Performing SOM Integration with Convergent Charging

The O2C company offers cloud infrastructure to their customer.

The product Storage Service offers storage due to Data Volume Storage:

• 1 GB of Storage costs 2 EUR
• 4 GB of Storage costs 3 EUR

SAP Convergent Charging is a Billing and Revenue Innovation Management solution component for service pricing and modeling for usages.

Understand the process definition for pricing, rating, and charging:

The O2C company offers cloud infrastructure to their customer. The product Cloud Selection Service is a subscription and is paid monthly.

The monthly fee depends on the selected service level agreement. Four options are possible: Pay-as-you-go, Silver, Gold, and Platinum. Depending on the selected service level, the customer can consume a number of CPU hours, RAM hours, and GB for Bandwidth for free.

Additionally, the price for usage consumption for RAM, CPU, and Bandwidth depends on the service level agreement. Pricing, rating, and charging of usage consumption according to the product model is done in SAP Convergent Charging.

Explanation of Objects in SAP Convergent Charging:

• Charge Plans are the building blocks of a commercial offer for the customer and combine charges to meaningful packages. Charge plans transfer counter, parameter, and technical objects to charges.
• Tables contain the price or other information. There are different table types in place: Mapping and Range tables. Both are adaptable to subscriber Mapping tables and Subscriber Range tables.
• Macros contain reusable logic of price plans.
• The charge is the representation of an amount, which is charged to someone.
• SAP Convergent Charging uses three types of charges: one-time, recurring, and usage charges.
• A charge includes two plans:
  1. Charging Plans describe how to determine the account to credit/debit.
  2. Price Plans describe how to calculate the price.
• The Chargeable Item Class is responsible for the format of data provided by a mediation system, which is to be processed by SAP Convergent Charging.
• In the integrated SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management scenario, the chargeable item class will be automatically derived from the consumption item class in SAP Convergent Invoicing. This occurs during the import of the consumption item mapping. Consumption Items store the unrated incoming data events and allow deferred rating or rerating.
• The Charged Item Class describes the output data format. Billable Items are the rated events, which will be processed by SAP Convergent Invoicing into invoices. Billable Items class and Charged Items class are mapped via Billable Items mapping.
• An allowance allows the customer to consume a defined volume (allowance counter) of a service during a defined time.

Therefore, the following objects in SAP Convergent Invoicing are used:

The allowance plan defines the behavior of an allowance when the charging and refilling processes are executed. The allowance plan consists of the following:

• One or several allowance logic objects
• A set of counters linked to the allowance logic objects
• A set of parameters optionally linked to the allowance logic objects
• A status, which can be open or released

The allowance logic performs calculations only when the allowance plan is triggered by the following:

• Any allowance event
• A periodic allowance event
• A one-shot allowance event

From the financial view allowances, create deferred revenues in SAP S/4HANA Convergent Invoicing.

Convergent Charging Rating and Charging Scenario with creation of consumption items:

The mediation engine is responsible for transforming the data sent by the network infrastructure into records that can be handled and processed by the rating engine. These records need to contain all data necessary for rating and charging:

• User ID pointing to the correct (technical) user using the service
• Service ID pointing to the correct service which was used
• Consumption date in the right common format
• Any user-defined properties which are necessary for the rating and charging process
• Convert to chargeable item and send to SAP Convergent Charging

A Provider Contract is made up of at least one or more contract items. Each contract item corresponds to a Charge Plan, which includes the charges. How many Contract Items (or Charge Plans) are activated inside a provider contract is defined in the Product Model and the contained Cross-Catalog Mapping in SOM.

• Acquisition of the chargeable item by SAP Convergent Charging.
• An access object will only be created if the charge contains a usage rate; charges with only recurring rates do not have an access.
• The UserID is a unique identifier of the subscriber account / provider contract.
• The ServiceID is a unique technical identifier of the service (charge)
• The access is the combination of UserID and Service ID.
• The usage events can be assigned to the usage charge, with help of the access.

Apply pricing to events based on the following:

• Pricing logic in the price plan for CPU usage
• Update counters, for example, CPU usage counter for free CPU usage

• Charging in the Charging Plan means assignment to the external account.
• Determine the account that will be charged based on the charging plan.

• Charged Items are mapped to billable items with charged item mapping.
• Map Charged Items to billing format and send to the Billing System.
• SAP Convergent Invoicing receives the usage data with a price and is assigned to a specific customer account.

Loading in SAP Convergent Invoicing of the corresponding rated consumption items.

This figure shows the accesses and parameters of our business example provider contract 300.

The User ID in our cloud example is an IP address, IP 123.456.00. Three services are assigned to the cloud product, Service IDs: CPU, RAM, and Data Packet.

The combination of user ID and service ID defines the accesses. CPU, RAM, and Bandwidth Usage can be assigned to the charge with help of User ID and Service ID in the consumption data record.

Steps in calculate usage charge for CPU:

Free Volume is 10000 according to the provider contract conditions. First CDR CPU; IP 123.456.03; 2019/02/06; CPUs 35; Hours 100

1. Compute the total CPU hours for all CPU = 35*100 = 3500.
2. Specify the BIT Type out Product Bill Type, Bill Type =BIT Type is H211.
3. Specify the unit is H.
4. Retrieve SLA Pricing (read the range table).
5. Count all CPU hours; start with Counter = 0, the counter is set to 3500.
6. With the first usage the counter is up to 10.000. No charge for free 3500 CPU. Create an output of the leaf on BIT, with amount 0 for the first usage.

Every "leaf" of the price plan of the Charge CPU Usage Pay Postpaid_MA_Two_V7 is ending with a function.

Table parameters refer to SAP Convergent Charging tables that are used to determine usage prices during the rating process.

Table parameters are special string parameters. During contract creation, SAP Convergent Charging expects the ID of a specific table type. The charging table type is defined by the table class that is displayed together with the table parameter. SAP Convergent Charging allows you to use different tables for each contract and, therefore, the integration with cross-catalog mapping (CCM) allows you to overwrite the default tables from SAP Convergent Charging, at subscription product and contract level. You are able to leverage mapping and range tables here.

• Default Table
• Redefined Table: You can redefine a table. A copy of the default table with a specific ID will be created in SAP Convergent Charging. The ID of the redefined table is shown in the Object Specific Table column. The redefined table must be maintained in the app to manage mapping or range tables.
• Assigned Table: You can assign a table. Assigned tables are defined independently from a specific product. If the table class ID of the table parameter matches, the available table can be assigned. Changes to the content of an assigned table are visible to all products, mapping versions, and assigned charge plans, using this assigned table. Therefore, it's possible to make personalized changes (centrally) to the configuration of all subscription products, using this assigned table.

Convergent charging tables (SAP Convergent Charging tables – mapping or range tables) are tables in an SAP Convergent Charging system that are used during the charging and rating process in SAP Convergent Charging. The table can be referenced in a charge plan using a parameter. This parameter value becomes the default value.

Charge plan parameters can be overwritten in the CCM of a subscription product. For parameters of the type mapping or range table, you can create a new table and assign its identifier to a parameter value.

• The default table that's defined in the CCM of the product is copied as the default table in the subscription order item. If an object-specific table (redefined or assigned) is defined in the product, it's copied as a default table into the subscription order item.
• An assigned table can be a table from the SAP Convergent Charging standard catalog or a table from the subscriber account assigned in the subscription order.
• If a redefined table is created in the subscription order, it's stored in the subscriber account for the SAP Convergent Charging system. You can change the contents of a redefined table.

SAP Convergent Charging handles the rating (pricing) and charging (determination of payer) of services. As a result, billable items are created that you transfer to billing and that, as an example, in the case of rerating, you can also reverse.

Through the integration of SAP Convergent Invoicing, Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA), SAP Convergent Charging, and SAP S/4HANA Service (SOM), SAP ensures the distribution and synchronization of master data across all involved systems (see replication from a FI-CA system to an SAP Convergent Charging system).

SPRO → Service → Master Data → Settings for Subscription Master Data → Convergent Charging.

SPRO → Service → Transactions → Settings for Subscription Transactions → Integration.

SPRO → Financial Accounting → Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Convergent Charging.

When working with SAP Convergent Charging, joint replication must be activated:

SPRO → Financial Accounting → Contract → Accounts Receivable and Payable → Integration → Convergent Charging → Activate Joint Replication of All Master Data.

Since the master data and contract replication are confirmed asynchronously in joint distribution, the subscription contract might still be locked when the status update is triggered from the provider contract.

Define the number of retries to lock the subscription contract for the status update from the provider contract and the waiting interval between those retries.

SPRO → Service → Transactions → Define Settings for Item Categories → Integration → Integration with Convergent Charging → Settings for Joint Distribution.

You can use Transaction SOAMANAGER to configure Web Services:

• Web Services used for SAP S/4HANA Service follow the name pattern *FKKCC*
• Web Services called from Contract Accounts Receivable and Payable (FI-CA) follow the name pattern *ISX*

In addition to charging recurring fees using billing plans, you can also charge recurring fees using SAP Convergent Charging. A mapping version for charge plans, to provide the configuration for recurring fees can be created under Cross Catalog Mapping in Subscription Product-Specific Data. Here you can assign Charge Plans from SAP Convergent Charging containing one or more parameters from the type, Price Key (this is a charge plan parameter from type Mapping Table Key) and one from type Price Table (this is a charge plan parameter from type Mapping Table ID using mapping table class Price Table) that are configured in SAP Convergent Charging. This will be used for storing information needed for the recurring charge. The price key and price table will be interpreted and sent to SAP Convergent Charging during subscription contract activation where it's stored in the provider contract.

As long as there's no manual price in the subscription contract, the price is sent to SAP Convergent Charging when the corresponding condition table is saved and stored in SAP Convergent Charging in the price table related to the used subscription product. Manual contract prices will be sent to SAP Convergent Charging together with the contract distribution and stored in agreement tables used for manual prices.

A recurring fee can be configured in the assigned Charge Plan of the Cross Catalog Mapping Version either by a Condition Type or by a Variant Condition Key Alias. When using condition types, only condition types are allowed that are not used for variant configuration.

If you want to use a condition type relevant for variant configuration, you have to use the Variant Condition Key Alias. In this case, where you do not enter the condition type itself, you have to enter either the Variant Condition Key directly or only a part of the key with a wild card. If you use a wild card, you must ensure that during product configuration in the order, only one variant condition key is found. In the value help, only variant condition keys are displayed, which are maintained in the Variant Configuration Model under the section, Variant Prices.

By default the flag Price is Mandatory is set, that is, during contract distribution a price must be found for this price key. You can remove this flag if the price is not mandatory. In this case, a value 0 is set as the parameter value if no price is found.

Recurring fees dependent on specific subscription product relevant characteristics can be defined by the Variant Condition Key Alias.

The definition of recurring fees is also part of the subscription-specific data of the subscription product. When you assign a charge plan with recurring fees, a price key parameter is available and can be linked to the condition types or variant condition key aliases that define the condition record referenced during contract creation.

This report can be used to create one or multiple outbound messages that are sent using an outbound implementation that is defined for a replication model. You can create the outbound messages directly or in the background.

Activities

The Data Replication Framework is used to replicate price condition records to SAP Convergent Charging and to replicate the subscription product-specific data to external systems. You can define the replication model using the following steps:

1. Go to transaction DRFIMG.
2. Navigate to Data Replication → Define Custom Settings for Data Replication → Define Replication Model.
3. The default replication model for price replication to SAP Convergent Charging is SOM_PRCD. For the subscription product-specific data, the default replication model is SOM_PROD.