2015-4Q: Billing: Vacation Hold (VH) - Primary/Secondary Options for Subscription Override

Billing: Vacation Hold (VH) - Primary/Secondary Options for Subscription Override

Section One: Feature Overview

A new feature has been added to SIMPLer which will help manage situations where a new subscription should temporarily override the customer's usual subscription for a defined period.

This feature is revisited and was upgraded to work automated as well as manually. In section four and five of this document the automated and manual process is described.

Section Two: Feature Use Cases

Current use cases for this feature are:

  • Vacation/Seasonal customers: Customers who go on "vacation" for certain times of the year and would need to have their usual subscription de-activated for a defined period and replaced with a smaller monthly fee.

Section Three: Feature Main Settings

In using the feature there are three main settings to be aware of.

1. Under the Settings - Modify WISP page, as shown in Fig. 1, there is an option called "Subscription Default Override Period" as shown in Fig. 2.

Fig. 1: Modify WISP

Fig. 2: Subscription Default Override Option

The purpose of the setting is to simplify, and automate the settings of valid to/from dates when setting a customer to have a primary subscription override the secondary subscription. We will explore this concept further when setting up an example use case in section four. If this option is not configured, it will default to using a value of "6 months". This means that when a subscription is set to "primary" it will automatically override the "secondary" subscriptions from TODAY until exactly 6 months from today.

2. Under the PRODUCTS page, under every individual product there is a field called "subscription details default override" that can be set on a per product basis. The field location is shown in Fig. 3. The purpose of the field is to pre-define how a product will react to the override:

    1. Primary: Any subscriptions set as primary will take over from any set as secondary during their valid to/from dates.

    2. Secondary: Any subscription set as secondary will not be active for the period the primary subscriptions are active.

    3. Blank: The subscription will carry on as normal, and remain active even when the primary subscription is active.

Fig. 3: Default Override Option per product

Note: The moment the product is created as "Primary" the option to "Activate" the Vacation Hold product is visible on the customer account as shown in Fig. 4 - under the section "Customer Billing Details" :

Activate Product - Vacation Hold

Fig. 4: Vacation Hold Product

3. There is also a subscription level version of "subscription details default override" and the option for "override" is shown in Fig. 5. The subscription highlighted in red will take over from December 8th to June 8th and the subscription highlighted in green, as it is set as secondary will be overridden until June 8th.

Fig. 5: Subscription Level Override

Section Four: Example (automated)

Customer training test is on a monthly package for $52.70 (see fig. 6). The customer calls the office and would like to go on vacation today, for six months.

Fig. 6: Monthly Package

The following steps should be taking when setting up the vacation customer:

Step One: Navigate to the section 'Customer Billing Details' and find title 'Activate Product to toggle on the 'Activate' button as indicated in fig. 7

Today is Jan 30 2019 and customer calls in to indicate he is leaving for holiday.

Fig. 7 Vacation hold product

As January invoice was already issued, customer will receive a credit for of the charged subscription for the remaining days of January and customer is charged the lower price of the Vacation Hold for the same period.

Step Two: A console will pop up that allows for review - fig. 8. Select the button 'Submit' proceeds to generate an invoice. The credit invoice is sent to customer email at this stage.

Fig. 8 Review pop up screen

The credit shows under the section 'Last 5 Invoices' as shown in Fig.9

Fig. 9 Credit Invoice

The customer account reflect the Next Invoice that will be generated against the lower price of the Vacation Hold (A), in this example Eur 15. The account also shows the vacation hold activation; status 'ON' (B). - both shown in Fig. 10

Fig. 10 Next invoice charge & VH activated

Note that on customer account during their holiday the following two subscriptions are visible under their subscription as shown in fig. 11.

On February 4th 2019 the system will revert to billing for the regular product. Red circle indicates vacation plan start and end date. Green circle regular subscription will resume.

Fig. 11 Subscription details during holiday

Step Three: When customer comes back from holiday earlier and wishes to end VH subscription; Toggle the vacation hold button to turn it 'OFF' and a console will pop up that allows for review. Select 'Submit' button to proceed to end customer holiday subscription - shown in fig. 12.

Fig. 12 Review end Vacation Hold

Section Five: Example (manual)

Customer training test is on a monthly package for $52.70 (see fig. 13). The customer calls the office and would like to go on vacation today, for six months.

Fig. 13: Monthly Package

The following steps should be taking when setting up the vacation customer:

Step One: Navigate to the subscription details on the customer account and click "modify".

Fig. 14: Modify Subscriptions

Step Two: Select the vacation package and set it to the override option "primary" and set the regular subscription to the "secondary" option to make sure it is overridden during the vacation period. The valid to/from dates will automatically set FROM today's date TO six month's time, but can be adjusted manually if required.

Fig. 15: Vacation Package setup

Step Three: Click update subscriptions as per Fig. 16.

Fig. 16: Update Subscriptions

Step Four: Tonight, at 11.15pm, the system will scan for any overridden subscriptions and will calculate and generate an invoice for December 9th - January 1st for a prorated amount of the vacation product, and crediting back the already invoiced portion of the December 1st invoice. On June 9th 2016 the system will revert to billing for the regular product.

Fig. 17: Subscription Details

Section Six: Changes

If a customer decides to change their mind about a vacation date after the invoice has been generated, it is best to remove or credit the invoice and start again by changing the dates.

Important notes when starting out to use vacation hold:

- best to set all current speed packages (subscriptions) to 'Secondary'

- create a Vacation Hold plan and set to 'Primary'

- create a bucket and link to the Vacation Hold plan

- updating subscriptions on the Product page does not auto update the subscriptions on the customer account

- subscription for existing customers will need to be updated manually or Azotel can assist with bulk change

Useful link to:

Create Buckets - SIMPLer manual section 4.2.4 Gateway traffic shaping buckets (page 56)

https://www.azotel.com/00_Az_Docs/Operator_Manuals/S04-01_SIMPLer_Operators_General_Manual.pdf

Published Date: Dec-8-2015

Change History Log:

Jan-7-2016

Jan-30-2019

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