A PPU subscription containing a metered resource has a cost per use of this resource as time goes by within a given timeframe (billing period). However, there are often times when these metered resources exceed the soft quotas imposed on those resources in the service definition, and as a result, this extra usage is considered overage.
A typical example is the bandwidth of a Virtual Machine. If, for a Virtual Machine offering, the bandwidth quota has been set to 2 TBs/month and the end user of the VM has consumed 2.3 TBs in a month, then the end customer must be billed for the extra 0.3 TBs he consumed.
For billing resources overage, the Usage Data import tool was created to meet this need. Let’s further examine its use case.
Locating the Usage Data Importer
The Usage Data importer tool can be found in BSS by navigating to BSS > Billing > Usage Data.
Within this tool, the BSS user can import usage records with overage and the initial quantities of newly created PPU Subscriptions, from manually created Excel spreadsheets, directly into Cloud BSS.
Preparation Before Importing Overage Usage Records
As previously mentioned, BSS users can import usage records with overage while the initial quantity of newly created PPU Subscriptions is automatically been filled-in with the default value of one(1).
The BSS user must first create an Excel spreadsheet with six (6) distinct column titles, namely, AccountCode*, Subscription, Resource, Quantity, Start Date, End Date.
Then, to import usage records with overage into the Usage Data tool, each row must be filled in with the respective data representing the Account identifier(be that the account description or account code or another custom account field), the Subscription name, the Resource name of that subscription, the quantity of the overage(not the total resource consumption but only the amount that is considered overaged), and the Start and End Date of the billing period.
Also, during the first import, the initial quantity of a newly created PPU Subscription will be filled in automatically by the system with the default value of one(1). Therefore, this action of defining the PPU subscription quantity is handled directly and automatically by the system during the first import of usage records and overages for newly created PPU subscriptions. Furthermore, deleting the import file will not decrease the subscription quantity down to 0.
Once the Excel file is created and saved, the BSS user can continue with the import.
Importing Overage Usage Records
To begin the import of the Excel spreadsheet containing the overages per Subscription resource, per BSS Account, the BSS user can proceed with the following steps:
Click on the Import File button.
Choose the previously created Excel file, by clicking on the Browse button,
and then choose the specific spreadsheet that you wish to import.
Once the Excel spreadsheet is loaded, you have to map the required fields of the import tool with those defined in the Excel spreadsheet columns.
These are the following:
Account Identifier* (Mandatory): The account identifier is used to make sure which account the usage record is for.
Subscription (Mandatory): The name of the subscription for which the usage record is for.
Resource (Non-mandatory): The name of the product characteristic. If this field does not contain any value, it means that the specific record refers to a pay-per-use charge for this subscription.
Quantity (Mandatory): The quantity that needs to be billed/subtracted.
Start Date (Mandatory): The date that this resource was consumed. In case of a metered resource, it is the starting date of the measuring period (billing period).
End Date (Non-mandatory): This field is only used for metered resources since it defines the end of the measuring period (billing period).
*As previously mentioned, the Account Identifier field, during the mapping process, can be any Account Identifier or Account Custom Field that the BSS user wishes to utilize in order to map the overages to a specific BSS Account containing the specific PPU subscription. Therefore, the Usage Data import field called Account Identifier facilitates exactly that freedom of choice by utilizing a drop-down menu containing all the available BSS Account identifiers (such as the Account Code or Account Description) and any predefined Account Custom Fields (such as the Custom Acc Identifier).
Please note that the usage data records need to comply with the following rules, in order to be successfully imported:
The value of the Account Identifier in the import Excel file must be the value of the selected Account Identifier.
The selected resource needs to be activated for usage-based charging for the product of the specific subscription.
The selected subscription must belong to the selected Account.
The quantity can be negative only when the usage record is used to increase or decrease the quantity of the subscription.
In case the resource is a metered one, then the end date is a mandatory field.
The selected subscription doesn't have to be an active one. But the start and end date need to belong to a period of time that the specific subscription was indeed active.
Both the Start and End dates need to be older than or the same as the date that the import wizard ran.
When charging a product in PPU mode, the Start Date of the usage record cannot be older than the Start Date of the specific subscription. The same applies to the Start Date of a usage record of an allocated resource, as well.
In the case of a usage record with a metered resource, Start Day can be set to anything.
End Date must always be bigger than the Start Day.
In case the value of the Account Identifier is not unique per Account (for example, two Accounts have the same Accounting No.), then the update is performed at the most recent account.
When the Account Identifier field has been matched with the respective Excel column, and all other fields have been mapped to their respective Excel spreadsheet columns, the BSS user can click on the Run Import button to initiate it.
The import of the overaged usage charges is initiated. The actions of the importer tool for every usage record are the following.
PPU Mode (change in the subscription quantity): Two things happen when a usage record file refers to a PPU product:
The usage record gets connected to the subscription, and the record can be shown on the "Pay-per-use Data" tab of the Subscription view page.
The subscription quantity changes according to the quantity declared in the usage record.
Metered Resource: In this case, the usage record gets connected to the subscription, and the record can be shown on the "Metered Resources" tab of the Subscription view page.
⚠️ If an Account has two or more subscriptions with the same name, the resources get connected to the most recent one.
Upon the completion of the import, the imported usage records will be related to the corresponding subscriptions.
Viewing the Import Results
When clicking on the view log highlighted text, under the Log File column, the user gets navigated to the Import Results pop-up window. In there, the user can check two main elemental information.
The Summary of the import process, which contains information such as the start and completion date as well as the import status and the comments of the import.
The Detailed log of the import process, which contains granular information detailing the steps of the importer per each import sub-tasks.
Viewing the Usage Data Object
When clicking on the submission page, the user gets navigated to the Usage Data object view page.
On this page, the following sections exist:
Basic Information: Submission Date, Source Type, Source Name, Log File, Status.
Import Results: Three fields are shown here, the amount of total usage records, the amount of successful imports, and the amount of failed ones.
Notifications & Updates Section: The section that can be seen in every object in BSS.
Detailed Log All records stemming from the import through the Import File Wizard or the call of the import API can be seen here. Two tabs can be shown in this section, and in each tab, 10 records can be viewed.
"Failed" tab: In this tab, the user can not view the failed records, but they are also offered the opportunity to fix the problems faced during import and resubmit these records.
To this end, in this tab, there can be seen the following:
The 6 aforementioned fields that every usage record has, but in text mode, so that the user is able to edit them.
Errors Found for the specific record. For example:
For errors related to the Account Identifier, the error message is dynamic and shown as: <Selected account identifier name> is Undefined
Error related to the Subscription: Subscription is Undefined
Error related to the Resource: Resource is Undefined
Errors related to the date fields: Start Date must be subsequent to Subscription SignUp Date, Start Date must be subsequent to Subscription Start Date for Pay-per user charges, Start Date must be subsequent to Subscription Start Date for allocated resources, End Date Cannot be after Current Date, Start Date must be an earlier date than End Date, etc.
The problematic field, with red color.
In case the problematic field is the Account Identifier, the user cannot change the Account Identifier that was previously selected in STEP 2. If they want to change it anyway, they must cancel this import and start a new one.
"Successful" tab: In this tab, the user can view the successful records.
More specifically, they can see the following:
Customer: Link to the customer for whom the usage record is.
Subscription: Link to the subscription involved in the process.
Resource: The name of the resource.
Usage Type: Pay-per-use/ Metered/ Allocation.
Charge Entity: In case of a PPU product, this is a link to the product charged. In of a metered/ allocated resource, this is a link to the add-on to be charged.
Start Date.
Quantity.
Unit of Measure: The unit of measure of the product/ add-on derived from charge entity field.
Billed: A green checkbox in case the usage record has already been invoiced.
Actions available on this page:
"Apply changes and perform import again": This action is only available in the "Failed" tab and offers to the user the opportunity to re-import fixed usage records. The results of this action are:
If the import is not done immediately, the view returns to the list of the usage data objects, and the status of the specific object becomes "Import in progress". If the import is done immediately, the view page gets refreshed.
The indices for the amount of successfully imported/ failed records get updated.
In the history of this usage data object, an entry can be seen bearing the comment "Imported X corrected records".
"Export": This action is available to both tabs, and it allows the user to export the usage data records of each tab in an Excel file.
Invoicing of the Usage Data After the Import
Since the importing of the metered resources is allowed for previous billing cycles, as well as the current billing cycle, a Pending invoice is created containing the metered resource(s) as invoice item(s), the billing period will be the start date as defined in the Excel spreadsheet, and as end date, it will be the end date of the corresponding subscription billing cycle. Also, the Due Date will be the date that the import took place (current date), regardless of other billing factors. This applies to pending invoices created for the current, as well as for the previous billing cycles. The pending invoices of the past billing cycles will be displayed in the Pending Invoices of the Subscription, even though they belong to a different billing cycle, and once a user selects to Generate the Invoices, these pending invoices will be generated as well.