Introducing the Persistent Counter and Shared Counter

Training product cloud selection service BSU_CLOUD_SEL_SERV uses counter in SAP Convergent Charging for free volume of CPU, RAM, and Bandwidth usage. For product definition in Sales Order Management (SOM), the counters are defined in SOM as Counter as well. Two subsidiaries of a customer, with two provider contracts, do not share the volume counter of CPU, RAM, or bandwidth. In case they should share the volume, a sharing counter is necessary.

Sharing allows you to share counters or allowances during the rating process in SAP Convergent Charging, within one contract or across multiple contracts.

• Share counters and allowances within one contract.
• Share objects, counters and allowances, across a sharing contract and its shared contracts.
• Share allowances between different contracts.

To enable sharing, specific settings to the subscription product must be provided.

Sharing contracts and shared allowances cannot be used together. A product that supports shared allowances cannot be used in a sharing or a shared contract and its opposite.

Product modeling in SOM, according to SAP Convergent Charging Counter, is done in Cross-Catalog Mapping.

Additionally, shared products are assigned in a section of subscription-specific data.

The following process steps are done during Shared Counter Creation:

1. Access the SAP Fiori app, Subscription Order Management, and create a new subscription order with transaction type.
2. Assign a BP1 as a sold-to-party contract partner.
3. Create a contract hierarchy: Root and Leaf.
4. Create the sharing contract.
5. Create a subscription order item, which creates the counter for shared contracts.
6. Select the sharing product, which creates the counter for the contract.
7. Create a subscription order (shared product) and assign the sharing contract number to the subscription order item. The dependent contract is created.
8. Merge the subscriber account.
9. Create shared contracts with shared counter:
   • Usage rating with counter reduction
   • Usage rating with counter to zero
   • Monthly counter reset

In this customizing activity, you can create and edit namespaces for SAP S/4HANA Service. It's required, so these namespaces can be used in Cross-Catalog Mapping (CCM). These namespaces are required for sharing counters that are used by different charge plans.

Namespaces must be defined in SAP S/4HANA Service. This is in addition to the names that you have already defined for counters in SAP Convergent Charging. You can only share counters that have been defined with the same name in SAP Convergent Charging. Counters can be shared between different charge plans of the same contract or between charge plans of a sharing contract and its shared contracts.

Requirements: You have defined counters in SAP Convergent Charging with the same name.

Activities:

1. On the change view Cross Catalog Mapping Counter Namespace, choose New Entries.
2. Enter a counter namespace.
3. Enter a counter namespace description.
4. Save your entries.

• A charge plan contains a counter with the name SHARING_BANDWIDTH. This counter counts the bandwidth that has been sent since the beginning of the month.
• A different charge plan contains a basic charge that also has a counter with the name, SHARING_BANDWIDTH. This counter also counts the bandwidth that has been used. When the 1,000 bandwidth has been used, the basic charge is waived.
• Both charge plans have to use the same counter. To share the counter, you must define a name in SAP Convergent Charging and assign the same namespace in CCM.

You can activate the display of counters in Implementation Guide (IMG):

SPRO → Service → Transactions → Settings for Subscription Transactions → Define Settings for Item Categories.

You can define which counters are displayed on subscription/provider contracts:

SPRO → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Basic Functions → Provider Contract → Counter on Provider Contract.

These views can then be used in BAdI CRM_ISX_PROV_CC_COUNTER.