Content Provider
Each content provider is defined in the system and the information like Billing Day, Bill Type (Upfront/Usage), Initial Licence Volume, SLA performance (Broadcast platform uptime, Admin System uptime, Support response Time) is held in the system. In addition to these billing parameters, contract (Commercial, Technical, Billing, Legal) details can also be stored.
Content Provider - Products
Each product ((Like BBC NEWS, ITV2, Cartoon, etc) supplied by a content provider is defined in the system. Products can be categorised based upon:
Rating Types (U, PG, 12, 18, etc.)
Group (Streaming Content, 24*7, General, EPG, etc.)
Genre ((Adult, News, Sports, EPG, Children, Red Button, etc.)
The products can be liked to following different cost types provided by Content Billing System:
Fixed per unit
Revenue Based
Eat all you can
These cost types are used for billing purpose and price books can be built around them. The buy price of the product, Ledger Accounts (Revenue and Cost of Sales) and channel is also defined for each product.
Content Provider - Price Book
Based upon the cost type of the product, a very flexible price book can be defined for a product.
" Eat all you can - There are no slabs and only one price is held for the product.
" Revenue Based - A price matrix can be built based upon the frequency (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly & Yearly) and volume. E.g. for Hourly, the prices can be held for Quantity (licenses) 0 to 500, 501 to 1000, 1001 to 1500, 1501 to 2000 and 2001 upwards.
" Fixed per unit - A similar price matrix can be built based upon fixed per unit costs.
Service Provider
Each service provider is defined in the system and the information like Billing Day, Bill Type (Upfront/Usage), preferred billing media (paper, electronic or pdf), VAT exempt (Yes/No), minimum guaranteed payment, SLA performance (Broadcast platform uptime, Admin System uptime, Support response Time) is held in the system. In addition to these billing parameters Contract (Commercial, Technical, Billing, Legal) details can also be stored.
Service Provider - Packages
The products supplied by the Content providers can be bundled together to form a package. The different package elements like; Purchase availability, Start and End Time, Ledger Accounts (Revenue and Cost of Sales) can be defined. Additional parameters like show on bill, show on portal, etc can be added to the products to configure the display of the entire package. The different DRM rules can be added to a Package (e.g. Allow Backup Restore, Allow Burn to CD, Allow Save Stream Protected, Valid for 48 hrs after first stored, The number of hours a license is valid after the first time the license is used, etc). These packages are exported to Service provider portals and purchased by end users.
Service Provider - Price Book
Each package is defined as either Fixed Fee or Volume Based. A price matrix can be built based upon the frequency (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, and Monthly & Yearly) and volume sold. E.g. for Hourly, the prices can be held for Quantity (sold) 0 to 500, 501 to 1000, 1001 to 1500, 1501 to 2000 and 2001 upwards. This is used as a parameter for content billing. Additional facilities for price change mechanism are provided:
Adhoc price - where a price of a package can be increased/decreased by a percentage for a specific period.
Permanent price - where a package price can be increased/decreased by a percentage and applied across the price book.
Service Provider - Credit/Debit Notes
Any adjustments prior to bill runs can be made using Credit (E.g. To correct Overcharge, Courtesy Credit, Discretionary Credit) and Debit (Additional Services, Set-up Fee, Engineer Callout) Notes. These Credit/Debit Notes are created against the packages being sold by Service Providers and are included in the next Bill Run.
Service Provider - Licensing
Content Billing provides an interface where third party interfaces can be integrated for license delivery mechanism. Any request coming from end user's device to service provider portal can be redirected to Content Billing system, which in turn can call the third part interfaces for generating a license and delivering it back to service provider portals. Once a successful license is delivered to end user device a corresponding Order is registered in the Content Billing System and used for billing purpose. Additional interfaces are provided for recording the other billable events like Red Button Clicks.
Billing
A monthly billing functionality is provided by Content Billing System. Before a final bill is processed a provisional bill can be processed for verification and confirmation so that if required any debit/credit adjustment are made. The provisional bill can be processed as many as times required before a final bill for the month is generated. The bills are produced for End users based upon their licenses and red button clicks; Service Providers based upon their packages sold and content providers based upon the volume of content sold. In addition to packages/content sold, for both Content providers and Service Providers the prices configured and defined in their respective price books determine their billing rules.
Help Desk
Exhaustive help desk functionality is provided which includes:
- Snapshot - The snapshot is divided into three sections:
- Online up to date messages which can be seen by all logged users. The messages can be related to any new announcements, planned maintenance, channel breakdown etc.
- Online status of all the channels. The channel statuses can be color coded.
- On list of faults allocated to different help desk representatives and their statuses.
- Faults - Faults can be registered and assigned to Content Providers and Service Providers. These faults are open for any registered user to add their comments. The faults can be escalated and re-assigned. The fault cycle starts from opening a fault to its closure. The faults are categorised as Content, Device, License, etc and sub categorised as Connection, Hardware, Software, etc. Statistical reports/views are available based upon fault categories and their priorities.
- FAQ - A complete list of Question and Answers can be maintained to help the end users for getting their handsets, content and licenses.
- Events - A calendar based events can be maintained for Day, Week, Month and Year. The reminders (mail) are set to eligible users based upon calendar events.
- On-line Chat - Chat functionality has been provided so that different users to the system (Service Provider, Content Provider, End Users, and Normal Operators) can interact with each other against a recorded fault. The on-line help is provided to end users through different chant rooms. The chat text is recorded for any future auditing.
Reports/Views
A wide range of reports and views are provided. The most commonly used views and reports are:
- General Ledger / Financial
- Service Provider Details - Year and month wise Ledger Accounts
- Service Provider Summary - Summarised Ledger View.
- Content Provider Details - Year and month wise Ledger Accounts
- Content Provider Summary - Summarised Ledger View.
- Sales Ledger
- Revenue Analysis
- Quarterly Revenue
- Gross Margins
- Bill Analysis
- Orders
- Summary (Billed, Pending, Failed, etc.)
- Statistics
- Failed Requests (Licensing)
- Red button clicks
- End User
- Licence Activity
- End user behavior
- Help Desk Activity
For Content Billing product demo you may contact Resorsys UK Limited on +44 (0) 141-8102828 or send a request to sales@resorsys.co.uk. We shall arrange an on-line demo in 72 hours after receiving your request.
