needed in the URL. Leaving a profile query string off of the URL will show the login page with the logo and theme on the Default profile.

  Also see the Customer Portal article in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 23.10

• Managing paperless billing incentive on a customer account - On an account, you can toggle the paperless billing flag to opt in or opt out from the Account Details page,  section when you add/edit an account, or from the Billing section on the . You can also view charge/discount information related to paperless billing on invoice summaries.

  Account Summary

  The Billing InfoPanel provides a quick run-down of billing information.

  

  From here you can:

  • view balance information

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  • view the last invoice in Adobe Acrobat Reader/PDF

  • Go to the Invoice page

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  • Go to details for the last payment

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  • Go to the

    Usage page

    

  • Toggle the paperless billing setting for the account to opt in or out

    (More)

    The charge or discount status (applicable or not) is based how the incentive options are configured for the environment and the status of the Paperless Bill setting on the account.

    • First, if the account type is selected to be omitted, all other incentive criteria for the environment and the Paperless Bill setting on the account are ignored. Neither a charge nor a discount will apply.

    • If the account type is not omitted, whether a charge or discount applies is determined by evaluating the other incentive criteria for the environment and Paperless Bill setting on the account as indicated below:

      Incentive and Paperless Bill Settings	Charge or Discount Status
      Incentive option = Charge Paperless Bill for account = Off (opt out)	Charge is applicable
      Incentive option = Charge Paperless Bill for account = On (opt in)	Charge is not applicable
      Incentive option = Discount Require Autopay not checked OR Require Autopay checked and account set up for Autopay Paperless Bill for account = On (opt in)	Discount is applicable
      Incentive option = Discount Require Autopay checked and account not set up for Autopay Paperless Bill for account = On (opt in)	Discount is not applicable
      Incentive option = Discount Paperless Bill for account = Off (opt out) (Require Autopay setting not used in this case)	Discount is not applicable

    The information icon lets you see the reason for applying or not applying a discount or charge. Examples:

    • In this example, the environment is set to apply a charge and the account has opted out of paperless billing:

      

    • In this example, the environment is set up to apply a discount and the account has opted in; however, the environment is also set up to require Autopay but the account is not on Autopay.

      

  Billing Information

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  Aging Group	Establishes when payment is due
  Bill Cycle	Defaults to the Bill Cycle assignment configured in Desktop Client.You can change as needed by clicking the pencil icon. Typically bill cycles are set up such that bill periods occur on a monthly basis with the start and end dates both set to the bill cycle’s specified Day of Month. However, in practice bill periods run from the specified day of month in a given month up to one day before in the next month (for example, 7/15 to 8/14). In other words, a monthly bill period starting on the 15th does not include the 15th of the next month. It actually ends on 14th. Bill cycles set up for your use are viewable via Desktop Client > Tools > References > Bill Cycles Table. Bill Cycle configuration sets Bill Cycle based on selected Account Type, Market and Day. When a customer is created by clicking +New, as the Account Type and Market fields are set, the Bill Cycle will default based on the values entered. The default will use the current date as the Day when determining the default. When a prospect is converted to a customer account, the Bill Cycle will be set based on the Account Type and Market and current date as Day. The Bill Cycle value will update if the Market or Account Type are toggled, and the new default results in a different value. If the Bill Cycle value is overridden, the value will not be updated with the default when the Market or Account Type are toggled. You can revert to the default by clicking the revert icon. When a customer account is cloned, the Bill Cycle value will come from the account being cloned. Override and revert rules as described above will apply.
  Finance Group	Select the Finance Group from the drop-down list. Each finance Group has a set of rules for calculating finance charges, which defines the a grace period (number of days) allowed before a balance becomes past due. This grace period enables the finance group to charge a minimum finance charge.
  Invoice Format	Select the invoice format from the drop-down list (Business Landscape, Residential, and so on).
  Receivable Group	Select the Accounts Receivable Group from the drop-down list.
  Main Billing Number	Number to call for billing inquiries.
  Affinity Group	Select the Affinity Group from the drop-down list, if appropriate. This designates the group to which the affinity commission is computed and reported. Affinity pricing plans pay a commission to an outside organization for a percentage of the total calls charged to a group of customers.
  Home Region	An optional construct to drive usage rating.
  Child Sort Order	An optional construct for corporate accounts.
  Usage Rounding	Impacts how charges for individual calls are displayed: None Conventional - Numbers less than 5 are rounded down to the nearest cent. Numbers equal to or greater than 5 are rounded up to the nearest cent. Up - All usage values are rounded up.
  Finance Charge Exempt	Select/check this check box if the customer is exempt from finance charges.
  Pull Invoice	May be used to pull this invoice from a bill run (for example, if there is a dispute, or some analysis is required before the invoice can be sent).
  Paperless Bill	Check the box to opt in for paperless billing or uncheck to opt out. This may result in a discount for opting in or fee for opting out, depending on setup in the Product Catalog web module. Note You can also toggle this setting in the Billing section on the Account Summary. Additional setup is required for paperless billing. Refer to the article on Paperless Billing (, ) in the IDI Knowledge Center.

  Note: When editing an existing customer, this section will indicate pending bill cycle changes as applicable.

  (Show Picture)

  

  Additional setup is required for paperless billing. Refer to the article on Paperless Billing (, ) in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 23.7

• Support for E911 - This provides the ability to view and manage E911 information on an account. Workflow supports auto-creation of E911 file records when an E911 address is set, changed, or removed. Customer Care also supports manually creating am E911 file record as may be needed for correcting errors and other non-standard cases.See Managing E911 Information.

  This also supports multiple E911 companies. Typically, just one company is required per IDI platform environment; however, multiple E911 companies may be needed to support mergers, acquisitions, and such. This is supported by assigning multiple OCN company links to one or more E911 companies in Admin Console Data Management. Note: The E911 Company configuration that occurred in Admin Console > Businness Rules (by IDI on customer’s behalf) is no longer applicable.

• Invoice Service Summary Enhancement - Total New Charges and Account Charges have been added to the invoice service summary. In addition, whether all tax amounts or just per line tax amounts are included in Account Charges is based on environment configuration. See Invoice Service Summary View.

Version 23.6

• If you have customers eligible for E-Rate funding, Customer Care lets you monitor E-Rate funding on an account via the Billing > E-Rate Funding option in the Customer menu. See Monitoring E-Rate Funding on an Account.

  For complete details on setting up and using E-Rate in the IDI platform, see the article on Managing E-Rate in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 23.4

• Support for Paymentus Payment Vendor - Paymentus is a leading provider of cloud-based bill payment solutions for more than 1,700 billers and financial institutions across North America. Integrating Paymentus and its PCI 3.0 compliant solutions with the system enhances IDI’s full-web front office experience. With this milestone, enhancements in the Customer Care and OnlineBill web modules let you leverage a Paymentus-supported digital payment experience including:

  • Processing transactions for Paypal, Venmo, Google Pay, and Apple Pay channels

  • Support for Processing/Convenience Fees that are automatically calculated and applied to a payment being made

  Note

  You'll need to coordinate with IDI Support/Account Management and Paymentus to enable and fully integrate this functionality. For details on setting up and using this functionality, refer to the article describing Paymentus integration in the IDI Knowledge Center.

• Support for OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) - Credit provider integration has been enhanced to retrieve Transunion’s OFAC Name Screen optional add-on report (6800) and parse the results. OFAC is an office in the US Department of the Treasury that administers and enforces economic and trade sanctions against offending entities. For service providers that use TransUnion as their credit checking agent and use the OFAC screen name report, an OFAC notification alert is returned on a subscriber’s credit report when their name matches a name on the US Department of Treasury’s Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list.

  This can help service providers avoid selling to entities that pose a threat to the US national security, foreign policy or US economy such as targeted foreign countries and regimes, terrorists, and international narcotics traffickers.

  For more on this see the article on Support of OFAC in the IDI Knowledge Center.

Version 23.3

• Master Street Address Guide (MSAG) Validation - Customer Care supports MSAG validation on service addresses. Service addresses are managed on an account via the customer menu Services > Service Addresses option. See MSAG Validation.

  Note

  This functionality requires some setup by IDI and service providers. ()

  More

  Some setup is required specifically to use MSAG Validation in Customer Care, and some is required in general – whether you use it in Customer Care or Desktop Client.

  To use in Customer Care:

  • Enable MSAG validation in Customer Care – This is done via MANAGE > Settings > General > Enable MSAG Validation.

    

  • Set up user roles and permissions - Users responsible for MSAG validation in Customer Care must be assigned a role with Manage Service Address permission in the Security web module.

    The following is required regardless of where you use MSAG validation:

  • Add an MSAG validation node in Config Console – This must be completed by an authorized IDI associate on your behalf.

  • Manage MSAG providers – This is done via Admin Console Data Management as described in Desktop Online Help.

  • Upload MSAG files - MSAG providers generate the addresses that are loaded into the MSAG table. Each MSAG provider you use has a set of records containing location information for the respective Service Addresses. Uploading these files is done via Desktop Client Applications > BackOffice Management > MSAG Management > MSAG File Upload. See Desktop Online Help.

• Managing Directory Listings - Service providers that integrate with a directory listings publishers can now manage directory listings on accounts and services from Customer Care. Previously, Desktop client was required to view and manage these. The new functionality lets you search, view, and manage directory listings is available from Customer Care. This includes the ability to:

  • Export global directory listing search results to provide to your directory listing publisher.

  • Add, edit or delete individual directory listings.

  • View assigned directory listing products on an account that do not have listing information entered (missing listings).

  • Find all instances of assigned directory listing products across all accounts, where listing information has not been entered.

  Note

  If directory listings already exist in your IDI platform prior to this release, those listing will be available for viewing and managing in Customer Care.

  See Managing Directory Listings.

• Refresh Service via web applications - Wireless carriers that use the Desktop Client refresh service functionality can now perform the same action in the web orders applications (Orders or Customer Care). In Customer Care, the refresh action will be available to authorized users in the Actions menu for a service. Refer to the article for Refresh Service Via Web Applications in the IDI Knowledge Center for complete information including setup prerequisites.

Version 22.10

• Viewing and allocating balance items by invoice category

  The Balances page lets you:

  • View Invoice amounts (new charges, payments, adustments, etc…) by invoice category

  • View total balance and aging buckets by invoice category

  • Allocate a bill payment to one or more invoices or invoice categories

  • Allocate an adjustment to a specific invoice and/or invoice category

  • View invoice category on settlement data

Version 22.8

• Automate clearing tax jurisdiction overrides on address change

  A new setting (MANAGE > Settings) lets you choose to automate clearing tax jurisdiction overrides that are no longer applicable when the address that determines tax jurisdiction is changed.

Version 22.7

• Client Bridge - supports seamless transitioning from the web application to these Desktop Client applications:

  • Customer Management – Customer window > Summary tab.

  • POS Make Sale – With an account open in Customer Care, you can open the Make Sale form with the account information pre-loaded.

  • Generic Make Sale – This opens a blank Make Sale form where you need to enter the customer information to initiate a sale for a new customer.

  • POS Make Quick Sale – This also opens a blank Make Sale form.

  • POS Tender Bill Payment - With an account open in Customer Care, you can open the Tender Bill Payment form with the account information pre-loaded.

  In all cases, if  are followed, there is no need to log in on transitioning to the Desktop Client.

  browser recommendations

  To use the CostGuard Client Navigation links, IDI recommends using the Microsoft Edge browser for the best user experience. If using Google Chrome, users will need to install a Chrome ClickOnce extension. Using Chrome without the extension will require you to re-log in and use Customer Search to open the applicable account.

  Note

  You may also add a Chrome ClickOnce extension to Microsoft Edge. This further streamlines transitioning to CostGuard Client by eliminating an Open this file warning/step.

  Note

  Customers can download any ClickOnce extension from the Chrome store. The following Chrome ClickOnce extensions have been tested for use with this functionality. These are third-party extensions and are not created or supported by IDI.

  • Option 1: Meta4 ClickOnce Launcher - Link

  • Option 2: Windows Remix ClickOnce Handler - Link

  • Option 3: ClickOnce for Google Chrome - Link

    Note

    If your organization has special security concerns and places any restrictions on Windows default behavior for ClickOnce functionality, you may need to consult with your IT team to ensure Client Bridge functionality works properly in your system. This applies whether you use Microsoft Edge (with or without extensions) or Google Chrome.

  Integrated Security must be enabled in the environments where you intend to use this functionality. This requires assistance from an authorized IDI associate. For more on Integrated Security and how to enable, refer to the IDI Knowledge Center article here.

  There are two settings that must be enabled to make this functionality available in Customer Care. The settings are located under MANAGE > Settings > General > Desktop Client Navigation.

  For more on this see, Client Bridge.

Version 22.6

• Reversing service fees on reconnect - This release provides several new enhancements to reconnect customer and reconnect service functionality. The reconnection process now gives you additional options and flexibility to determine how the system restarts final billed products and facilitate returning the customer's service to its original state:

  • Restart Billing Charges – This updates the start date on recurring billing charges to the reconnection date, giving you an option to bill for a partial month of service and recoup additional revenue. Before this solution, you could only choose the Reconnect Final Billed Items option which continues billing the monthly charges as if the service was never disconnected and will not prorate the customer for a partial month of service.

  • Choose to exclude one time charges – This new option lets you exclude reconnecting previously invoiced one time charges, such as setup or installation charges. Prior to this solution, the reconnection process would reconnect and bill for a customer’s one-time charges.

  The solution also provides new Order Field Configuration options that let IDI platform administrators default or restrict all the new and existing Reconnect Information fields based on your organization's business rules.

  See Reversing Service Fees on Reconnect.

Version 22.4

• Support for Direct Invoicing - This supports the enhanced direct invoice functionality that aligns direct invoicing functionality with web sales and starting blocks. When direct invoicing is enabled in your system:

  • A new Direct Invoice starting block facilitates initiating and completing a direct invoice transaction tailored for that user experience

  • The Orders menu provides a new option for viewing Direct Invoice History. This functionality is similar to the Order History page. Clicking a Direct Invoice link (far left column) takes you to the transaction in the Orders web module. See Direct Invoice History Page.

Release History

For a summary of previous releases, see Earlier Release History.