ReleaseNotes/2015

3.70.00 - 24 February 2015

Action

ACTION REQUIRED FROM THIS RELEASE:

Removal of CAP and Replacement with Included Value

Emersion has removed support for 'caps' for Package Plans and Service Plans and replaces it with 'Included Value' allowances. Whilst Included Value is conceptually similar to plan caps, they are not identical. Plan caps only supported dollar amounts whereas included value can support dollar, unit or time amounts. These new features supported under the 'caps' option are now available to you. Emersion strongly advises you read about the changes.

Any Emersion client using the subscription threshold notifications (often referred to as TCP Alerts) will need to update their templates. Under Included Value, Emersion does not support ex-tax dollar-based variables (as under unit and time, this concept is not valid).

Please review and update your templates immediately to ensure you are not referring to the older ex-tax variables or figures. Those parties affected have also been contacted separately prior to the release.

Read more about Included Value

New Optional Modules and 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

Bolt-on Add-Ons Module

Bolt-on Add-ons are a new feature that extend bolt-ons designed to complement bolt-on subscriptions. Bolt-on add-ons are associated with bolt-ons in order to extend the capability of the bolt-on. They allow for additional quotas (included value) to be added on top of the base Bolt-on as additional bonuses that can be purchased for telephony services to provide additional usage (commonly used in data packs on mobile services). Bolt-on Add-ons can support:

• recurring and one time options
• Priority of use
• Grouping to ensure that only one of a number of optional bolt-on add-ons are available
• Visibility and purchase via the end user portal

Use case: I have a 3Gb Bolt-on on my mobile plan and wish to allow the customer to purchase and add-on pack of 1Gb of extra data for $10 or a 0.5Gb extra data pack for $5 that expires at the end of the period (but not both).

Read more about Bolt-on Add-Ons

Multiple Included Value Feature

Emersion has removed support for plan 'caps' for Package Plans and Service Plans and replaces it with 'included value'. While included value is conceptually similar in nature to plan caps, new features that were unsupported under the 'caps' option are now available. Plan Caps only supported dollar amounts whereas included value can support dollar, unit or time amounts. Emersion now supports up to four concurrent included value allowances on a plan. Additional charges apply if you wish to provide more than one included value amount.

Use Case: We wish to allow certain tariffs to be include in the basic Dollar Allowance and these tariffs will be in Slot 1. We also wish to allow 100 minutes of international calls. We would use Slot 2 and create a Minutes based allowance and assign the international tariffs to this. Finally we wish to include SMS as a units based allowance and allow 50 SMS’s.

Read more about Included Value

Zendesk Integration

Emersion introduces integration to the Zendesk Ticketing solution. This allows synchronisation of usernames and passwords with external Zendesk configurations via ZenDesk API.

Application Programming Interface (API) – End User Authenticated (Self Service)

Emersion have added a new API Interface for Emersion clients to use for end-user infrastructure, such as Smartphone application development.

Fees apply to have the Self Service API access configured and maintained.
If you are interested in API Access, please contact our Sales Team. The WSDL for each set of functions is documented in the [[File:Emersion_API_Documentation_v0.20.pdf |API User guide].

Emersion has released the following API Calls:

• Account - Account API
  
• invoicesByAccount
• getInvoiceById
• getAccountBalanceSummaryInfo
• makeAdHocPayment
• getContactByAccountAndType
• createSession
• updateAccount
• addOneTimeBoltOn

Services - Services API

• getSuburbByName
• getSuburbByPostcode
• getStreetAddress
• getServiceAvailabilityForAddress
• getServiceAvailabilityForGnaf
• getPortAvailabilityForAddress
• getServiceTypesForAddress
• getNumberOfPortsForAddress
• getPortInformationForAddress
• serviceList
• getServiceSubscriptionPeriodsByService
• getServiceBoltOnSubscriptionPeriodsByService
• viewUsageByServiceSubscriptionPeriodId
• viewUsageByServiceBoltOnSubscriptionPeriodId

ServiceDesk - Service Desk API

• Get Service Desk List
• Get Service Desk Ticket Detail
• New Service Request
• Update Service Request

Enhancements Optional Modules / 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

Network Infrastructure Module

Address Maintenance Enhancements

With the introduction of the NBN, Wholesalers are increasingly rolling out their own network infrastructure as opposed to relying on an upstream party. Emersion has developed a new Module to enable wholesalers to store network infrastructure details on the Network side such as DSLAM ports and site equipment. A Wholesaler/Carrier can then track their infrastructure and ports to given addresses with the information fully tracked in Emersion. You can assign ports on a network device to a given address, and keep track of what service types each port supports and which ports have been assigned to services and to which addresses.

Emersion now also supports the ability to add and maintain these addresses via a GNAF compatible Address list and import section. The Module also supports service qualification and an API has been developed for wholesale clients to use if required.

Emersion have additional support to:

• view the GNAF address library
• give a carrier the ability to add their own independent addresses within the GNAF library
• synchronise the GNAF address against the service address to deal with changes over time
• bulk export and import addresses into the GNAF library.

For more information about the support for Network support and infrastructure, as well for the GNAF addresses, [this article].

Standalone SQ

Emersion has added a standalone service qualification page to Cumulus that enables users to perform an SQ without commencing an order.

This has a carrier selection drop down to the internal standalone SQ tool for address / infrastructure based customers.

Status

We have implemented an internal statuses to overcome trying to work automatically with a status that can be overridden by users.

Ticketing Module

Tickets can now have a default urgency level and priority level set, and can be auto assigned to a user. If you are interested in these setting, please request Emersion to configure this for you.

Within a ticket you can now link a service to the ticket. This is supported in the End User Portal, enabling end users to raise tickets with you and refer to a particular service.

Wholesale Ticketing Module

Emersion has extended the ticketing module to cater for escalations up to a parent service provider and back down to a child service provider. This relies on both the wholesale service provider and retail service provider both being clients of Emersion.

Specifically, tickets created by either a Retail Service Provider or an RSPs customers (via the End User Portal), can be escalated up the tier to a wholesale service provider. Supported functionality includes:

• escalating tickets from a RSP to the Wholesaler
• An RSP creating new tickets directly to the parent service provider

Xero Accounting Integration

Emersion is committed to integration to Xero. We have previously announced Stage 1 integration to support Payments and Invoices. In this release, we have built on that to include additional enhancements.

• Added the Emersion Invoice Number to Xero integration so it's used when the invoice is created.
• Added the Account Number to the Contact object used when reserving an invoice through Xero.

Payment Plan Module

New functionality will prevent additional automated payments from being taken on the day a payment plan is cancelled.

Account Discount Module

Added support to provide discounts for bulk service feature pricing.

General Enhancements

These enhancements are part of base platform and included in your maintenance fees

Customer Dashboard

This screen is a read-only snapshot of a customer, bringing the most frequently needed information together on a single tab. This screen was developed in consultation with clients with larger-sized call centres and aims to dramatically reduce the time it takes customer service operators to answer basic and frequently-asked questions.

Related to this work is an improved search in the top navigation search bar so the journey from customer information to detail is much quicker.

Manual Batch Payments

The limitation that prevented more than 200 payments in a batch has been removed.

Orders

Emersion have added ability to make some service features hidden during the ordering procedure for a service where they are not required during the ordering process.

All service subscription packages are aborted within a package subscription if the package subscription itself is aborted.

End User Portal

The end user portal has undergone a structural revamp so that it more logically presents information to an end user and enhanced service management content. Support for placing orders for a bolt-on add-on has also been introduced for Service providers who subscribe and use bolt-on add-ons.

Emersion has also added new tools for supplier-centric functions such as querying a PUK for the Telstra WME Service type.

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

Telstra WME 3G Mobile

Emersion has added near real time billing and provisioning for Telstra WME 3G Mobiles. This service type comes heavily integrated with Emerson. Some of the features include:

• Telstra WME and Telstra 3G to use locking for MSN and SIMs that are stored in the product inventory. This prevents SIMs and MSNs from being reused in orders inappropriately.
• End Users can query a PUK in the End User Portal.
• Diagnostic functions within service detail to interrogate remote platform(s).
• Parsing for SMS alerts from the Telstra platform, allows for Emersion to log these in the customer notes section.
• Parsing for inbound email notifications from Telstra platform allows for Emersion to log these in the customer notes section.
• Processing zipped usage batch files into their elements.
• Parsing usage files from the WME platform.
• Rate Plan Changing special rules in the platform.
• Provisioning Bolt-On Add-Ons in either period or subscription based provisioning.
• Ability to change spend limit on the WME platform on an ad-hoc basis.
• Auto Suspension of customers using the WME Product.

Service Type and Ordering Enhancements

Fees apply for reconfiguration

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

AAPT Broadband – NBN Battery Backup Support

We have added support for AAPT Broadband – NBN Backup.

Service Number Inventory

We have added new functionality to support MSN inventories so that items can be reserved. This locks the item for a period so it cannot be used in another order. This can be implemented for a specified service type as needed.

Products Inventory - SIM

We have enhanced the product inventory section to ensure clients can support more than one SIM inventory across service types.

We have also added support for locking of a SIM (and MSN for Telstra WME Mobile) during the ordering process to prevent re-use of either asset in another order for a period of time.

Instance Inventory and Locking – SIM, MSN, Auto Identifiers

Changed Automatic Identifier from previous Inventory logic to also use the new locking infrastructure.

Added Administrative Interface to be used when managing locked instance items (MSNs, SIMs, Auto Identifiers)

Dynamic Properties Enhancements

Improved dynamic properties functionality so to enhance behaviour for Churn and New service creates

Address copy from Contact

Added support to use existing contact details during external ordering procedure for any service based contacts required Service Feature Management

• Supports mandatory feature behaviour so features can be enabled during the ordering process.
• Hide certain service features during orders, but still managing their activation in the backend.
• Separated non billable service features into their own service configuration section.

Bug Fixes

Security Cardlines

Fixed an issue that where a security cardline (for a security deposit) could be deleted and as a result, caused an issue with the refund process.

Wholesale Cardlines

Fixed an issue where Wholesale Service Providers chose to create a cardline for an invoice (when making product purchase) but the cardline would not appear on the invoice.

Invoices

Process improved to ensure a PDF version of an invoice is generated before we try to retrieve it.

Paper Invoice Fees

Fixed the poor rounding on paper invoice fees.