- SAP Managed Tags:
New Release
PUBLIC
February 2022
Dear Convergent Charging and BRIM community, we are delighted to announce yet another new release of SAP Convergent Charging 2022 FPS 01. With this release, we have introduced some exciting new capabilities such as Full Orchestration for Kubernetes environment, new RESTful APIs, support proration for recurring charges and many more new innovations.
This blog provides you with the latest and greatest SAP CC 2022 FPS 01 highlights of our pricing and charging platform, part of the SAP Billing and Revenue Innovation Management (BRIM) suite.
Full Orchestration for Kubernetes environment
With this release we bring some notable improvements to our modernized SAP Convergent Charging deployment option in Kubernetes environment. Below are some of the key features introduced with SAP Convergent Charging when deployed using containerized deployment option:
Update Convergent Charging System with no charging downtime:
Upgrading your SAP Convergent Charging in a Kubernetes environment is now seamless and hassle-free, ensuring zero charging downtime. Thanks to our latest enhancement of the core database maintenance job deployed in the Helm chart, which ensures a maintenance job to perform a schedule check whether an update of core database schema is required. If an update is required, the corresponding SQL update script will be executed to ensure your system is always up-to-date and running at optimal performance.
With this feature, upgrading to a newer version will be much easier, whether it's a major release, FPS, or patch, your live business operation will no longer be impacted. Even in the unlikely event of a failure during the update process, the system administrator can recover the SAP Convergent Charging version that was previously deployed in the Kubernetes cluster, so that your charging system stays up and running.
Manual scaling of a CC system:
The SAP Convergent Charging system administrator can now easily manage unexpected surges in network usage, for example, scenarios such as during holiday seasons or promotional events. This is made possible by the Helm 'upgrade' command, which simplifies the scaling in/out of your Convergent Charging system running in a Kubernetes cluster in a much easier way. This new feature will further improve the reliability and redundancy support when running SAP Convergent Charging on a Kubernetes cluster. Your services will experience uninterrupted operations even during peak demand periods.
Multi hyper-scaler deployment support
Our latest release offers you the flexibility to deploy Convergent Charging on the cloud platform of your choice. You now have the freedom to choose among the multi-hyperscaler deployment on Kubernetes cluster available on two leading cloud platforms, Google GKE and Amazon EKS. With Convergent Charging running seamlessly on your preferred cloud platform, you can focus on delivering high-quality services to your customers without worrying about infrastructure management.
New RESTful APIs for Chargeable Item Loading
With this release, SAP Convergent Charging provides a new RESTful API for Chargeable item loading (also known as acquisition). The API has been designed with the latest REST principles, providing a streamlined integration experience for our customers. This will further simplify integration making it more secure, robust and faster. The new RESTful APIs are now available in the SAP API Business Hub.
This new feature will allow you to:
Simplify integration with SAP CC using SAP API Business Hub
Secured, faster and lighter than SOAP API
SAP API Business Hub for Loading Service RESTful API
You can learn more about the New RESTful APIs by navigating to the following link on the SAP API Business Hub
Proration for Recurring Charges in the Cockpit
We have made improvements to the pricing functionality and user experience for pricing specialists, allowing them to activate, configure and test proration on recurring charges in rate plans from the Cockpit. We have introduced a new feature that enables you to activate and test the "Prorated" recurring charge fees in a rate plan at the start and end of a contract.
This new functionality will enhance the accuracy of recurring charges and simplifies the user experience in configuring and testing recurring charges with proration from the cockpit.
This new feature includes:
New switch button “Prorated” in recurring charges to activate/deactivate proration
Enhancements of the Execution Test panel to:
Calculate period-related properties for a complete period based on the configured Recurrence and Reference Date/Time
Calculate prorated fees according to the defined period between the Recurring Period Start and Recurring Period Stop properties, rounded to the next day
Configuration and testing of recurring charges in the Cockpit
For more information on this new feature, please visit the following link: Editing a Recurring Charge
Watch how to Implement Proration for Recurring Charges:
New Pricing Components for rate plans in the Cockpit
Setting up complex pricing scenarios is now simpler when you are defining the rate plans in the cockpit. We continue to expand our library of pricing components in the Cockpit and with this release, we have now added two new pricing components:
String Prefix Matching
Time Duration Conversion
STRING PREFIX MATCHING COMPONENT
This release introduces a new pricing component “String Prefix Matching” that is available in the pricing tree of charges in the Manage Rate Plans app. This pricing component will compare the string property and execute the related pricing logic in the pricing tree.
While performing the configuration, if you insert a string prefix matching component in the pricing tree, it creates:
A branch for each prefix, which is executed when the string property starts with the related prefix
An additional branch, which is executed when no prefix matches are found.
Configuration and testing of recurring charges in the Cockpit
Learn more about this feature from SAP help portal: String Prefix Matching
TIME DURATION CONVERSION
We now support the ability to use a Time Duration Conversion component directly from the cockpit, which is now available in the pricing tree of charges in the Manage Rate Plans app. The Time Duration Conversion component is for pricing specialists that might want to convert a duration (number property) from one unit of time to another unit of time.
For example, this might include converting a time from minutes to seconds, or from hours to days. This new component will allow you to support and configure more complex pricing scenarios using dates from the cockpit.
Time Duration Conversion component in the CC Cockpit
For more details please visit our SAP help page on Time Duration Conversion
Other Enhancements
In addition to the features mentioned above, SAP Convergent Charging 2022 FPS01 also introduces other enhancements:
Improved error navigation in the Rate Plans
In response to feedback from our customers, we have improved the rate plan configuration experience to make it more intuitive and error-free. With this release, pricing specialists can now easily locate errors during the rate plan configuration through the links in the Message Popover dialogs in the Manage Rate Plans app that will allow them to directly navigate to the relevant sub-pages where the error is located. This feature will improve the user experience and make error resolution faster and more efficient.
Third party Updates
The latest version of the CA Introscope Agent, version 10.8, is now accessible for download on the SAP Software Download Center since February 22nd, 2023.
More Information
SAP Convergent Charging 2022 FPS 01 has been released to customers on Feb 22nd, 2023 and is available on the SAP Software Download Center.
For more information on SAP Convergent Charging 2022 FPS 01, check out the following links:
- Delivery and Information Note for SAP Convergent Charging 2022 FPS 01
Product Page on SAP Help Portal
Questions and Answers for SAP Convergent Charging in SAP Community
