ReleaseNotes/2014

The following topics are available:

• Back to Release Notes
• RELEASE NOTES ARCHIVE 2013
• RELEASE NOTES ARCHIVE 2012
• RELEASE NOTES ARCHIVE 2011
• RELEASE NOTES ARCHIVE 2010

3.63.01 - 31 October 2014

Action

ACTION REQUIRED FROM THIS RELEASE:

Forgotten Password

This feature is being made available to all clients. If you would like to use the feature, please review the Forgotten Password Feature article.

New Features

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team for further information at sales@emersion.com.au

Enhanced Forgotten Password Feature

Emersion now provides a sophisticated Forgotten Password feature to Retail Service Providers with an End User Portal. This feature is designed to fully empower your customers to reset their passwords without needing to contact the Retail Service Provider for assistance. If you would like to use the feature, please review the Forgotten Password Feature article.

Enhancements – Optional Modules

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Retail Ticketing Module

• End User Portal now shows the status of a ticket.
• From the End User Portal closed tickets can no longer have notes added to them.
• In Cumulus staff users can change the source of the ticket and Phone has been added.

3.63.00 - 24 October 2014

New Features / Optional Modules

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team for further information at sales@emersion.com.au

Automatic Account and Service Restriction Module

A new Automated Suspension Module has been developed to support a number of of rules relating to suspension and restoration (‘unsuspension’) of services. Initially this has been integrated with the Telstra 3G Live Provisioning.

Events are incorporated; Customer accounts that meet the business criteria for automated Service Restriction will receive a notice that their account will be restricted unless action is taken. If A Payment is made the Automated Restriction engine will review the account rules to determine if restoration of the service(s) are applicable.

Emersion will allow you to configure the days and times that the automatic suspension will run. Suspension days, start and end times only apply to automated suspensions.

Account Groups will be used to allow clients to exempt customer accounts from auto-suspension rules all together. Each group can be configured so that members in a group will not fall into auto-suspension rules. They will not receive events advising auto-suspension will or has occurred and their services/accounts will not be suspended by automated means. Examples: TIO, Charities, Staff

This Module requires subscription to the Account Groups Module and it is recommended that the SMS Module is also used.

Enhanced Payment Plan and Payment Extension Module

A new Enhanced Payment Plan and Payment Extension Module has been developed to allow greater flexibility and control over Payment Plans. This is mutually exclusive of the current Payment Plan Module and the two can be run jointly if required (such as during transition).

The first iteration of the Payment plan module only supported monthly plans, would pay off the original invoice and create new invoices in the future.

The Enhanced Payment Plan and Payment Extension Module:

• retains the original invoice
• support daily, weekly or monthly payments
• automatically cancel themselves after excessive declines on a particular transaction if the max retry per transaction amount is set
• the ability to change the dates if you have permission of future transactions to facilitate a payment extension

A new set of Events have been developed to accompany this module

• Enhanced Payment Plan Creation Event
• Enhanced Payment Plan Completion Event
• Enhanced Payment Plan Cancellation Event
• Enhanced Payment Plan Transaction Failed Event

Payment extensions can be achieved by setting up a payment plan of one payment and utilising the start date.

New Service Types

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team for further information at sales@emersion.com.au

Foxtel stage 1

Emersion has added Billing Support for Foxtel Corporate (Wholesale) Services allowing the Service Provider to break up a corporate account to individual billing for the End User.

Enhancements – Optional Modules

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Margin and Auditing Reports Module - Large Report SFTP and Dropbox Support

Large Management reports can now be scheduled to run out of hours and the results sent to the Emersion SFTP location and / or Dropbox.

SMS Events Module

Functionality and stability improvements to the Bulk SMS Out functionality.

Manual Payment Batch Processing Module

Modified the manual payment batch (export payments) system so that the batch closure is now performed asynchronously via a background work flow versus holding up the UI and limiting closure amount.

Customer Sign up Portal

Emersion offers a Sign up Portal as an optional module. This allows the End User to create and account, order service(s), make a payment and create a user portal login.

Additional service Types have been retrofit to be supported in the Sign up Process

• Address Based Infrastructure Managed Service Types
• Healthcare Monitoring Services
• Foxtel Services

Improved validation of credit cards which expired in the current month during the ordering process and external signup page.

First Period Invoice

Improved functionality around alignment to account invoice periods when multiple purchase of services are made in the same day.

Service Type Framework Enhancements

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, lease contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Enhanced Service Types - Auto Identifier Module

Service types can now be configured to retrieve an identifier from a pool, or alternatively automatically generate one.

Enhanced Service Types - Address Based Infrastructure Managed Service Types

• Added additional functionality to the address based infrastructure service types, so you can see the generic Emersion list of addresses, and add your only complementary ones.

• Added ability to search by lot name, site name and state in Ordering process, API and Emersion address database.

• UI added to allow synchronisation between service address and Emersion's infrastructure based address database.

Semi Manual Ordering

Added Service Feature, Service Contact, Service Address and Infrastructure Information (where enabled) into the Semi manual (main), and email out (inc text field) page/s.

Service Addresses

The System now allows modification of service address bound against a service if the service type is configured as such

Product Purchase / Service Link Module

Allow a service to be bound against an outright product purchase

Enhancements – General

These enhancements are provided as part of base platform and are included as per your maintenance fees

Bpay

Better validation around BPAY code generation (based on Emersion now reaching 7 digit account numbers)

Plan Management

• Cleaned up PLAN BOLT ON configuration page
• Added count of service plans linked to a package plan on the plan management section

Emersion Payment System

Improved validation of credit cards which expired in the current month during the ordering process.

Service List

• Service List all - allow searches via lot number, site name and state.

• Services - List all - export to CSV logic improved

Events

Fixed bug in Invoice Sending Event to ensure more efficient sending of invoices with Method 'Email and Post'.

Invoice Approval Tracking

Added tracking to audit who approves a particular invoice, and display in the Manage Invoice Section

Bug Fixes – General

User Portal

Double service identifier appearing in user portal in rare circumstances has been resolved

Product Management

Repaired logic around management of product categories and the subcategories. You can now only modify those product categories of which you own.

Invoice Template

Invoices - Fixed graph presentation so it's more representative of reality. Max Scale not always matching the invoice balance.

3.61.00 - 18 August 2014

New Features

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Mass SMS Sending Module

A new Mass SMS Sending Functionality as been added in line with the Mass Emailer. The same filters as were added to the mass mailout functionality to allow for more granular selection of Contacts for Outage Notifications have been used.

This Module requires subscription to the SMS Module.

Enhancements – Optional Modules

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Xero Accounting Integration V1 – Credit Notes

• Added a new API Call to Xero integration to allow you to create Credit notes in Xero and for these to come across to Emersion.

Customer Signup Portal

Emersion offers a Signup Portal as an optional module. This allows the End User to create and account, order service(s), make a payment and create a user portal login.

Significant Enhancement has been made in this release to the framework of the Signup Portal.

• We have extended the framework to allow custom design templates to be set for the whole application process (Outer Page Headers and Footers), and for each individual step (page)for ultimate customisation (Inner Page Headers and Footers)
• We now support the Terms and Conditions Module (Contracts, Confirmation of Understanding etc) in the Order finalisation section
• Framework was added to support selectively removing and making mandatory or non mandatory certain fields on contacts during signup.
• Payment Terms and Conditions are presented on Signup also.
• Payment method can now be taken regardless of whether a Package has a Setup Fee.
• Now includes service contact configuration.
• Now includes service address configuration.

Enhancements – General

These enhancements are provided as part of base platform and are included as per your maintenance fees

Contact Phone Numbers

There has been much feedback about making the Phone Numbers on Contact more Friendly and allowing a mandatory Landline OR Mobile number.

We have changed the handling of Phone Numbers to support this and added a separate Landline and Mobile Phone Field (rather than Primary Phone) which is replaced with a Preferred Number Field to ensure the validation remains.

Mass Mailout (Email)

Additional filters added to the mass mailout functionality to allow for more granular selection of Contacts for Outage Notifications.

Reporting Permissions Framework

The Framework for powers around reports has been added so you can start to protect reports properly from certain staff users.

3.60.00 - 31 July 2014

Action

ACTION REQUIRED FROM THIS RELEASE:

Emersion has enhanced the Permissions module and will be applying a set of default Base Powers to all existing Organisational Units as part of the release.

Module based Permissions control access to certain functions and functionality in Emersion. Powers are a more granular form of control and can limit or grant access to sections within a module, certain pages, or even fields on a single page.

We strongly recommend you review the Module based Permissions and Powers granted to each or your Org units to ensure your user’s access to Cumulus is set appropriately

To do this:

• Navigate: Admin > Org Units & Roles > Roles tab
• Select the role group you want to review
• Review the Module based Permissions by clicking the Manage Module Based Permissions button.
• Review the Power based permissions starting with Base Power.
• Click Save Role Details to ensure the changes you make are saved.
• Users will have to log out and log back in again for all changes to be applied.

Permissions and Power lists are hierarchical. Clicking to add or remove a permission or power will alter any permissions or powers below.

Please refer to our training video on the Basic Permissions in Emersion.

New Features

Fees may apply to have these activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

First Period Invoice Module

By default, when a customer creates a service and package, the access fees that are generated will be created and will appear on the following invoice.

The 'Invoice First Period' allow customers to override this setting and have the system create an immediate invoice. Further, they can also override the trading terms (due days) for this (and only this) particular invoice. The invoice can collect any pending cardlines or stand as an isolated invoice.

Wholesale Ticketing module

Emersion's Ticketing module now includes the ability to:

• generate tasks and notes
• allocate and reassign duties to specific team members for follow up.

The following functionality is also included:

• A new ticket can be generated from the Service Provider portal.
• All updates to the ticket are stamped with time and user ID.
• Ability to assign a ticket to a Queue with Category and Sub Category.
• Tickets can be assigned to a specific Staff User.

The ticketing module to allow for escalation to other Staff Users.

• Escalation details and complaints are to be recorded against the same incident. Separate sets of details are to be recorded per incident, unless the continued interaction with the customer is as a result of a previous or existing incident.
• Ability to record time against a ticket.
• Ability to attach documents to the ticket.

A Queue for Sales, Support and Accounts will be provided with your package with additional customised queues, categories and sub categories available at additional cost.

Wholesale <-> retail account communication via tickets is available including support of child account ticket escalation if the Retail Ticketing System is implemented.

Ticketing Module Extension – Inbound Email

This functionality extends the ticketing module to retrieving emails from a mailbox and inserting into a ticket queue for processing (and customer identification by email or search).

Emersion provides the following email functionality:

• Collect from a defined email box - tickets / responses.
• Auto-Acknowledgement - Immediately confirm receipt of email inquiry and set to the appropriate queue. An Event can be used to auto-respond with time expectations for customer.

Account Groups

'Account Groups' functionality allows agents and other groups of staff or external companies to have limited access to your customer base, and gives you the control to define and manage distribution groups for marketing campaigns.

The concept of Account Groups is to group your customers so that these groups can be shared amongst certain Organisational Units. This can be used for marketing purposes and permission restrictions.

An organisational unit can be flagged as one that has account access restrictions, or in other words, they have to have opt-in (deny all, allow some) or opt-out (allow all, deny some). As such, they will have to be validated against a pool to see what they can access.

The following functionality has been enhanced to be supported by account groups:

• Finance - invoice list
• Finance - take payment
• Services - list all
• /customer/account/list
• /service/service/list
• /customer/account/search
• /service/service/search
• /service/order/list
• /service/migrate/list
• /service/provisioning/list
• /service/order/new - customer selection panel

If a user attempts to bring up an account that they do not have access to, the system does not allow access, but also tells the user why they were not permitted for troubleshooting purposes.

The Account Groups management interface includes:

• Set up and maintenance of your account groups.
• Management of the accounts in a group.
• View Account Visibility by Group List .

National Collections Management Ltd. (NCML) Collections Integration

• Clients can now use NCML as their collections agent with integration with Emersion.
• Clients (Debtors) that exceed X days payment terms can be referred to NCML.
• Emersion can automatically refer the client to to NCML passing them all the required information.
• NCML will use their own services to chase the outstanding debt with SMS, email and other methods to appropriate the outstanding monies (Debt).
• The log of this activity will be tracked in NCML's systems and will be transferred back to Emersion so a log of the activities against the Client are recorded.
• This transfer requires a file to be collected by Emersion and processed into the system as Notes against the Account.
• NCML Staff will have limited access to Emersion be able to take payments from debtors and to get information required to defend disputed invoices, supported by Account Groups and Permission Functionality.
• After Y Days (X+Y Days from initial debt falling overdue) NCML will stop pursuing the debt, and the account will be removed automatically from the NCML Account Group.

Use Case example:

Service Provider needs to manage customers that do not pay their bills by isolating them in an Account Group and an Account Profile. Once a customer gets to a certain point in their overdue invoices, they are automatically treated as subject to NCML debt collection processes and referred to them to chase the underlying debt.

Use Case implementation: First, the inclusion if the customer in an specific Account Profile will manage the events and alerts that are sent to the end-users from the Service Provider. Secondly, supported by the new Account Groups feature, is the ability to restrict pools of customers that can be accessed by a group of Staff Users in an Organisational Unit, which can restrict the permissions for those Staff Users. On certain conditions (i.e. business rules) the system is able to move end user accounts in and out of these profiles and groups sets to make them available to special parties when required.

the system can automate:

• adding the customer account to an “NCML Collections” Account Group when we refer the customer to NCML.
• adding the customer account to the “NCML Collections” Profile to prevent/enable certain notifications when the customer is referred to NCML.
• removing the customer account from the “NCML Collections” Account Group automatically after 60 Days after being sent to NCML, and no longer send data to NCML.
• removing the customer account from the “NCML Collections” Account Profile and return the customer account to its previous profile after 60 Days after being sent to NCML, and no longer send data to NCML.

Late Payment Fees (V2)

Emersion has created a second Late Payment Fee to be triggered when the Invoice is Overdue (once), rather than the V1 Fee that is triggered on Invoice Payment.

Use Case: A $100 invoice is due on 1st Feb and remains unpaid after 45 days.

Use Case implementation: On the invoice Due date + y (configurable) days, a pending cardline 'Late Payment fee for Invoice XXXXXX due DD/MM/YYYY' for the amount of $x is created by the system. This will be added to the next invoice and presented to the client as a penalty although it still remains unpaid. This fee is created only once per invoice. When the next invoice is generated it will contain the Late Fee. If this also is not paid by due date + y days then this will also trigger a late fee of $x. When it is paid no action will be taken (V2 is mutually exclusive from the V1 Late payment fee system and they can co-exist).

This functionality includes an Event Trigger - Late Payment Fee Trigger on X Days Overdue that has 3 actions:

• Creates Pending Cardline
• Optional email message
  • Variables: Account ID, Export Ref, Account Name, Invoice Number, Invoice Issue Date, Invoice Due Date, Days Overdue, Late Payment Fee $ (Ex Tax), Late Payment Fee (Inc Tax)
• Opetional SMS if you are subscrivbed to SMS events.
  • Variables: Invoice Number, Invoice Issue Date, Invoice Due Date, Days Overdue, Late Payment Fee $ (Ex Tax), Late Payment Fee (Inc Tax)

Unbilled Credit Alert – Telstra 3G Mobile (Retail Service Providers)

Emersion now provides a place to store unbilled credit alert limits. This is linked to a number of events and reports that can be activated to notify you that an account has exceeded their unbilled credit for Telstra 3G usage and will assist prevent 'bill shock' on mobile services.

This feature can also be integrated to automatically bar the service once the unbilled credit limit has been reached and unbar it once the account is back below the unbilled credit limit (including credits / payment on the account)

Use Case: Customer has unbilled credit alert limit for $250 and used excess calls and data. In the processing of CDR’s the Event is triggered. The client in barred. The end user then goes to the End User portal and makes a payment of $100 to bring their account below the $250 limit, the system will automatically unbar them until the account balance plus unbilled usage is again above $250

Xero Accounting Integration – Stage 1

Emersion is committed to integration to Xero. We have implemented our Stage 1 integration to support syncronisation of payments and invoices between the two systems. Cumulus allows a small subset of integration with the Xero Billing Platform found at www.xero.com.

Integration supported in stage 1:

• Accounts must be present in both Xero and Emersion.
• A new invoice is generated in Emersion under an account active for Xero – this invoice is then generated in Xero and we take the id from Xero and store it locally for use later on. The new invoice in Xero is generated with no cardlines and just a description to hold it in place, it is generated in DRAFT status.
• Normal processes occur in Emersion with the invoice gaining cardlines and charges as usual.
• Once the invoice in Emersion is marked as APPROVED, all of the cardlines will be sent to the appropriate Xero invoice as line items, and marked as APPROVED in Xero. If there are any payments allocated against the invoice in Emersion, they will be transferred to the invoice in Xero.
• As any payments after this fact are allocated against the invoice in Emersion, so too will they be transferred to Xero for the same value against the right invoice. The payment locally will be updated with the Xero payment ID, so we don’t end up doubling up the payment.
• If any payments are made in Xero against the invoice, and these payments don’t exist in Emersion, and the payment is against an invoice that originated in Emersion, then the details and payment against the invoice is stored in Emersion.

Assumptions:

• A one to one relationship with one company in Xero and one in Emersion exists. This is done via the Private API in Xero. Keys are generated locally and configured here, then uploaded to the API account for the relevant Xero account.
• Emersion knows of ONE bank account that payments, when sent to Xero, go into. The Emersion API is not going to be designed to handle payment submission to a choice of bank accounts or more than one account in Xero marked as ‘receive payment allowed’

Emersion will only pull over payments to Emersion from Xero in the API, under the following rules:

• The payment does not exist in Emersion already i.e. the payment unique ID is not found in the Payments table.
• The invoice that the payment is done against in Xero exists in the Emersion system as a label against an Emersion invoice.
• Any overpayments (that in Xero, generate an unrelated new invoice and a credit) will not be pulled over as we have no knowledge of the invoice that is generated by an overpayment (Split payment) in Xero.

Stage 2 will consider enhancements to account integration.

Bulk Bar / Unbar for Retail Service Suspension - Telstra 3G Service Type

A bulk suspend/unsuspend feature for Telstra Mobile 3G services is now available.

• Bulk upload page has added
• New screen within customer details section 'service restriction' gives users the ability to see these actions
• Reporting on baring status
• Report on clients to bar

Access Fee Override

Added support for access fee overrides, with events to notify upstream to check their pricing upon change

New Events

Fees may apply to have these activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

SMS Gateway Module

Emersion offers an SMS Gateway Module than can be enabled to allow you to send Events as an SMS in addition to email. Many Events now have an SMS equivalent and these will continue to be extended as time permits. A monthly access fee and per transaction SMS fee(s) apply. Volume discounts are available.

Product Purchase Event

Sends an email when a product purchase has been made to trigger fulfilment.

TCP Events

Emersion provides Telecommunications Consumer Protection Act (TCP) compliant reporting 50%, 85% and 100% and X% via email and SMS. These Events have been extended to support

• Included Usage Caps
• Bolt Ons – for e.g Mobile Data Bolt Ons
• Data Allowances - for Data Plans
• Further Reporting has been added around these Events.

Invoice Overdue Event – TIO Queue Support

Service Providers with a TIO queue in the ticketing module can now prevent customer accounts from receiving invoice overdue events. Configuration charges applies.

Calls to High Risk Locations Event

Send an alert to a nominated email address t report on calls to high risk locations (e.g. > $1 Flag fall or >$1 price minute)

Semi Manual Provisioning Client Notification Event

Send communication to child account regarding provisioning status changes in Semi-manual provisioning.

Order Halted Event

For when a provisioning request has been marked as halted. Designed to notify the Service Provider for action.

New Service Custom Price (Access Fee override) Event

Added support for access fee overrides, with events to notify an upstream Service Provider to check their pricing upon creation.

Migrate Service Custom Price (Access Fee override) Event

Added support for access fee overrides, with events to notify an upstream Service Provider to check their pricing upon change.

Product Instalment Purchased Paid off Event

To notify when Product Purchase Instalment is paid off

Notify Service Configuration Complete to Service Provider

Events to notify an upstream Service Provider once the service configuration is complete (predominantly for Semi Manual Orders), to allow progression of provisioning.

Retail ticketing Module – Outbound Email

For sending outbound email when a ticket is updated, if it is selected to do so.

Service Type Framework Enhancements

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, lease contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

New Service Type Configuration Options - General

Service types can now be set up to include:

• Service Addresses as optional or mandatory.
• Service Identifiers can be extracted from a managed pool of identifiers and applied to an order.
• Business rules governing service contacts that can set types of contact and qty of each contact type that will be required to submit an order.

New Service Type Configuration Options – Service Contacts

These contacts are specific to the service, and are:

• entered during the Ordering > Service Configuration phase
• maintained after the order has been submitted via the Service subscription

Service contacts can be ordered via the index method for a greater degree of control. For example "Emergency Contact 1, Emergency Contact 2" Custom fields can be added to service-based contacts with different fields for each service contact type you need.

NBN-like Address-based Service Qualification for Network Vendors

An address based SQ (designed around GNAF) and service/location tracking management for providers who run NBN like services, including site device and port management now exists. It includes management interfaces for:

• port > service type profiles
• carrier location > service type profiles

for above GNAF functionality.

This feature enhances the Signup and ordering process and API support can bring the SQ from Wholesale Service Providers to their downstream clients

New Service Types

Fees apply to have these configured, activated and maintained If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

AAPT Broadband Layer 2 & 3 – Frontier link V2 Interface

Supporting AAPT Frontier Link V2 framework for NBN and address based lookup. Migration may be required if you have existing services using V1 Interface

AAPT Broadband Layer 2 & 3

Added functionality to support multiple accounts with AAPT and specific external NWB account numbers for AAPT FrontierLink (Broadband L2/L3) services

iSeek NBN

Added Support for NBN and connection profile shaping on authentication

Vodafone (Pivotel)

Added support for Vodafone as supplied via Pivotel (usage billing and Semi manual provisioning)

Fonebox Inbound (13XX, 1800)

Added support for Fonebox Inbound Services (usage billing and Semi manual provisioning)

Neural Networks VOIP

Added support for Neural Networks VOIP (usage billing and Semi manual provisioning)

Amcom Softswitch as a Service (Broadsoft)

Added support for Amcom – SSaaS (usage billing and Semi manual provisioning)

AAPT Softswitch as a Service (Broadsoft)

Added support for AAPT – SSaaS (usage billing and Semi manual provisioning)

Tunstall Healthcare Monitoring Services

Added support for Tunstall Health Monitoring Services (Semi Automated provisioning)

• Automated Order Form Creation
• Passing of Moves, Adds Changes to Tunstall by file

Service Type Enhancements

Fees will apply for reconfiguration of your service type by Emersion

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

AAPT Broadband

• Added shaping support for AAPT Broadband Layer 3 products

Telstra 3G

• Improved user interface around bar application for Telstra Mobile (removed alternate barring) and linked these two options in the provisioning process to ensure contained compatibility with Telstra systems.
• Removed some baring options on advice from Telstra of incompatible options.
• Extended Telstra Mobile validation to not permit 04xxxxxxxx numbers to be used in any circumstances and resolve causing porting issues

Enhancements – Optional Modules

Fees may apply to have these configured, activated and maintained

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Terms and Conditions / Contract Presentation Module

• The Finalise Order page has been restructured as Order Review / Contract Presentation Stage to support contract presentation.
• Added feature to set the ordering process (within Cumulus) to _require_ an uploaded contract.
• Added payment plan terms to terms and conditions framework to be added to contract presentation.

Terms and Conditions Module – User Portal Payment Terms and Conditions

• Added new terms and conditions types to the payment Methods Section to present Terms of Payment for Credit card and Direct Debit Terms and Conditions presentation.
• This is presented in the End User Portal under the Payment Methods update Section.
• Admin > Payment Details > Payment Terms and Conditions Map to set up this feature.

Managing Agent Module

Managing agents can log in to Cumulus and a number of permissions have been developed to restrict access to the system to limit access to a Service Provider's client base. A flexible agent framework means Managing Agents or dealers can exist under the same base account and be protected from seeing customers they shouldn't and other restrictive functionality.

Retail Ticketing Module

• Extension to support ticket system and bi-directional communication via the End User Portal
• Created a formal Queue Type concept to allow differentiation of Queue types and additional workflows and custom fields in tickets.
• More formal support for the TIO queue.
• Accounts with active TIO tickets can now have an Account Level Notification pop up each time the account is accessed.
• Service Desk and Notes can both work at the same time with separation of Tickets and Notes
• Added auditing to status and category changes in ticketing

Retail ticketing Module – Outbound Email

A new event has been developed to send outbound email when a ticket is updated if it is selected to do so.

Payment Plan Module

The Emersion Payment Plan Module is used for transferring debt into a repayment process. Payment Plans are similar to an instalment purchase. The item being purchased is a special product. See below our article on Instalment Plans

The purchase is of a payment type of Payment Plan these are set for repayment monthly at this stage. When an unallocated payment is created for the total amount, this will show up immediately in most account balances.

• The management user interface is found via Finance > Account Receivable

A payment plan can be rated when viewing the Finance > Accounts Receivable > Receive Payment user interface. Accounts with a negative account balance will have 'Payment Plan' link. The account balance is preselected as the amount for the plan with the option to modify.

When looking at an account a 'Payment Plan' tab is available. This gives users the ability to locate and manage existing payment plans and for the creation of a new payment plan.

Enhancements to the module in this release include:

• The ability to create an invoice immediately when generating a new payment request.

Account Discount Subscriptions Module

Emersion have extended the Account Discount Subscription functionality (which provides account based caps and override rate cards) to support plan based and contract based filtering.

• Added ability so 'Account Discount Subscriptions' can be setup so the system will fall back to master rate card if no specific rate exists within the Account Discount Plan

100-point Identity Checks

In order to collect accurate information for credit checking and finance data requirements, the system assists the operator to gain enough information to proceed via the optional inclusion of a 100-point check during the ordering process.

The ordering process, whilst gathering information relating to the credit check, Emersion can insert a section called Identity Check. This interface lists a range of allowable documents, and a score for each of them next to each document will be a checkbox (Service Provider Specified).

As each checkbox is selected, a tally is updated at the bottom of this grid. When it exceeds the required limit (100 Pts) a Proceed button appears. The page also allows the operator the ability to upload identity documents. The ‘Proceed’ button will come back with a validation error until required documents have been uploaded. Within the Contacts list, a new sub tab exists next to view / edit called View Identity which shows uploaded identity documents. This is protected by a power to ensure privacy of uploaded materials is restricted to appropriate staff for verification.

Financial Services Integration

• Modification to the ordering process to facilitate the collection of extra information as required.
• Additional workflows to deal with decision making and credit limits.
• Additional ordering screens to deal with shortfall management.
• Added Agent Collected Mode under a switch for when taking payments / orders in a POS situation, where cash is received, and reporting surrounding this.
• Added Test Order functionality for workflow / training

Credit Check Module

Emersion has enhanced our integration with Dunn & Bradstreet and Decision Intellect to include:

• Credit Check which has resulted in errors can now be escalated to head office now under Services > Order Approval

End User Portal

Usage for Bolt-ons now displayed with Tariff Type and Totals.

Customer Signup Portal

Emersion offers a Signup Portal as an optional module. This allows the End User to create and account, order service(s), make a payment and create a user portal login. Associated Events ensure Account Creation, Package Creation, Members Login and other messages can leveraged to keep the customer during this process. A separate IP will be provided for you to point a dedicated URL e.g. signup.spname.com to. A signed SSL Certificate will also be required. These are client-specific implementations which require scoping and will be managed as an implementation project.

The Customer Signup Portal allows for the passing of certain items into the site. Enhancements have been made to support more functionality around this to make a tighter integration to a Service Provider's corporate website.

In this release Emersion has added functionality to:

• pre-select a package plan; and
• pass in array of products into the external signup page and have products purchased at the same time.

Payment Methods

• ABA and Commbiz payment gateways now ensure payments remain pending until batch is closed.
• Manual import for Australia Post billpay, Commbiz and SecurePay IVR payment files now exists, restricted to batches < 200 a time.
• Modified manual batch export (for ABA files and Commbizz files) to now be based on account versus invoice to ensure that only one payment is taken if multiple invoices are due.
• Modified the manual payment import and manual batch export functionality to ensure the date stamped within the ledger is the current date not the date recorded on the inbound process or payment creation to ensure it is always reflected on the current invoice. The Date in the File is processed as a Vanity Payment Date for presentation on the Invoice.

Custom Invoice Template

• Created better looking graph for those with custom invoice templates
• Added Summary by Cost Centre for those with Cost Centre Module and Custom Invoice Template

Access Fee Overrides

• Service access fee overrides extended to support negative numbers

Xero Accounting Integration – Stage 1

• Modified Xero integration to use current date for payments versus recorded date (recorded remains vanity date)

Product Purchase Link to Service Subscription

• Made it possible to assign a service against a product purchase during fulfillment from services already attached to existing account. This is used in reporting for the Financial Service Integration Module and with other clients managing Finance.

Commissions and Agent Management Module

• Enhanced configuration of commission within package plans, service plans, bolt on plans, contracts and product price lists.
• Added a new screen so an agent can see what commissions they will receive (called My Commissions)

Enhancements – General

These enhancements are provided as part of base platform and are included as per your maintenance fees

Navigation

Added Icons next to Banner Search for easy access to the Home page and Wiki (Help)

Events UI

• Added Search filters and criteria.
• Added columns to aid in identifying if you have enabled events with no templates (will not send).

Notes Section

Modified the Notes section so it works more like a user timeline and displays system notifications and staff created notes in date order

Wholesale Account Creation Wizard

• Added Service Provider Default Support User Configuration option, to automatically create a Wholesale Support User on Account Creation for Retail Billers and Non Retail Biller Set up. Name and Password default can be set by Emersion.
• Added fields to determine the type of downstream account being created - Retail Billers and Non Retail Biller and who is managing the support ad billing the Retail Biller Service Provider – Emersion or the Wholesaler.
• Default Permissions set based on above selections.

Contact Management

• Enhanced phone number configuration section for a contact so several types are available by default to prevent confusion – makes it clearer which phone numbers will be used for SMS Events (Must be populated in the Default Mobile Field)
• Phone Number Types updated for clarity.
• Added additional contact types and the ability to store additional dynamic information against based on contact type.

Events

• The Events now allows for some events to sending notifications to the primary, billing, default and /or service contacts.
• Some events have been updated to support sending notifications to the underlying service number in addition to the primary contact number.
• Added support to prevent SMS alerts from happening during the night (specific hours excluded).
• Events that sens SMS or emails are now logged via a note on an account (useful in timeline mode and for support to confirm creation and / or delivery of Events)

Ordering Process

• The Package Selection in the ordering process now allows filters for contract length after the Service Qualification.
• The Finalise Order page has been restructured as Order Review / Contract Presentation Stage to support Contract presentation.
• Added optional Purchase Order and External Contract ID fields to ordering procedure at Order Review / Contract Presentation Stage. These flow through to the package subscription and contract UI components. Extended the package subscription view section to show this information.

No SQ – During Migration

Added logic to prevent SQ being required in situations where one is not required (no provisioning integration related changes).

Order History

• Added Order History Tab to account to view past orders for a customer
• Users can upload/download Order Forms unloaded during order process

Service Management

• Added Service Feature History section in Service Subscriptions.
• Modified the Service > List all page so it requires criteria to find services. It does not load the whole list on bringing up the page, resulting in significantly-improved performance.
• Added address view to services list all page and some additional columns.

Provisioning Management

• Added code prevention to stop subscriptions which are under provisioning being aborted whilst pre-active and not in a 'failed' state.
• Added 'Temporary Quarantine' logic to Service and Equipment Service detection to assist in situations where services are entered into the system or activated with a delay where records may come first.

Semi Manual Provisioning Framework

• Added all service order related information, including custom fields, to the manual provisioning email out page.
• Added ability to modify data if the order in provisioning halted via semi manual page (missing fields was preventing activation)
• If Activation button is disabled in Semi manual you can now hover over the button to find out why.
• Extended the Semi manual page to show the EME Order Id (The order created at the end-user level) so it's visible through all tiers to assist in supplier communications.

Product Management

The product management section will have the following new concepts added;

• Product Manufacturer
• Product Colour
• Product Model
• Product Image

The List Page for Product Management now contains thumbnail images. Product Management now automatically resizes uploaded images.

Product Purchase

• Added ability to assign consignment note, shipping provider and date when fulfilling a product via product purchase system
• Added visibility to who created particular purchase in the purchase page

Product Purchase - Instalment

Extended product purchase system to allow the creation of first charge when product has not yet been supplied (existence of a product instance)

Pending Ledger Cardlines Screens

• Extended Pending Ledger Cardline page to show core service identifier if it exists.
• Added more filters on the pending cardlines page to aid in dealing with large amounts of data.

Quarantine

NoValidPackagePeriod now falls as a normal Quarantine item versus BucketerQuarantined

Re-Rating

• Added reconcile and re-render to the Re-Rate process available via manage invoice
• Improved logic around re-rating and bolt on cardline generation

Manual Invoice Rendering - prioritisation

Created high priority invoice rendering queue for when invoices are manually re-rendered

Notes - Collections

Emersion is adding more tracking to changes in the system.

• The System will now automatically add an account note to the log when payment details change

Export Reference Fields

The account detail section (Account > Detail) supports Export Reference which is used for integration to Accounting Systems typically. We have also added a CRM Export Ref. for storing account ids for integration to external CRM Systems such as ConnectWise.

Packages and Plans Management

• The bill in advance and period in advance drop downs are clearer on their behaviour under Package plan configuration
• Added more ID columns to Service and Package Plan pages

Reporting Workflow

• Moved report generation into a dedicated workflow queue so it does not interrupt new order processes
• Created a dedicated workflow queue for larger reports to stop them halting general reporting functionality

Standard Retail Invoice Template

• Invoices now don't use 'Point of Sale' in the purchase section just ‘Purchase’
• Invoices now only include credit card types which are actually activated/configured

Rejected Invoices Escalated to Emersion

Integrated rejection of invoices with our Support Ticketing platform to aid in customer interaction with our support team, and logging communication.

Permission System Enhancements

Emersion V2 Permissions Framework (Powers) and V1 (Module Based Permissions) have been enhanced with this release. Powers and Permissions have been bound to System Features and Modules enabled such that the User can only see and manage permissions related to Features / Modules they have enabled.

• Restructured Features system to enable a greater number of optional features / modules to be added to the system
• Added powers around break contract and add contract
• Added application protection to prevent excessive load from any individual login to ensure quality of service is maintained for all users of the system
• Added Environment restriction to prevent Users from logging into UAT, Pre-Release and other environments at a Service Provider level.
• Hover Overs have been added to provide a more detailed description on the functionality of each permission (these will be enhanced over time)

Bug Fixes

Early and Late Payment (V1) Fees

Fixed Late Payment / Early Payment processing for account based overrides to ensure that it honored inherited settings (Service Provider Default) as well as account specific settings.

Emersion Payment System - Poler

Repaired Automatic Payment Processing so it retries only once a day for three days versus each time the poler is run

Product Management

Removed mandatory product image from product management

View Usage in Cumulus

Fixed inconsistency between summary and detail of some view usage sections

Application Programming Interface (API)

Fees apply to have the API access configured and maintained (certain high volume calls)

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

To integrate with Emersion's API Framework, clients will need to implement a SOAP Client, utilising SSL certificate as security. The SSL certificates are provided by Emersion, and may be subject to a professional services charge depending on your Emersion agreement. The WSDL for each set of functions is documented in the API User Manual.

General calls include:

• serviceLookup
• serviceDetail
• telephonyCallHistory
• serviceList
• invoicesByAccount
• getInvoiceDetail
• getInvoiceById
• getServiceDetailsbyServiceIdentifierAndServiceTypeId

Emersion has released additional API Calls and made changes to existing API calls as below:

• Extended GetAccountXMLSummary to include information relating to the contact details on an account and basic username details
• Added API to allow a credit card to be tokenised in the system.
• Added API to take an electronic payment using a token against an account for an invoice.
• Extended CreateAccount API to ensure it also triggers Account Creation events like the user interface does
• APIs for use with GNAF / Address based SQ
  • getSuburbsBypostcode
  • getSuburbByName
  • getServiceAvaibabilityForAddress
  • getServiceAvailabilityForGnaf

3.55.00 - 3 February 2014

New Features

Fees may apply to have these activated.

If you are interested in the following enhancements, please contact our Sales Team at sales@emersion.com.au

Ordering & Provisioning

Support for Financed Products

• Emersion has enhanced our integration with Dunn & Bradstreet and Decision Intellect to include requirements for finance approval from Thorn (the parent company of Radio Rentals).

• We can now support the ability to fully integrate as above with Thorn as a lending provider for the purposes of financing products, such as handsets. This is then integrated into the ordering process. If you require services of these types, we can coordinate and make introductions to the appropriate vendors.

These are client-specific implementations and require scoping and will be managed as an implementation project.

100-point Identity Checks

• The order process now has the ability to optionally force a customer to submit to a 100-point identity check with the information stored in Emersion.

Terms and Conditions Contract Presentation Module

• Added new terms and conditions types for ordering products with the services order and additional terms for the secondary credit check with Thorn.

• Added the ability to store terms and conditions which can be shown during the ordering process for payment details that are mandatory.

Packages, plans and services

• Telstra 3G mobile services can now have optional credit limit barring and associated notifications.

• Prior to version 3.55.00 caps, discounts and other similar features could be set at a service plan level, or, in the case of a group cap, at a package plan level. Emersion as introduced Account Discount features that can now apply to Account level, over multiple service types and have their own anniversary dates.

End User Portal

• A ‘forgotten password’ send new password via SMS feature now exists for the End User Portal.

The Automatic password re-set facility is currently only available for Emersion clients who have subscribed to the SMS feature – a once off set up fee applies to configure the End User Portal. Ongoing charges apply for SMS.

Reports, Events, Alerts

• Emersion now provides TCP compliant reporting 50%, 85% and 100% via email and SMS for mobile customers.

Additional Payment Methods Options

• Austpost BillPay is now supported via file upload.

• SecurePay IVR and CommBiz BPAY are now supported via file upload.

• ABA and Commbiz files can now be exported for upload to the bank.

• ABA and Commbiz payment gateways now providing feedback on screen when the payment is processed.

Enhancements

End User Portal

• The End User Portal now shows usage data in format in accordance with TCP guidelines showing the total amount used in the current period. Usage for Bolt-ons now displayed on a separate tab.

Product Management

• Additional information for each item in the Products module can be stored including manufacturer, colour, model and an image. This is a precursor to our enhanced shopping cart functionality coming soon.

Invoicing

• Repeated re-rendering of invoices will no longer occur if any invoices are queued for sending.

• Minor change to the standard invoice template to make refunds clearer.

• Where a single payment is made against multiple invoices, a single payment transaction will be recorded. This payment record will show on the invoice during the period whereas previously payment transaction was broken up by the amount of invoices it was paid against.

Reports

• Two new reports have been provided to all clients:

• A new Detailed Invoice Trending Report shows value of latest invoices vs average of last 3 invoices and percentage deviation.

• A new Pre Invoice Trending Report shows value of current pending invoices vs average of last 3 months and percentage deviation.

Ticketing module

• When a ticket is generated by the system, as opposed to by a user, it is closed automatically.

• Tickets now default to private.

• Readability improvements on the View Usage pages within the Service Subscription area and within the End User Portal for normal usage and bolt on usage.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed an issue where duplicate payment records were being created within the Ezidebit payment gateway.

• Removed additional tax calculation from percentage based payment surcharge.

• Improved loading speed for packages selection during ordering process when large package catalogues exist.

• Data in the some lists CSV downloads was incorrectly formatted. This has been reviewed and updated where identified.