Working with the Product Catalog¶
In this section
See also
Before reading this, please read about catalog entry parameters and service providing schemes.
If one and the same service is provided to different categories of customers (for example, most of the customers are charged in the beginning of the billing period, whereas others are in the end), you need to create different catalog entries.
If the difference is only about the price or access parameters (for example, the bandwidth is variable for customers in different regions), then only one product catalog entry is required. Different prices and access parameters can be specified in separate price specifications for each category of customers.
Creating Product Catalog Entries for Combined Price Plans¶
Price plans can be found in the Price plans section of the product catalog. It can be convenient to place them into different groups based on various characteristics.
Price plans can be classified by:
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types of clients: individuals, organizations;
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types of services: Internet, phone, television (IPTV), etc.;
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service providing technologies: ADSL, Ethernet, GPON, etc.;
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types of service providing: unlimited, high speed;
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price plan groups: promotional, by product line.
Services which are going to be provided within a price plan are entered separately in the Services section of the product catalog. A list of services in each price plan is specified in price specifications.
Creating Catalog Entries for Individual Price Plans¶
You should not create entries for each individual price plan. One entry in the product catalog may correspond to a number of price plans. At the same time, if price plans feature different providing schemes or other catalog settings, you need to create a separate catalog entry per each settings configuration.
Sometimes, particular customer categories (typically, organizations) are offered plans with individual prices, limits, access bandwidth and lists of services included. However, the main parameters of services are the same. For example, a customer can be subscribed to a such price plan only by the provider. And usually they have the same billing period (1 month), and charging is done daily in the morning. Thus, it is convenient to enter them into the product catalog as one entry (Individual daily charge below). Two other catalog entries are for price plan with different ways of charging, such as charging in the beginning of the period (prepaid), and at the end of the period (postpaid).
Creating Catalog Entries for Services¶
Services, much like price plans, can be easily placed into groups depending on the type, the way of providing, etc.
Services can be classified by:
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services characteristics: traffic services, and others;
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types of traffic: Internet traffic, local traffic, local calls, regional calls, etc.;
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types of customers: individuals, organizations;
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types of services: one-off, monthly.
