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Caution: Do not modify a provider contract if SAP Convergent Charging is already interfaced with a CRM application or an external provisioning system responsible for managing provider contracts. Refer to the caution for provider contracts. |
SAP Convergent Charging enables you to share a counter with several provider contracts linked to the same parent provider contract. This means that only one counter is created and used by the charges and the refill logic of several provider contracts at the same time. A counter share is defined for a version of a provider contract. You can change the counter share level in another version of the provider contract.
You configure:
A charge plan for the parent contract; It configures the reset of the shared counter.
A charge plan for the linked contracts; It configures the pricing logic that is based on the counter shared by a parent contract.
Example
A central provider contract shares some counters for credit pooling. A linked contract reuses a counter of its parent contract during the first year. After this period, the linked contract uses its own counter.
The following prerequisites must be fulfilled to share a counter with some provider contracts.
You do not use the counter in contract items activating a monitoring plan set with this counter.
In each charge plan or refill plan that will be part of the parent contract or the linked contracts, you must:
Declare the counter with the same name. Note that you must choose this name in the counter dictionary.
Set the visibility of the counter to External (*).
(*) Only in charge plans. The visibility of counters is always external in refill plans.
Apply the following procedure.
To share a counter
Create or modify the provider contract that will be the parent contract.
Share the counter share with linked contracts.
Create or modify the provider contracts.
At charge plan and refill plan levels, check that the prerequisites are fulfilled.
Share the counter (*). For SAP Convergent Charging, this modifies:
The provider contract whose items reference the charge plans and the refill plan which contain the counter
The counter of each contract item which is assigned the Shared status
(*) This step must be performed from a CRM application or an external system through SAP Convergent Charging Web Services.
In addition, you can define a namespace for a shared counter (*). The namespace enables you to use the same counter name from the counter dictionary in different contexts. The pair (counter name, namespace) is unique and is used to identify the shared counter.
Example
A counter called FREE_UNITS can be used in the namespace SMS and in the namespace VOICE. In that case, two different counters with the same name will be created and used separately inside the same provider contract.
The procedure to initialize and reset the shared counter consists in creating an additional charge plan which contains a dedicated parameter. This charge plan is then referenced by an item of the parent provider contract containing the shared counter.
The procedure consists of the following steps:
Create a charge dedicated to initializing the shared counter.
Create a charge plan containing this charge.
Insert the charge plan in the provider contract.
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Caution: Do not initialize the same counter twice. |
To create a charge dedicated to initializing the shared counter
Create a charge.
Add a one-shot rate, a persistent counter, and a parameter to the charge. Note that the parameter enables you to initialize the counter at provider contract level.
Set the Event Name to Activation in the Definition tab of the one-shot rate.
Add a Counter Operator component to the one-shot rate.
Set the counter to the value of the parameter in the Counter Operator component (*).
(*) See the online Help of components for more information about one-shot rates and counter operators (help resources).
To create a charge plan containing this charge
Create a charge plan.
Add the charge to the charge plan.
Create the counter to be shared with the visibility option set to External in the charge plan. Do not forget to use the same name as previously.
Link the counter to the counter declared in the charge.
Define a parameter, and then link the parameter with the visibility External (Mandatory) to the parameter declared in the charge.
Insert the charge plan in the provider contract
Create a new contract item referencing the charge plan dedicated to initializing the shared counter.
Set the status of the counter to Shared.
Specify the same namespace as for the other contract items, if needed.
Set the parameter linked to that of the charge to the value needed to initialize the shared counter.