2012-4Q (002): Network: Customer CPE Modify: Site / Basestation (colour) improvements

There has been a number of enhancements made to the "Modify CPE" page to address the association of the CPE to a basestation.

Prior to these enhancements, the CPE to Basestation association has been done either using a free-text "Colour" field from a CPE page or via a "parent" field under the Equipment page respective to the CPE entry.

The "Modify CPE" page has been updated to prevent databases being updated improperly or not being in sync:

• 1. due to a free text fields - where a CSR could put in a text without any restrictions

  2. due to a convoluted way to specify a "parent" basestation for a CPE

The sections highlighted on Figure 1 cover all the changes made to the "Modify CPE" page

• • "Network Details" section has been added to the page. This section allows an operator to choose the main "Tower / Site" a customer is associated with. When a "Tower / Site" is selected appropriate "Basestations / Colours" will be listed for each entry in the "Customer CPE Table" under the "Basestation (IP): Colour (Site Name)" column. Also note that this section will allow an operator to select a "Gateway" and a "Traffic Shaping Bucket" for customer accounts where these fields have not been specified yet, though if these fields have been set before, they will be locked on this page as shown in Fig. 1

  • "Colour" column has been renamed to "Basestation (IP): Colour (Site name)" under the "Customer CPE table" as shown in Figure 1. Instead of a free text field - a dropdown menu has been implemented that lists all Basestations available under a specified "Tower / Site" which an operator will be able to choose from. For easy identification, each dropdown entry is described using a label that covers:

    1. Basestation Name - as specified under Basestation details

    2. Basestation IP - as specified under Equipment assigned to the Basestation entry

    3. Colour - as specified under Basestation details

    4. Site Name - as specified under Site assigned to the Basestation entry

Selecting an entry from the dropdown list and updating the CPE entry will result in:

• 1. the CPE colour field updating accordingly to the Basesite's colour

  2. a "perent" value being specified for the Equipment associated with CPE entry

Such an approach will enforce recording properly formatted data in the SIMPLer system.

For the historical entries, the system will try to determine the best fit Basestation based on the colour and site associated with the customer account. If that is not possible, a 'custom colour' tickbox will be selected automatically for an entry with the respective colour being put into the box. This was implemented to make sure the historical data is left recorded in the system as it was. The 'custom colour' field allows to specify a colour entry regardless of the Basestation associated with the CPE which might be usefull in two cases (for historical reasons):

• • colour is present under the CPE entry, but no basestation (parent field) was recorded for CPE's equipment and none of the existing basestations under the Site associated with a customer account, have the same colour as specified under the CPE entry

  • different than basestation's Colour should be recorded under CPE entry - this should not happen though in a database where everything is in sync

  • To make sure there is a Basesite specified for each CPE entry - an operator can use 'Customer CPE - require allocating to a Basestation (Colour)' from the 'Modify WISP' page and turn on the strict rules, which will not allow CPE entries to be saved where no Basestation is assigned. If the 'Update CPE table' button is hit when at least one CPE row is missing the basestation data 'Make sure to select the Tower / Site for customer and specify the Basestation(Colour) for all CPE entries' message will be displayed instead of actually updating the CPE details as show in section 3 in Figure 1. This message is displayed until a basestation is selected for each single CPE row.

Fig.1. Modify CPE page

Fig.2. Modify WISP

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