May 2021
We’re delighted to announce the general availability of SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS 02. With this release, we continue the enhancement of our Manage Rate Plans app, providing new functionalities to support more complex use cases and improving the user experience of our customers with the cockpit. We also enhance our integration with SAP Convergent Invoicing, strengthening the SAP Billing & Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) story.
This blog provides you with the latest highlights released with SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS 02, as part of the SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) suite.
What’s New in SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS02
IMMEDIATE LOADING OF BILLEABLE ITEMS INTO SAP CONVERGENT INVOICING
As requested by several of our customers, we now enable a direct transfer of billable items generated by SAP Convergent Charging, to be loaded directly after the rating process into SAP Convergent Invoicing (instead of waiting for the bulk loading process to run at a given recurring period).
The enablement of immediate loading of billable items (and of their related consumption items if applicable) is fully optional and applies under the following circumstances:
- enabled through a specific configuration of rater instances (and disabled by default for new installations or upgrades of SAP Convergent Charging)
- applicable to usage charges as well as one-time and recurring charges triggered by usage charges (but not to the one-time and recurring charges triggered by the activation process)
The Process a Chargeable Item app in the Convergent Charging Cockpit was also enhanced to support the immediate loading of billable items (disabled by default).
This improvement of the integration between SAP Convergent Charging and SAP Convergent invoicing will enable our customers to experience the benefit of an immediate and real-time billing process.
SYNCHRONIZE RECURRING CHARGES IN RATE PLANS WITH BILLING CYCLES IN SAP CONVERGENT INVOICING
In order to allow a better customization of the recurring charges in rate plans, we now offer the possibility to synchronize the triggering of recurring charges with billing cycles defined in SAP Convergent Invoicing.
With this enhancement of the of the Manage Rate Plans app, a pricing specialist can now:
- configure the reference date/time of a recurring charge in a rate plan (instead of always use the contract start date/time as a reference date/time),
- make the reference date/time of a recurring charge in a rate plan coincide with the start date/time of the billing cycle defined in Convergent Invoicing.
Customization of the recurring charges in Manage Rate Plans app
EXPORT AND IMPORT OF RATE PLANS IN THE SAP CONVERGENT CHARGING COCKPIT
With this feature, a pricing specialist now have the possibility to transport a rate plan from the development system to a test or production system from the Convergent Charging Cockpit.
The feature includes:
- export of rate plans (managed in the cockpit) in display mode
- import of rate plans, with their related pricing elements (chargeable item classes, charged item classes, mapping table classes, range table classes, mapping tables, and range tables) including:
- the automatic creation of the catalog if it doesn’t exist in the system
- the ability to unselect pricing elements which already exist in the system
- the ability to view the imported rate plan right after the import
With this, we improve the user experience of our customers, enabling the usage of the same user interface for maintaining, exporting, and importing rate plans.
Import Rate Plan
FURTHER RATE PLAN APP ENHANCEMENTS
As we previously promised, we continuously evolve the SAP Convergent Charging Fiori Rate Plan app with new features and capabilities that bring it closer to parity with the SAP Convergent Charging Core Tool.
Below is a list of some of the key enhancements to the Rate Plan App, delivered with SAP Convergent Charging 2021 FPS02:
Date/time handling in pricing tree
SUPPORT OF ONE TIME CHARGES IN RATE PLANS
From this release, pricing specialists can perform the following tasks from the Manage Rate Plans app:
- Add / remove one-time charges
- Configure a one-time charge including the contract event, the output charged item and the pricing tree
One time charges in a Rate Plan
SUPPORT OF DATE/TIME HANDLING COMPONENT IN PRICING TREES
We also added several components in the pricing tree of the Manage Rate Plans app to handle date and times, allowing the pricing specialists to:
- Compare date/time properties with:
- a specified date/time constant value
- or a date/time property value
Component to compare a date/time in pricing tree
- Check whether a date/time property matches one or multiple matching criteria among the following ones:
- Day of Week
- Day of Month
- Month
- Year
Match a date with a given criteria in pricing tree
- Shift date/time properties, by:
- adding to a date/time property a specified number or units of time
- or subtracting from a date/time property a specified number of units of time
Shift a date/time in pricing tree
- Calculate the time duration between 2 date/time properties, in the specified unit of time and using the specified rounding configuration.
Calculate a duration in pricing tree
SUPPORT OF OAUTH2.0 FOR FIORI APPS
In addition to the features mentioned above, SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS 02 also introduces the support of OAUTH2.0 for all apps of the cockpit, enabling customers to integrate with their own authorization server.
With support for OAUTH2.0, we now enable the full benefits of a standardized approach for delegated authorization that delivers numerous benefits that OAUTH2.0 authorization standard enables such as allowing limited access to user’s data for authorization whilst enabling the ability to share data for users authorization without having to release personal information.
MORE INFORMATION
SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS 02 has been released to customers on May 26, 2021 and is available on the SAP Software Download Center.
For more information on SAP Convergent Charging 2020 FPS 02, check out the following links:
