Charge a Single Chargeable Item (Offline Charging)

Service Operation (WS)

Definition

To charge a single chargeable item (offline charging operation) that represents the consumption or usage of a digital service by an end customer

Technical Data

Software Product and Version SAP Convergent Charging 5.0
Technical Details chargeableItemCharge
Namespace http://charging.ws.highdeal.com/
Proxy Instance in SAP CC System Dispatcher
Service Operation Version 0
Application Area IS-CC
Direction inbound
Mode synchronous
Idempotency false

Business Context and Use

This service operation allows you to charge a single chargeable item to the relevant accounts (prepaid or external postpaid) that relate to the end customer who consumed the digital service or relate to another payers. The chargeable item includes the necessary service consumption information.

Note

In a soft real-time scenario, you can implement this operation to manage direct debits in prepaid or postpaid environments.

Charging

The Charging process rates (dynamic pricing) and charges received chargeable items representing customer service usages by calculating their monetary amounts, and by identifying the accounts to charge for the service consumption and other fees. Depending on the type of the charging operation request, the monetary amount is either debited from the account or simply reserved for authorization.

The charging operations generate multiple data files (aka item files) for billing or invoicing purposes that the bulk loading process of SAP Convergent Charging can transfer to third-party systems such as billing or invoicing systems. For example, in an integrated SAP Solution scenario with SAP ERP in SAP Business Suite or S/4HANA, SAP CC posts billable items and consumption items to SAP Convergent Invoicing (SAP CI). Refer to the integration guides.

Consult the SAP Application Help for more information and user assistance.

Related Service Operations

You can also use the following operations to charge chargeable items:

Features

The service operation impacts the identified subscriber account and the charging contract of the end customer.

You define the behavior of this operation by modifying its context.

Result Configuration
You can specify if the operation result includes:
  • Information about the charging process
  • Information about the identified target charging contract
  • Information about the charged chargeable item
  • Information about the generated accounting operation(s) for billing or reporting purposes
  • Information about the charged account(s)
  • Information about the generated charged item(s)
  • Information about the generated business notification(s)
  • Information about the errors

The list of possible options is the following:

  • Sender Information (see senderInfo)
    • jobId: specifies an identifier for the sender of the operation; it is your customized client system or application.
  • Charging Operation Output (see chargingOutputContext)
    • chargeableItemExported: specifies if the rater instances of the SAP CC system must store the chargeable items into data files
  • Operation Result (see chargingResultContext)
    • chargingProcessInfoReturned: specifies if information about the charging process must be returned in the result
    • chargingContractInfoReturned: specifies if information about the target charging contract must be returned in the result
    • chargeableItemInfoReturned: specifies if information about the chargeable item must be returned in the result
    • accountOperationReturned: specifies if the generated account operations must be returned in the result
    • accountInfoReturned: specifies if information about the impacted accounts must be returned in the result
    • chargedItemReturned: specifies if the generated charged items must be returned in the result
    • notificationReturned: specifies if the generated notifications must be returned in the result
  • Operation Result on Errors (see chargingResultOnErrorContext)
    • notificationReturned: specifies if the notifications generated when an error occurs must be returned in the result (for example, the notifications generated by the No Access component in a price plan)

Authorizations

To know the role that is expected in the user profile of the SAP CC user specified in your request messages, refer to the SAP CC Security Guide .

Error Handling

The SAP CC system may return a charging error classified into a category and an error stack detailing the issue and its cause.

Reasons

The error may include a reason if the operation request failed because of a business configuration error (system or data). The following reasons are available:

Out of Validity Period The charging contract is not active at the service consumption date of the chargeable item
Not Authorized The user technical identifier (UTI) and service identifier (SID) of the chargeable item specified do not correspond to a charging contract
Account Blocked The target account is blocked in the subscriber account stored in customer master data
Account Locked The target account is locked
Account Closed The target account is closed
Cannot Charge Account The target account cannot be charged (for example because of incompatible currencies)

Categories

Use the following error categories to customize the behavior of your application or system:

Prerequisite Missing The master data required for the execution of the operation request is missing, or the request is incorrect and does not target the correct master data.

Applicable for this service operation: Next follows a non-exhaustive list of errors linked to the Prerequisite Missing category:

  • The user technical identifier (UTI) from the end customer and the service identifier (SID) of the chargeable item specified do not correspond to a charging contract
  • The access data is not found

Invalid The parameters of the request are not valid. The request must be corrected before sending it again.

Applicable for this service operation: Next follows a non-exhaustive list of errors linked to the Invalid category:

  • A user property of the chargeable item specified is not valid or missing

Invalid Configuration The configuration of the SAP CC system is not valid. It must be corrected before sending the request again.

Applicable for this service operation: Next follows a non-exhaustive list of errors linked to the Invalid Configuration category:

  • Division by zero during the rating (dynamic pricing)
  • Incompatile currencies between the pricing logic and the customer master data

Illegal State The master data used by the operation is not in a valid state. This is usually a normal behavior of the process and should be acknowledged as a failure.

Applicable for this service operation: Next follows a non-exhaustive list of errors linked to the Illegal State category:

  • The identified account to be charged is blocked, locked, or closed
  • The corresponding charging contract is locked by a recharging operation
  • Not authorized
  • Out of validity period
  • Cannot charge prepaid account

Temporary Illegal System State The connected SAP CC system is currently not in an appropriate state to execute the operation request. The request can usually be sent again later without any modification. If the error persists, the system administrators must be informed about it.

Applicable for this service operation

Illegal System State The operation request failed because of a technical error or an unexpected issue. The system administrators must be informed about this error.

Applicable for this service operation

Note

This list of errors is not exhaustive.

Troubleshooting

Refer to the SAP CC Error Code Reference ( SAP Site ) for more information about a returned error code and the corrective actions necessary for troubleshooting your implementation project.

Message Types

Consult the structures of the message types related to this service operation :

Prerequisites

  • The chargeable item class corresponding to the chargeable item exists
  • The user technical identifier (UTI) and service identifier (SID) of the chargeable item exist at the consumption date
  • The user properties of the chargeable item are valid
  • The relevant charging contract is not locked by a recharging operation

Integration

There is no specific integration information.

Constraints and Integrity Conditions

There is no specific constraint.

Notes on SAP CC Implementation

You must have installed and configured the SAP CC Core Server system.

Configuration

Consult the SAP CC Configuration and Implementation Guide to know the necessary configuration or Customizing of the SAP CC system.

Before implementing SAP Convergent Charging in your SAP system landscape, you must configure the systems and the data (master data, business data).