Application Help SAP Convergent Charging (SAP CC 4.0) Target Audience

Solution and technology consultants

Implementation project teams

Application and system administrators

Support specialists

CUSTOMER Document version: 1.2 April 2014

CAUTION Before you start the implementation, make sure you have the latest version of this document. You can find the latest version at the following locations:

https://service.sap.com/instguidescc40 Plan

https://service.sap.com/instguides SAP Business Suite Applications SAP Convergent Charging SAP CC 4.0 Plan

The following table provides an overview of the most important document changes.

Version Date Description

1.0 August 2013 Initial version

1.1 November 2013 First maintenance version (4.0 SP02)

1.2 April 2014 Second maintenance version (4.0 SP04)

DOCUMENT HISTORY ...................................................................................................................... 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS ....................................................................................................................... 3

BEFORE YOU START.............................................................................................................. 11

Target Audience ..................................................................................................................................... 11

Fundamental Guides .............................................................................................................................. 11

Additional Information .......................................................................................................................... 11

GETTING STARTED ............................................................................................................... 12

About this Document ............................................................................................................................. 12

What's new in this document ................................................................................................................ 12 Whats new in SP04 ........................................................................................................................................... 12

Document Abbreviations ....................................................................................................................... 12

OVERVIEW ......................................................................................................................... 15

Presentation .......................................................................................................................................... 15

Technical System Landscape ................................................................................................................. 17

FEATURES .......................................................................................................................... 19

Product Modeling .................................................................................................................................. 19

Order Management ............................................................................................................................... 19 Enterprise Credit Pooling ................................................................................................................................... 19

Allowance Management ........................................................................................................................ 19 Allowance Modeling .......................................................................................................................................... 19 Allowance Usage Modeling ............................................................................................................................... 20 Limitation .......................................................................................................................................................... 20

Chargeable Items Acquisition ................................................................................................................ 20

Online Charging ..................................................................................................................................... 21

Offline Charging ..................................................................................................................................... 23

Deferred Charging .................................................................................................................................. 24

Manual Capturing .................................................................................................................................. 25

Data Files Bulkloading ............................................................................................................................ 26

Chargeable Items Rerating .................................................................................................................... 26 Rerating Operations using the BART Server ...................................................................................................... 27 Rerating Operations using SAP Convergent Invoicing ....................................................................................... 28

Prepaid Accounts Refilling ..................................................................................................................... 28

Tax Calculation ....................................................................................................................................... 29 Preconfigured EU VAT Rules .............................................................................................................................. 29

Charged Items Aggregation ................................................................................................................... 30

Real-Time Credit-Control ....................................................................................................................... 35

Spending Status Monitoring .................................................................................................................. 36 Feature Configuration ....................................................................................................................................... 37 Integration with a policy or monitoring system ................................................................................................ 37 Spending Status Reporting ................................................................................................................................ 38

Functions and Mechanism Details .................................................................................................................... 38 Limitations ......................................................................................................................................................... 38

High Availability ..................................................................................................................................... 39 Hardware High Availability ............................................................................................................................... 39 Software High Availability ................................................................................................................................. 39

Heartbeat ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 39 Oracle failover mechanism ................................................................................................................................................................. 39 MS SQL Server failover mechanism .................................................................................................................................................... 41

High Volume Management .................................................................................................................... 41 Routing mechanisms ......................................................................................................................................... 42

Partitioning routing ............................................................................................................................................................................ 42 Round-robin routing ........................................................................................................................................................................... 43 Multicast routing ................................................................................................................................................................................ 43

Caching policies ................................................................................................................................................. 43 Configurable caches ........................................................................................................................................................................... 44 Auto-sized caches ............................................................................................................................................................................... 45 Cache warm-up .................................................................................................................................................................................. 46 Synthesis ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 47

Batch rating group management ...................................................................................................................... 48

Data Auditing ......................................................................................................................................... 49 User Operations Auditing .................................................................................................................................. 49 Fine-grained Auditing ........................................................................................................................................ 50 Auditing of Single and Mass Operations ........................................................................................................... 51

Data Purging .......................................................................................................................................... 52 Allowances Purge .............................................................................................................................................. 52

Enhanced Logging and Tracing Framework ........................................................................................... 53 Logging .............................................................................................................................................................. 54

Severity Levels .................................................................................................................................................................................... 54 Categories .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 55

Tracing .............................................................................................................................................................. 56 Severity Levels .................................................................................................................................................................................... 57 Domains ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 57

Output Formats ................................................................................................................................................. 57 List Format ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 58 Trace Format ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 58 XML Format ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 59

Output Destinations .......................................................................................................................................... 59 Configuration .................................................................................................................................................... 60 SAP Passport Handling ...................................................................................................................................... 60

Logging and Tracing Framework of Diameter Server ............................................................................ 62 Output Format .................................................................................................................................................. 62 Configuration .................................................................................................................................................... 62

ARCHITECTURE .................................................................................................................... 63

Synthetic overview ................................................................................................................................ 63

Components and Tools .......................................................................................................................... 65 Core Server ........................................................................................................................................................ 65

Core Tool ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 65 Setup Tool .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 66 Config Tool ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 66 Admin+ ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 67 HTTP Client ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 67 Dispatcher .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 68 Guider ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 69 Rater .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 69

Updater .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 70 Taxer .................................................................................................................................................................................................. 71 Bulkloader .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 71 Synthesis ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 72

BART Server ....................................................................................................................................................... 75 BART Tool ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 75 BART Setup Tool ................................................................................................................................................................................. 75 BART+ ................................................................................................................................................................................................. 75

Diameter Server ................................................................................................................................................ 77 Communications Taxing Server ......................................................................................................................... 80 Simulation Tool.................................................................................................................................................. 81 IEC ..................................................................................................................................................................... 81 Databases .......................................................................................................................................................... 82

Core Database .................................................................................................................................................................................... 82 BART Database ................................................................................................................................................................................... 82 IEC Database ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 82 Database technologies ....................................................................................................................................................................... 82 Database editions............................................................................................................................................................................... 82 Database partitioning ......................................................................................................................................................................... 83

MASTER DATA .................................................................................................................... 88

Master Data for the Service Provider .................................................................................................... 89 Product .............................................................................................................................................................. 89 Service Provider ................................................................................................................................................. 90 Catalog .............................................................................................................................................................. 90 Chargeable item ................................................................................................................................................ 90

Chargeable item class......................................................................................................................................................................... 91 Chargeable item package ................................................................................................................................................................... 91

Charged item ..................................................................................................................................................... 91 Charged item class ............................................................................................................................................................................. 91 Charged item mapping ....................................................................................................................................................................... 91

Billable item....................................................................................................................................................... 91 Billable item class ............................................................................................................................................................................... 91 Billable item mapping ........................................................................................................................................................................ 92

Consumption item ............................................................................................................................................. 92 Consumption item class ..................................................................................................................................................................... 92 Consumption item mapping ............................................................................................................................................................... 92

Charge ............................................................................................................................................................... 92 Master and dependent charges ......................................................................................................................................................... 93 Combination of charges ..................................................................................................................................................................... 93

Counter .............................................................................................................................................................. 93 Persistent and transient counters ...................................................................................................................................................... 93 Counter redefinition ........................................................................................................................................................................... 94 Counter sharing .................................................................................................................................................................................. 94 Counter creation in a provider contract ............................................................................................................................................. 95 Counter creation in a subscription ..................................................................................................................................................... 95

Price Plan ........................................................................................................................................................... 96 Price plan components ....................................................................................................................................................................... 96 Counters ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 96 Parameters ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 96 Pricing macros .................................................................................................................................................................................... 97 Translation tables ............................................................................................................................................................................... 97 Tier tables .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 97 Mapping tables and mapping table classes ........................................................................................................................................ 98 Price table .......................................................................................................................................................................................... 98 Range tables and range table classes ................................................................................................................................................. 99

Charging Plan .................................................................................................................................................... 99 Charging plan components .............................................................................................................................................................. 100

Offer ................................................................................................................................................................ 100

Aggregation Policy .......................................................................................................................................... 101 Charge Plan ..................................................................................................................................................... 101

Combination of charge plans ........................................................................................................................................................... 101 Charges and dependencies .............................................................................................................................................................. 102 Counters and parameters ................................................................................................................................................................ 102 User Technical Identifiers ................................................................................................................................................................. 102 Expected Account Assignments........................................................................................................................................................ 103 Versions ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 103 Lifecycle ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 103 Counter name dictionary ................................................................................................................................................................. 103

Customized Charge .......................................................................................................................................... 103 Counters ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 104 Parameters ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 104 Tax Settings ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 104 Configuration of the generation of charged items ........................................................................................................................... 105 Configuration of the generation of response items ......................................................................................................................... 106 Charging reference mapping ............................................................................................................................................................ 106 Service ID declaration....................................................................................................................................................................... 106

Refill Item ........................................................................................................................................................ 106 Refill item class ................................................................................................................................................................................. 106

Refill Record .................................................................................................................................................... 106 Refill record class ............................................................................................................................................................................. 106

Refill Logic ....................................................................................................................................................... 107 Components ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 107

Refill Plan......................................................................................................................................................... 107 Combination ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 107 Counters and parameters ................................................................................................................................................................ 108 Counter sharing at provider contract level ....................................................................................................................................... 108 Parameter redefinition at provider contract level ............................................................................................................................ 108 User Technical Identifiers ................................................................................................................................................................. 108 Expected account assignment .......................................................................................................................................................... 108 Versions ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 108 Lifecycle ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 108 Counter name dictionary ................................................................................................................................................................. 109

Customized Refill Logic .................................................................................................................................... 109 Counters ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 109 Parameters ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 109 Configuration of the generation of the refill records ....................................................................................................................... 109 Charging reference attributions ....................................................................................................................................................... 109 Service ID declaration....................................................................................................................................................................... 109

Monitoring Plan .............................................................................................................................................. 110 Spending threshold settings ............................................................................................................................................................. 110 Versions ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 111 Lifecycle ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 111 Counter name dictionary ................................................................................................................................................................. 111 Spending status descriptions ............................................................................................................................................................ 111

Allowance Event .............................................................................................................................................. 111 Allowance Event Class ...................................................................................................................................................................... 112

Allowance Logic ............................................................................................................................................... 112 Components ..................................................................................................................................................................................... 112 Persistent counters .......................................................................................................................................................................... 112 Transient counters ........................................................................................................................................................................... 112 Parameters ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 112

Customized Allowance Logic ........................................................................................................................... 113 Allowance Plan ................................................................................................................................................ 113

Life cycle ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 113 Versions ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 113

Allowance Interface......................................................................................................................................... 113 Allowance Definition Table and Allowance Definition Table Class .................................................................. 113

Master Data for the Customer............................................................................................................. 114 Access .............................................................................................................................................................. 114 Subscriber Account .......................................................................................................................................... 114

Tax settings ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 115 Prepaid balance ................................................................................................................................................................................ 116 External account .............................................................................................................................................................................. 116 Credit-limit balance .......................................................................................................................................................................... 116 Alerts and notifications .................................................................................................................................................................... 117

Business Data Tables ....................................................................................................................................... 117 Subscriber mapping tables ............................................................................................................................................................... 117 Subscriber range tables .................................................................................................................................................................... 117

Subscription ..................................................................................................................................................... 117 Provider Contract ............................................................................................................................................ 118

Contract item ................................................................................................................................................................................... 118 Activated plan (charge plans and a refill plan) ................................................................................................................................. 119 Shared counter ................................................................................................................................................................................. 119 Version ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 120

Contract item .................................................................................................................................................. 120 Charge activation ............................................................................................................................................................................. 120 Counter and counter share .............................................................................................................................................................. 121 Account assignment ......................................................................................................................................................................... 121 Technical data and user technical identifiers ................................................................................................................................... 121

Allowance ........................................................................................................................................................ 121 Charge activation ............................................................................................................................................................................. 121 Currency ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 122 Allowance Validity Period................................................................................................................................................................. 122 Counters ........................................................................................................................................................................................... 122 Parameters ....................................................................................................................................................................................... 122 Sharing ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 122

BART Server Master Data .................................................................................................................... 122 CDR (Consumption Detail Record) ................................................................................................................... 122

CDR fields ......................................................................................................................................................................................... 123 CDR properties ................................................................................................................................................................................. 124

Diameter Server Master Data .............................................................................................................. 124 CCR (Credit Control Request) ........................................................................................................................... 124 CCA (Credit Control Answer) ............................................................................................................................ 125

PROCESSES AND FUNCTIONS .................................................................................................. 128

Activation Process ................................................................................................................................ 128 Process Description ......................................................................................................................................... 128

Activation and Allowances ............................................................................................................................................................... 129 Activation and Linked Contracts ....................................................................................................................................................... 129

External Triggering of the Activation Process ................................................................................................. 129 Internal Triggering of the Activation Process .................................................................................................. 130 Bulk Execution of the Activation Process ......................................................................................................... 130 Activation Process and Dependent Charges .................................................................................................... 131 Transactions generated by the Activation Process ......................................................................................... 132

Product Modeling Process ................................................................................................................... 132 Process Description ......................................................................................................................................... 132

CHARGES (MASTER) ..................................................................................................................... 132

CHARGES (DEPENDENT) ................................................................................................................ 132

CHARGE PLANS ........................................................................................................................... 132

OFFERS ..................................................................................................................................... 132

PRICING MACROS ........................................................................................................................ 132

TRANSLATION TABLES ................................................................................................................... 132

TIER TABLES ............................................................................................................................... 132

MAPPING TABLES AND CLASSES ....................................................................................................... 132

PRICE TABLES AND CLASS ............................................................................................................... 132

Data Distribution ............................................................................................................................................. 133 Cached Structures Refreshing.......................................................................................................................... 133 Process Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 133 Stateless Mode ................................................................................................................................................ 133

Data Files Bulkloading Process ............................................................................................................ 134 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 134 Lock/Unlock Policy ........................................................................................................................................... 135 Bulk Loading Mechanism and Error Management .......................................................................................... 135 Configuration Parameters ............................................................................................................................... 136

Order Management Process ................................................................................................................ 137 Process Description ......................................................................................................................................... 137 Provisioning of Subscriber Account ................................................................................................................. 138 Provisioning of provider contracts .................................................................................................................. 138 Provisioning of Subscriptions........................................................................................................................... 139 Provisioning of Accesses .................................................................................................................................. 139

Prepaid Accounts Refilling Process ...................................................................................................... 140 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 140 External events ................................................................................................................................................ 140 Internal events ................................................................................................................................................ 142 Process execution ............................................................................................................................................ 142

Chargeable Items Rerating Process ..................................................................................................... 144 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 144 Execution Modes ............................................................................................................................................. 144

Rerating using the BART Server ........................................................................................................................................................ 144 Rerating using the SAP ERP/FI-CA component of the SAP Business Suite ........................................................................................ 149

Chargeable Items Charging Process..................................................................................................... 150 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 150

Precision & Rounding Modes ........................................................................................................................................................... 152 Charging Policy ................................................................................................................................................................................. 152 Configuration Parameters ................................................................................................................................................................ 154

Process Functions ............................................................................................................................................ 154 Rating Contexts Generation ............................................................................................................................................................. 154 Events Pricing ................................................................................................................................................................................... 155 Events Charging ................................................................................................................................................................................ 155 Allowance Creation .......................................................................................................................................................................... 156 Data Files Generation ....................................................................................................................................................................... 156 Immediate Threshold Refilling ......................................................................................................................................................... 159

Execution Modes ............................................................................................................................................. 159 Online ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 159 Offline .............................................................................................................................................................................................. 162 Inverse ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 163 Best-Effort ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 164 Blank ................................................................................................................................................................................................ 164 Session-Based................................................................................................................................................................................... 164

Chargeable Items Acquisition Process ................................................................................................. 180 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 180

Execution Modes ............................................................................................................................................. 180 Acquisition using the BART Server ................................................................................................................................................... 180 Acquisition using the Core Server .................................................................................................................................................... 181

Chargeable Items Consolidation Process ............................................................................................. 183 Process Description ......................................................................................................................................... 183 Consolidation Operations ................................................................................................................................ 183

Tax Calculation Process........................................................................................................................ 184 Process Overview ............................................................................................................................................ 184

Inputs ............................................................................................................................................................................................... 184 Generated Tax Data ......................................................................................................................................................................... 185

Process Execution ............................................................................................................................................ 188 Tax Computing ................................................................................................................................................................................. 188 Tax Adjusting and Applying .............................................................................................................................................................. 190 Taxation Modes................................................................................................................................................................................ 191

Process Functions ............................................................................................................................................ 193 EU VAT with EU VAT Rules ............................................................................................................................................................... 193 EU VAT without VAT Rules ............................................................................................................................................................... 197 Flat Tax ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 200 U.S. Telco Tax (EZTax Tax System) .................................................................................................................................................... 203 No tax system ................................................................................................................................................................................... 207

Process Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 208 Overrun with U.S. Telco Taxes (only relevant for the CC 2.0 and CC 3.0 model) .............................................................................. 208 Session-based charging process with U.S. Telco Taxes ..................................................................................................................... 208 Operations on external references (only relevant for the subscriptions data model) ...................................................................... 208 Commissions or sponsorship (only relevant for the CC 2.0 and CC 3.0 model) ................................................................................ 208

Credit Control Messages Conversion Process ..................................................................................... 209 Process Description ......................................................................................................................................... 209 AVP Dictionary ................................................................................................................................................ 209 Service Dictionary ............................................................................................................................................ 210 CCRs Mapping ................................................................................................................................................. 214 CCAs Mapping ................................................................................................................................................. 214

Successful CCAs ................................................................................................................................................................................ 214 Erroneous CCAs ................................................................................................................................................................................ 215 Custom AVPs in CCAs ....................................................................................................................................................................... 216

Process Limitations .......................................................................................................................................... 217

PROCEDURES ..................................................................................................................... 218

Deploying SAP CC ................................................................................................................................. 218 Securing SAP CC ............................................................................................................................................... 218

Common procedure for securing the SAP CC technical components ............................................................................................... 218 Securing the Core Server .................................................................................................................................................................. 220 Securing the BART Server ................................................................................................................................................................. 228 Securing the Communications Taxing Server ................................................................................................................................... 234 Securing the Diameter Server .......................................................................................................................................................... 238

Starting SAP CC ................................................................................................................................................ 241

Managing and Maintaining SAP CC...................................................................................................... 241 Managing Databases Partitioning .................................................................................................................. 241

Oracle databases partitioning .......................................................................................................................................................... 241 MS SQL Server databases partitioning ............................................................................................................................................. 242

Synchronizing BIT class, BIT type and Subprocess ........................................................................................... 243 Mechanism description .................................................................................................................................................................... 243 Mapping between CIT classes and BIT classes.................................................................................................................................. 244 Example ............................................................................................................................................................................................ 245 Mechanism Limitations .................................................................................................................................................................... 246

Synchronizing Chargeable Item Classes and Consumption Item Classes ........................................................ 246 Mechanism description .................................................................................................................................................................... 247 Managing consumption item classes ............................................................................................................................................... 247

Creating consumption item mappings ............................................................................................................................................. 248 Synchronizing Currencies ................................................................................................................................. 249

Monitoring SAP CC ............................................................................................................................... 250

Troubleshooting SAP CC ...................................................................................................................... 250

Upgrading SAP CC ................................................................................................................................ 250

TYPOGRAPHIC CONVENTIONS ......................................................................................................... 251

ICONS ....................................................................................................................................... 251

COPYRIGHTS .............................................................................................................................. 252

Disclaimer ............................................................................................................................................ 253

Solution and technology consultants

Implementation project teams

Application and system administrators

Support specialists

NOTES Target audience should have a previous understanding and/or experience of client/server technologies in order

to take benefit of this document

This document is not included as part of the Installation Guides, Security Guides, Operations Guides or Upgrade Guides. Such guides are only relevant for a certain phase of the software life cycle, whereas the Application Help provides information that is relevant for all life cycle phases

For a complete list of the available Guides, Online Helps or other documentation related to SAP Convergent Charging 4.0, see SAP Help Portal at the following location: http://help.sap.com/cc SAP CC 4.0.

For more information about specific topics, see the quick links as shown in the table below:

Content Quick Link on SAP Service Marketplace

Security guides http://service.sap.com/securityguide

Related SAP notes http://service.sap.com/notes

Related release notes http://service.sap.com/rn

Released platforms http://service.sap.com/platforms

SAP Solution Manager http://service.sap.com/solutionmanager

The Application Help describes the functional and technical aspects of SAP Convergent Charging 4.0, including descriptions of:

The provided functional modules

The implemented processes assigned to the functional modules

The global architecture of the component

The Application Help contains the following main sections:

Overview

This section provides a description of SAP CC, including a list of provided features and a synthetic schema containing the different technical components which may play a role during the execution of the features.

Features

This section contains the description of the different features provided by the SAP CC.

Architecture

This section provides an overview of the global architecture of SAP CC, with a description of the different technical components, including their provided tools used to configure, start, stop and manage them.

Master Data

This section presents in a very synthetic way the main concepts managed by SAP CC.

Processes and Functions

This section describes the different business processes and/or functions implemented into the SAP CC, including their possible execution modes.

Procedures

This section describes the different procedures related to SAP CC, from deployment recommendations to troubleshooting possibilities.

Whats new in SP04

As of SP04, SAP Convergent Charging provides you with the following features:

Allowance Management

Spending Status Monitoring

Functional support of Sybase ASE databases

The table below shows the list of abbreviations used throughout this document:

Abbreviation Meaning

3GPP 3rd Generation Partnership Project

AAA Authentication, Authorization and Accounting

AVP Attribute-Value Pair

API Application Programming Interface

BART Batch Acquisition and Rating Toolset

BIT Billable Item

BSS Business Support System

CCA Credit Control Answer

CCR Credit Control Request

CDR Call Detail Record or more generally Consumption Detail Record

CI Chargeable Item

CIF Charging output Integration Framework

CIT Charged Item

CRM Customer Relationship Management

CSR Customer Service Representative

CSV Comma Separated Value

DSR Distributed Statistics Record

ECUR Event Charging with Unit Reservation

GUI Graphical User Interface

HA High Availability

HCI HTTP Communication Interface

HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol

HTTPS HyperText Transfer Protocol Secured

IEC Import Export Connector

IEC (Diameter) Immediate Event Charging

IMSI International Mobile Subscriber Identity

ISDN Integrated Services Digital Network

LRU Least Recently Used

MMS Multimedia Messaging Service

MSISDN Mobile Station ISDN Number

OCS Online Charging System

OFCS Offline Charging System

OSS Operational Support System

QoS Quality of Service

RAC Real Application Cluster

RDBMS Relational Database Management System

RIF Rerating Integration Framework

RRL Reservation Renewal Listener

SLD SAP Landscape Directory

SCP Service Control Point

SCUR Session Charging with Unit Reservation

SMD SAP Manager Diagnostic

SSL Secure Sockets Layer

SSRL Spending Status Report Listener

TAF Transparent Application Failover

TIF Transaction Integration Framework

TLS Transport Layer Security

TV Tag;value

URL Uniform Resource Locator

USID User Service Identifier

UTI User Technical Identifier

VAT Value Add Taxes

VSA Vendor Specific Attribute

XML eXtended Markup Language

SAP Convergent Charging 4.0 is a modular component written entirely in Java. It is designed for the pricing, rating and charging of your services. Its modular architecture makes it easy to integrate and adapt in an existing environment. SAP Convergent Charging provides open APIs to connect to:

Any customer management or provisioning software (CRM, self-care, and so on)

Usage event producers (mediation, soft switches, SCP, and so on)

Financial systems (legacy billing systems, ERPs, General Ledgers)

Data warehouse systems

And so on

SAP Convergent Charging provides multiple technical and functional features, which have been designed to fit the common using scenarios. It provides the following main functional features:

Product modeling, used to create the master data related to the service provider, which are required when building your business environment

Order management, which gives the possibility to create the master data related to customers

Allowance management, which gives the possibility to manage the service add-ons for your charge plans and refill plans by modeling allowances and their associated usage

Chargeable items acquisition, which gives the possibility to collect incoming events before executing further charging operations

Online charging, which consists in charging in real-time the incoming events (with possible credit-control checking), determining the target account(s) which must be charged, and then generate data files containing all the data required by third-party systems for billing purposes (possibly aggregated when using the Charged Items Aggregation feature)

Offline charging, which consists in rating at a deferred time the incoming events (related to postpaid accounts only, and thus without any possible credit-control checking), using a single or a batch mode

Deferred charging, which consists in charging chargeable items which have previously been acquired and charged (using a blank mode) and which are sent again by SAP Convergent Invoicing for final billing purposes

Manual capturing, which consists in charging a single chargeable item created and sent by SAP Convergent Invoicing

Recharging, which gives the possibility to cancel previous charging operations and perform new ones on sets of chargeable items (which may have been previously billed) related to:

Subscriptions or provider contracts when recharging operations are initiated by the BART Server component

Provider contracts only when recharging operations are initiated by third-party systems such as SAP CRM or SAP CI, which only deal with master data related to the SAP CC 4.0 model

Real-time credit-control, which gives the possibility to interact in real-time with a subscriber account to notify users and/or monitor its prepaid (or credit-limit) balance to ensure that a usage can be charged

Prepaid accounts refilling, which gives the possibility to credit an account from a CRM application using manual or automatic (recurring or event-based) refill operations

Taxes calculation, which gives the possibility to compute tax data on every incoming event according to the configured invoicing tax systems: EU VAT and/or U.S. Telco taxes (EZTax) or flat tax system

Business notifications and business monitoring (spending status, account alerts) to manage in real-time the service consumption

Data files bulkloading, which gives the possibility to transfer the content of the generated data files from SAP CC to a third-party system, for various purposes such as billing, invoicing, reporting, business analytics, and so on

In addition, SAP CC provides the following main technical features:

High availability, which relies on an architecture made up with multiple technical components dedicated to specific operations and whose deployment strategy avoids any service interruption

High volume management, which ensures the scalability of SAP CC in case of increasing traffic or operations performed on large quantities of data (such as batch operations)

Data auditing, which provides detailed information related to user operations and their impacted master data

Data purging and archiving, which is used to remove from the back-end database some obsolete data, and thus ensure the global performance of the system

Alerts and notifications framework, which is used for both business and administration purposes and gives the possibility to generate messages related to a usage of a marketable service

Enhanced error framework, which concerns the implementation phase and gives the possibility to inform developers about the possible malfunctioning operations

Enhanced trace and logs framework, which provides a complete reference of messages related to the execution of a given operation, and thus eases both monitoring and troubleshooting maintenance operations

Enhanced integration interfaces, which provides different mechanisms such as web services, Java APIs or data files dedicated to the integration with third-party systems

All these features give you the possibility to ease your business and ensure its availability in case of increasing managed volumes. They have been implemented throughout the following technical components:

Core Server, which represents the rating engine of the solution

BART Server, a rating injector dedicated to batch rating and charging operations

Diameter Server, used to translate incoming online CCR messages sent by a network element into SAP CC comprehensible events

Communications Taxing Server, used by SAP Convergent Invoicing to calculate and report U.S. Telco taxes in accordance with the BillSoft EZTax tax system

Core and BART databases, which are used to store all the data related to your business

Other optional components:

Simulation Tool, used to evaluate profitability

IEC, used to consolidate and schedule data transfers between SAP CC and third-party systems

The following table provides a list of dependencies between the functional features and the concerned technical components:

Feature Core

Server BART Server

Diameter Server

IEC CT Server

Mediation System

CRM System

Billing System

Product modeling

Order management

Allowance management

Chargeable items acquisition

Online charging

Online charging with credit-control

Offline charging

Deferred charging

Manual capturing

Data files bulkloading

Chargeable items rerating

Prepaid accounts refilling

EU VAT taxes calculation

U.S. Telco taxes calculation

Charged items aggregation

Mandatory Mandatory in a SAP ERP / FI-CA integrated landscape Optional

The implementation of SAP Convergent Charging requires some mandatory components whose deployment depends on your business scenario.

For further information about the components availability and requirements, refer to the SAP Convergent Charging Configuration Guide and SAP Convergent Charging Master Guide documentations.

The Product Modeling feature gives the possibility to design all the master data related to Service Provider, in order to build your business.

For technical information about this feature, refer to both Product Modeling Process and Order Management Process sections.

The Order Management feature gives the possibility to design all the master data related to end customers, in order to manage your subscribers and link this information to your business model.

For technical information about this feature, refer to both Product Modeling Process and Order Management Process sections.

Enterprise Credit Pooling

Enterprise Credit Pooling represents the ability to share counters (used to materialize minutes, SMSs, other credits) between multiple provider contracts in order to implement pooling plans designed for corporate subscriber accounts. For small business company, you can configure this model in SAP CC by sharing a pool of counters with provider contracts relating to the same subscriber account.

For more information, refer to the adequate section afterwards in this documentation.

As of SP04, the Allowance Management feature gives the possibility to manage the service add-ons of your charge plans and refill plans by modeling allowances and their associated usage.

The Allowance Management feature gives the possibility to:

Represent a right or a rule to consume one or several services within a period of time

Dynamically add some consumption rights to your charge plans

Report any allowance event by generating a transaction and its associated charged item according to a relevant mapping

Allowance Modeling

To build your business, it is necessary to model allowances by creating the following master data:

Allowance Interface, which contains the list of counters and parameters available for every allowance

Allowance Event Classes, which describe the allowances usage and their associated data

Allowance Logic, which describe the calculation algorithm of the Allowance Events

Allowance Plans, which are used to reference and customize your Allowance Logic

For each allowance logic, it is also necessary to describe the information which must be reported by:

Selecting the charged item class to use

Defining the mapping for the selected charged item class

Referencing an aggregation policy

Allowance Usage Modeling

To model the usage of allowances, it is necessary to describe the interaction between allowances and charging or refilling logic (which corresponds to the life cycle of allowances) through algorithms. You configure the algorithms in the Price Plan or Refill Logic master data, and describe the following interactions:

The creation of the allowance, based on a specified Allowance Plan

The sending of the allowance events, based on a specified Allowance Event Class

NOTES Allowance Usage Modeling is based on specific logic components, and is therefore part of the Product Modeling

Feature

Logic components are included in Price Plans or in Refill Logic, and make up the allowance usage part of the Activation, Prepaid Accounts Refilling, and Chargeable Items Charging processes

Limitation

The Allowance Management feature is not compatible with the online stateless operations of the Chargeable Items Charging process.

The Chargeable Items Acquisition feature gives the possibility to collect the incoming events produced by the IEC or by a third-party client application such as a mediation system (step 1) preliminary to further operations such as deferred charging, recharging, reporting, business analytics, and so on.

Acquisition operations can be performed by two components of SAP CC:

The BART Server, using a synchronous mode and consisting in:

Consolidating the chargeable items with complementary information retrieved from the Core Server

Validating the consolidated chargeable items

Recording the chargeable items into the BART database (step 2)

The Core Server, using an asynchronous mode and consisting in:

Enriching the chargeable items with additional guiding information in order to execute the required charging operation (step 2)

Validating these enriched chargeable items and bulkwriting them in data files (step 3), which are then handled by the Data Files Bulkloading process (steps 4 and 5)

For technical information about this feature, refer to the Chargeable Items Acquisition Process sections related to both BART Server and Core Server components, and to the Chargeable Items Consolidation Process section.

The Online Charging feature gives the possibility to process incoming chargeable items sent by the IEC or by a third-party client application such as a mediation system (step 1) in a connected mode (also called online mode). This feature represents the central feature of SAP CC, and consists in:

Activating the charge which is associated to the external event (with a propagation to its possible dependent charges), in order to generate internal events

Generating rating contexts to gather all the data which is necessary to perform the further steps

Executing the price plans (step 2) in order to compute the amounts (prices, credits in counters, and so on) related to the different events located in the rating context

Executing the charging plans (step 2) in order to update the determined balances with the computed amounts and calculate taxes

Generating data files (step 3) containing all the information (charged items and chargeable items) which might be necessary for billing and invoicing purposes, and handled by the Data Files Bulkloading process (steps 4 and 5)

The Online Charging feature gives the possibility to execute in real-time the following operations:

Event-based charging operations, which concern customer services characterized by a single event (such as SMS or MMS) which is sent before or after the service delivery. According to the needs, these charging operations can be executed in a single or batch mode, with possible credit-control and credit reservation features

Session-based charging operations, which concern customer services characterized by a succession of single events and delivered over a given period, considered as a session of service consumption (such as phone calls, IPTV watching session, data download/upload, and so on) where the charged units are continuously consumed. This succession of single events represents a sequence of chargeable items which are charged, reserved or released in the related charging session. As these single events are associated to their order of arrival, session-based charging operations cannot be executed in batch mode

Spending status monitoring, which gives the possibility to implement policy control based on information related to service usage, in order to take policy decisions accordingly

NOTE To instantaneously adapt the service delivery and enhance the customer experience of the service provider, the session-based execution mode:

Enables advanced credit control and reservation management (including reservation renewals) features

Gives the possibility to execute session-based charging operations related to multiple customer services

Supports refilling operations during the sessions

For technical information about this feature, refer to the Chargeable Items Charging Process section.

The Offline Charging feature is similar to the Online Charging feature described above, except the fact that it works in a disconnected mode (also called offline mode). This offline mode:

Does not give the possibility to perform credit-control verifications

Only gives the possibility to use postpaid accounts for your business, as prepaid accounts only work within connected systems

NOTE To increase the performance of offline charging operations, it is also possible to use the BART Server, which gives the possibility to charge the offline events using a batch mode.

For technical information about this feature, refer to the Chargeable Items Charging Process section.

Some business configurations can lead to the acquisition of chargeable items which voluntary do not contain any information related to consumption prices (for example when the price of depends on a consumption volume which is computed at the end of each month).

When such a situation occurs, the acquired chargeable items must not be rejected and must be taken into account by the rating engine using a blank mode. They are flagged as uncharged chargeable items and sent to SAP Convergent Invoicing, which:

Records these uncharged chargeable items as billable items and consumption items

Enriches at a deferred time these items with price information required for charging purposes

Re-injects at a deferred time (step 6) these chargeable items in SAP CC for final charging purposes (steps 7 to 10), using a dedicated web service

For technical information about this feature, refer to the description of the Chargeable Items Acquisition feature and to the Chargeable Items Charging Process section.

In an integrated scenario with the SAP ERP/FI-CA component of the SAP Business Suite, SAP Convergent Invoicing might sometimes need to correct a specific balance (in case of detected error, customer dispute and so on).

When such a s