Release 36

New Account Balance Replacement Strings for Email Templates (DEV-9450)

This feature makes available two new replacement strings in email templates to indicate an account's balance information: insertStmtAcctBalance and insertStmtUnappliedPayments.

Enhanced Support For Billing Replacement Strings in Email Templates (DEV-10026)

This feature enhances the replacement strings available in the Email Templates module (Notifications > Email Templates) with full support for the fields listed in the Billing Inputs section on the Email Template creation screen.

Invoice Generation Performance Improvement for Accounts With Usage (DEV-10111)

The feature improves the performance of the invoice generation batch process for accounts with usage.

New Client Parameter to Enable Display of Billing Installment Information for Contracts (DEV-10127)

This feature adds the new client parameter "Enable Contract Billing Installment" which, when set to true, enables the return of contract-related billing installment information in the API call get_all_acct_contracts_m. 

This information is only returned for plan instances related to the contract in statuses of Active, Pending cancellation, Pending termination, and Pending activation. Once a plan instance is terminated, canceled, or otherwise becomes inactive, this information is no longer retrieved for that plan instance.

Enhanced billing options based on fulfillment date (DEV-10129)

Three new options have been added for the Invoice Immediately? input field of the Create/Update Order screen (Accounts > search for an account > Statements and Invoices > Orders). This allows you to delay the billing of an order until a specified fulfillment date. In addition, Account/Master Plan Instance (MPI) statuses have been updated to control which statuses allow fulfillment and billing of orders, and the Order Event Class has been updated to include the fulfillment date in the payload for version 2.0 of the Order Event Notification Schema.  Contact Customer Support if you wish to update the schema version in use for your Aria instance.

• Option 3 - Bill on the next anniversary bill after the fulfillment date. 
  • (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 0.)
• Option 4 - Bill on the fulfillment date.
  •  (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment and billing will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 1.)
• Option 5 - Bill on the next anniversary bill that bills arrears services through the fulfillment date. 
  • (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 0.)

Enhanced Information Available for Proration-Related Cash Credits (DEV-10140)

This feature enhances information available on the Cash Credit screen of the Aria application. Now, the originating invoice or proration event that created a cash credit is displayed. This can include canceled or downgraded plans or services, or any account plan changes made with the "net negative proration" directive.

Enhanced logging for Dunning History (DEV-10146)

Aria's Dunning History logging now generates more accurate records for MPIs in which a dunning process is not defined. When Aria identifies an MPI that would normally move to dunning but does not have a dunning process defined, the following will be logged:

• Action Summary (Dunning not started) 
• Action Detail (Could not put MPI in dunning as there is no Dunning Process found to use for it)

Unapply Payments Dialog Box Displays Full List of Line Items For Accounts With Many Plan Instances (DEV-10156)

This feature enhances the "Unapply Payment" function on an account's Payments screen in the Aria application. The dialog box in which you can select line items can now display the list of line items for accounts with a large number of plan instances.

New Objects and Audit Log Added for Data Streaming (DEV-10259)

Aria’s latest iteration of the Data Feed Web Service includes Account Field, Product Field, and Product Field Category objects. In addition, you can now retrieve information about Data Streaming events via Configuration > Audit Logs > Change Stream. 

Find out more about Data Streaming objects on the Data Feed Logical Object Model page. 

Application Fixes 

• When clicking the link to view an account's plan hierarchy screen from the Account Search screen in the Aria Application UI, the resulting pop-up window no longer extends beyond the bottom of your display when the specified account has more than 20 plans with long display names. (TICKET-18185)
• A contract’s end proration factor for an MPI invoice line item is no longer applied to other MPIs not associated to that contract when invoicing. Previously, charges for MPIs not associated with the contract that was ending were being calculated with the contract-end proration factor. (TICKET-18314)
• Chase Paymentech batch sequence processing has been enhanced for operational efficiency. (TICKET-18377)
• Plan changes (cancel, update, or replace) are no longer executed when attempting to preview a resulting invoice in the Aria Application UI ([Specified Account] > Plans > Plan Instance ID > [Replace Plan | Remove Plan | Change Plan Units] > Preview Invoice button). (TICKET-18379)
• In the Aria Application UI, you can no longer attempt to discard usage records that have already been billed. Previously, on the screen [Specified Account] > Usage > Usage History, you could select all usage records and click the Discard Usage button, which sent bad data to the application, halting the Data Streaming Streaming process and firing erroneous events. (TICKET-18432)

Closing Balance Now Included In get_acct_statement_history_m API (DEV-9450)

This feature adds two new output parameters in the API call get_acct_statement_history_m that indicate an account's closing balance:

<unapplied_payment_summary>
<account_balance>

Contract Installment Details Available In Output of get_all_acct_contracts_m (DEV-10127)

This feature enhances the display of contract-related billing installment information for the output of the API Call get_all_acct_contracts_m. When a value of "true" is sent as the value of the new input field <include_contract_billing_installment>, the following new output fields will be populated in the API return values:

• <invoiced_contract_period>
• <invoiced_billing_cycle>
• <remaining_contract_period>
• <remaining_billing_cycle>

The new client parameter "Enable Contract Billing Installment", when set to true, enables this information retrieval in your Aria instance.

Enhanced billing options based on fulfillment date (DEV-10129)

Three new options have been added for the <bill_immediately> directive input field passed to the API from calls create_order_m, update_order_m, and create_order_with_plan_m. This allows you to delay the billing of an order until a specified fulfillment date. In addition, Account/MPI statuses have been updated to control which statuses allow fulfillment and billing of orders, and the Order Event Class has been updated to include the fulfillment date in the payload for version 2.0 of the Order Event Notification Schema.  Contact Customer Support if you wish to update the schema version in use for your Aria instance.

• Option 3 - Bill on the next anniversary bill after the fulfillment date. 
  • (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 0.)
• Option 4 - Bill on the fulfillment date.
  •  (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment and billing will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 1.)
• Option 5 - Bill on the next anniversary bill that bills arrears services through the fulfillment date. 
  • (Note that if the fulfilled date is in the past/current day, then the fulfillment will happen in API itself as in bill_immediately = 0.)

Enhanced Information Available for Proration-Related Cash Credits (DEV-10140)

This feature enhances information available on the Cash Credit screen of the Aria application. Now, the originating invoice or proration event that created a cash credit is returned in the API calls get_credit_details_m and get_cash_credits_details_m. This can include cancelled or downgraded plans or services, or any account plan changes made with the "net negative proration" directive.

New Fields Returned In <cash-cr_origin> Array (get_credit_details_m) and <cash-credit> Array (get_cash_credits_details_m):

Handle Billing Group's Collection Group values in validate_acct_fraud_scoring_m API (DEV-10189)

The validate_acct_fraud_scoring_m API now honors the billing group’s collection group for 3DS and non-3DS payment authorization. The following existing inputs are used to automatically assign this information: <plan_instance_no> or <client_plan_instance_id>, and <billing_group_no> or <client_billing_group_id>. No new inputs are required for this feature.

API Fixes 

• The error code “Usage code or type not on active plan” is now returned when you attempt to add usage via the record_usage_m or bulk_record_usage_m API calls when that usage service is scheduled to be added to the associated plan on that account’s anniversary date. (TICKET-18324)
• When using update_contact_m on an account that is deactivated, the account/statement/billing contacts will now be updated correctly. (TICKET-18350)

• The directive <do_write> = false on the following API calls is now honored as expected, enabling customers to preview the results of plan changes on their accounts, which are mapped to a credit note template on a client instance configured with NET_NEGATIVE_PRO_RATION_ACTION = “Produce Corresponding Cash Credit,” without those changes being committed. Previously, those changes were committed and subsequently triggered notifications. (TICKET-18379)

  APIs:

  • cancel_acct_plan_m
  • update_acct_plan_multi_m
  • replace_acct_plan_m
  • edit_acct_plan_queued_changes_m
  • update_acct_plan_unit_instance_m
• When using the authorize_3dsecure_m API with a tokenized credit card in a Direct Post configuration, a failed authorization record is no longer shown/displayed as eligible for authorization reversal (from Accounts > [Search for an Account] > Payments & Credits > Current Authorization Reversals). (TICKET-18425)