2021-2Q: [ACC] Voice Billing

2) Customer Account Setup for Voice: Voice Identifier

Processing CDR (Call Data Records) files from a Voice Service Provider is required to match each call to a customer account. The customer setup might differ depending on who the provider is, but typically the matching is done based on:

• Nickname / InvoicingID - in such case nothing additional needs being set in SIMPLer

• Voice Identifier - this custom field typically is filled with the customer phone number (this is used to filter out the CDR records) or an account reference from the Voice platform (if it is unique and not the same as a SIMPLer customer's Nickname or Invoicing ID). The 'Voice Identifier' can be set on a 'per customer' or 'per subscription' basis depending on preference

Note: This will be described in more detail below

Calls can be released upon crediting an invoice thus making them available for 're-invoicing'.

If one forgets to 'Release' the voice calls upon crediting invoice / creating a bad debt note these can always be released later for each credited / bad debt note invoice.

Product Setup

As mentioned above - only a 'Voice Calls' product-based subscriptions will pick up the Voice Calls for billing. It is crucial to ensure that a 'Voice Calls' Product Type is selected while setting up this product in the Products section of SIMPLer.

Note: Total amount of the voice calls that are available in the particular billing cycle will be added to the 'Voice Calls' product base price. There are two approaches with setting up these subscriptions:

• use single product for both 'Voice Package' and 'Voice Calls' - the product type should be 'Voice Calls' and the the price of the product should be set to the package price

• bill the 'Voice Calls' and the 'Voice Package' from separate products - the voice package product type should be 'Standard' and have a price set, while the voice calls product type should be 'Voice Calls' and have the price set to 0 (zero)

Voice CDR processing

It is highly recommended to make use of automated CDR processing. We acknowledge that it might be difficult to set up but Azotel engineers are happy to help. This is a once-off task and once set everything happens automatically going forward with no manual intervention required.

Therefore in the majority of cases the below section of this document can be omitted.

If an operator wishes to manually process the CDR files the below section covers the most important details.

The CDR Rating Tool enables the processing and importing of CDR records from external voice systems into SIMPLer. We strongly advise that the rated voice calls are used, i.e. have the rating implemented on the voice operator side, and import the already rated files into SIMPLer. CDR records can include taxes or be tax exempt as SIMPLer is able to calculate taxes on Voice calls.

The ability of presenting a flexible and fully customizable call details section at the end of an invoice is what makes the system unique and powerful.

The CDR Rating Tool works with CSV (comma separated values) files although it also supports files other than comma delimiters. The CSV file must have columns in following order:

• Date/Time - Date/Time of the call . This value will not be used for the actual CDR processing. It will be used to sort the records and can be displayed as is on customer invoices in the section that lists all calls made by a customer in a particular period

• Voice Identifier - (Mandatory Field) . This will be used to match the call record against an actual customer record in SIMPLer. Customers in SIMPLer must be assigned a Voice Identifier (or a set of space separated voice identifiers) in order to be included in the CDR rating process

• Source Number - (Mandatory Field) Origination number of the call . A regular expression check can be set against the field

• Destination Number - (Mandatory Field) Destination number of the call . A regular expression check can be set against the field

• Region - Region of the call. Some operators may provide a call region, which is a name for the destination (i.e. Italy or Poland). A regular expression check can be set against the field

• Call Duration - (Mandatory Field) Duration of the call. This will be available to use in Rating formulas

• Pre-Rated Amount -(Mandatory Field) Pre-rated amount. In some cases the CDR's will already be rated. An operator can choose to re-rate them or keep the previous rates

• Price per Unit - (Optional) can be used in the Amount / Units calculation formulas

• Discount - (Optional) can be used in the Amount / Units calculation formulas

• Total Hours - (Optional) can be used in the Amount / Units calculation formulas

• Description - (Optional) will be recorded in the Voice Calls table if defined

• Billable Number - (Optional) will be recorded in the Voice Calls table if defined

Example CDR File

01-Jan-21 8:34;467160000;467160000;0048696940200;Poland - Mobile;2;0,034

01-Jan-21 8:44;467160011;467160011;0044922974535;England - Mobile;1;0,09

01-Jan-21 8:45;467160000;467160000;33482849;Local Telco;3;0,051

01-Jan-21 8:46;467160099;467160099;17214433;Local Telco;1;0,0095

01-Jan-21 8:47;467160099;467160099;0048328376283;Poland - Landline;1;0,0095

The CDR rating tool is a manual interface to a rating engine that helps an operator process their CDR files and prepare them to upload figures into the SIMPLer billing system. It takes the input CSV file in the format described previously in this guide and rates each of its rows.

Rows are first matched against a customer account in SIMPLer using the Voice Identifier column of the CSV file.

Next if a customer account matching the CDR was found the system will search for a CDR processing rule that will match the CDR. If multiple rules match the longest, best matching rules will take precedence.

The uploaded CSV file may come in different formats hence there is a choice of 'Column Delimiter' used in a file.

The number of 'Fraction Digits' can be set prior to processing. This will be used to set the fraction digits to the recommended value when rounding. In some countries it is required to have 3 or more fraction digits in the result.

The 'CDR Rating tool' has five output modes:

• HTML - used for debugging. It will display a summary processing page with two sections: Processing Errors and Rated Output where an operator can debug the errors and preview the total amounts rated (that will be available in the import subscriptions)

• CSV Spreadsheet - this is SIMPLer's 'Import External Billing Records' tool compatible CSV output. It can be imported directly into SIMPLer without any changes required. It contains three columns: Invoicing ID, Total Amount, HTML (templated) output

• XLS Spreadsheet - XLS output of rated content containing three columns: Invoicing ID, Total Amount, HTML (templated) output

• Unprocessed Records - this option outputs a file that covers all the unprocessed rows in their original format. This allows easy re-processing after corrections such as adding missing Voice Identifiers to customer accounts

• Process in Background & Email - this option will process the file and send a summary email that will have csv, xml, and unprocessed records files

'Import to Database' dropdown defines whether the calls from a file that is being processed should be imported to the Voice Calls table. Once selected calls will be automatically imported and no further action is required.

This is the final step of the import but we would advise that an operator verifies the file has been processed properly first (using any of the above outputs methods).

CDR Processing Rules setup

Before starting to process and rate the CDR's a set of processing rules must be setup. These rules will define all conditions required to process a single CDR entry. Click on the 'VOIP' tab followed by 'CDR Rating Engine' and 'Manage Processing Rules' links to access the management page.