Managing rates online
Managing rates online is very convenient for maintaining existing rate tables, as well as for reference purposes.
In the case of new price lists or major updates, the offline method is better.
1. On the Tariff Management page you will see a list of available tariffs.
Click the Rates icon in front of the name of the tariff. When you are in Tariff Management for a particular tariff, click on Rates in the toolbar.
2. In the Edit Rates screen, click Add.
3. Fill in the required information:
o Destination The destination prefix may be entered directly,
e.g. 47 for Norway, or you can access the destinations directory by clicking the Destination link (in the column header).
Here you can find the desired prefix by country name.
NOTE: The phone prefix you are trying to create a rate for must already exist in
Destinations.
o Interval First First billing unit in seconds.
o Interval Next Next billing unit in seconds.
o Price First Per-minute price for first interval.
o Price Next Per-minute price for next interval.
o Off-peak Interval First: First billing unit in seconds for off-
peak time.
o Off-peak Interval Next : Next billing unit in seconds for off- peak time.
o Off-peak Price First : Per-minute price for first interval of off- peak time.
o Off-peak Price Next : Per-minute price for next interval of off- peak time.
NOTE: Off-peak fields appear only if an off-peak period has been defined for the tariff.
o Rate Formula Wizard : Launches the wizard for creating a custom rating formula
o Effective From : If you want this rate to take effect sometime in the future, you can either type in a date manually, or use the calendar (click the DD-MM-YYYY link). Click on the Stop Watch icon to make the rate effective immediately.
NOTE: When using the calendar, you can specify that the date you are entering is in a different time zone than your current one. PortaBilling will then automatically adjust the time.
o Hidden, Forbidden or Discontinued flags are optional
4. Click the Save button in the toolbar, or the icon on the left end of the row.
5. Repeat if you need to enter more rates.
Managing rates offline
NOTE: Templates are available in PortaBilling : a powerful tool for uploading rates from custom format data files. However, in this particular example we assume that you are preparing data in the default PortaBilling format.
The rates table may be prepared using a spreadsheet processor (i.e. Microsoft Excel) and easily imported into PortaBilling. This is very convenient if you wish to make many changes. For example, you might increase all prices by 10%.
1. If you are not in Tariff Management for your tariff, go to the main menu, click on Tariffs, and then click on the tariff name.
2. In the Edit Tariff window, move the mouse over the Download button and hold it there until a popup menu appears. Choose the Now menu item and click on it. This will download the current set of rates (empty), and will also provide you with an overview of the file structure.
3. You will see the File Download dialog and be prompted to save the file or open it from its current location. We recommend that you first
save the file to the folder you will be using in the future to store tariff data files, then open it in Excel.
4. Please refer to PortaSwitch Handbook: Postpaid Billing, August 2009 at http://support.globalink.us/download/ for screenshots.
5. Edit the file by adding more rows with rate data, so that it looks like the screenshot below.
6. Note that the columns Country and Description are for reference purposes only, and are ignored during import. Also, when using the default template you must fill in the data in the Off-peak columns even if your tariff does not have an off-peak period (use the clipboard to easily copy values for the four peak columns).
7. Also note that you may only use those phone prefixes which you have already defined as destinations.
8. If you want some of your rates to be effective in the future, enter a future date in the Effective from column. If you are retaining past dates, make sure to check the box Rates with 'effective from' date in the past should be uploaded as effective immediately when uploading the file (see step 13 below). Otherwise, these rates will fail to upload.
9. Save the file in Excel. You will probably get a warning from Excel that your file may contain features that are not compatible with CSV (Comma delimited). Ignore this, and choose Yes to retain CSV format.
10. Close the file in Excel. If you performed step 6, then disregard the message Do you want to save the changes you made, as this is only due to the fact that your format is not the native Excel XLS format.
11. Go back to the PortaBilling web interface and the Edit Tariff screen.
12. Click on the Upload button.
13. Select one of the options on the screen to add rates from the file to the existing ones, or to replace the existing ones, as shown on the screenshot below:
14. Either enter the name of your file manually, or click Browse and choose the file.
15. Click Save&Close. You should return to the Edit Tariff screen, where a message will inform you of the status of the import. Also, you will receive an email confirmation about the tariff upload. If any operation failed, you will receive the portion of data which was not uploaded as an attachment, so you can try to import it later.
You can verify your work using the Edit Rates feature. After you have done so, go to the Main Menu (by clicking on the Home icon).
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