2018-02 E.T. Release

 

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General - Enhancements & Bug Fixes

153252 - Billing Data Verification Expansion

We have spent the previous year reviewing how to provide better billing data verification reports that require no manual effort and run automatically as part of billing. The purpose of Data Verification reports is to bring to light any data issues that might negatively impact billing and give the Client time to fix these.

Examples of these reports include Invalid Location issues, Missing rates, Off cycle corp/sub accounts, etc. Previously, each client had their own data verification reports. We reviewed all reports across all clients and found the most useful of these to apply to all clients starting with the E.T. release. These will now be standard across all clients, though client-specific data verification is still available. Client specific Data Verification reports will be available from a tab labeled Additional Data Verification.

Standard reports will run automatically during the Daily Billing process and report results. When triggered during Daily, the reports will check accounts across all billable billing cycles.

Additionally, Standard reports will be ran as part of the Test and Production billing processes. In these cases, the reports will only check accounts tied to the current Test / Production bill run Schedule record.

The Data Verification tab found within the Billing Control Panel will provide access to these reports. There are now three levels:

  • Error - must be fixed before billing can complete
  • Warning - recommended to be fixed but will not impede the billing process
  • Information - recommended to be reviewed to see if any data should be fixed

 

The Data Issues tab has the following new features:

  • Filtering the grid based upon level and/or the category of issue
  • Exporting the grid

 

Please see a full list of all Data Issue reports here.

One noteworthy new data check looks for call records that have rating errors or are categorized as unassigned (cannot be found in TBS, but we have usage). The report will calculate based on the total number of CDRs processed in a previous month and report the percentage of errors / unassigned comparatively for the current month. Depending on the percentage of call records that have errors, one of the following issues is created:

  • 0% - no message
  • < 5% - Call record error percentage is 3.0% (1000 records).
  • < 10% - Call record error percentage of 7.3% (12345 records) exceeds warning threshold.
  • >= 10% - Call record error percentage of 11.3% (123445 records) exceeds error threshold.
  • >= 10% with a new Threshold Date setting in the future: Call record error percentage of 11.8% (128921 records) would normally exceed the error threshold. However, until 05/06/2018, this is a warning instead of an error.

 

The Threshold Date can be set by a client's account manager for use during acquisitions, as it can take some time to catch up with these kinds of errors. Initially, the date will be set to the client's E.T. release date plus 3 months. This will allow everyone time to fix these issues (that usually result in lost revenue).

The data issues grid has the options to export to excel, word, or pdf documents. The options are used by clicking one of the three buttons on the right side of the top bar of the data issues grid.

160515 - Locations.State alter from 50 to 3 chars

The State field on the Locations table is being changed from 50 characters to 3 to conform to International standards. Any data in this field longer than 3 characters will be truncated.

147100 - Technical Contact Fields added to Locations

The Technical Name, Technical Email, and Technical Phone fields have been added to locations, and can be seen on a customer's locations or when creating a new customer. If any of the technical contact fields are filled, the technical contact information will appear on the customer's account summary page. The contact email, alternate contact email, and technical email fields on a customer's location are now checked on the frontend to ensure that they fit the expected format of an email address (i.e. abc@xyz.com).

163158 - Email Attachment file size limit

Many email attachments from the system (including email billing and scheduled reports) will now be automatically compressed if the file size is larger than 10MB. Instead of the original attachment, a zip file containing the original attachment will be sent instead.

On the Scheduled Tasks > Report Information Tab:

- Send URL to Reports is always displayed. This option sends a link to the attachments instead of the attachments themselves. This is useful when reports are quite large. The URL is usable for seven days, and though hard to guess, is a publicly available URL.

- Store Reports in Docs Repository is no longer an option.

160756 - Avalara Tax Provider Configuration

This only applies to clients which are set to use Avalara as their tax provider.

A new section exists on System Info page which is only visible to those clients who use Avalara as their taxprovider.

This section contains the following fields:

  • Avalara Username
  • Avalara Password
  • Enable Tax Service Logging
  • Business Class
  • Service Class
  • Franchise
  • Regulated
  • Facilities-Based.

These fields correspond with new fields in the database.

AvalaraApiKey has been removed from the database and from the System Info screen. Avalara Username and Avalara Password are now used to establish a connection to the Avalara API. The AvalaraPassword field is encrypted in the database, but when loaded on the System Info screen it will be decrypted to appear as typed originally.

Business Class can be set to CLEC or ILEC. Service Class can be set to PrimaryLongDistance or PrimaryLocal. Franchise, Regulated, and Facilities-Based can each be set to true or false using a checkbox. Those clients which are currently setup to use Avalara as their tax provider will have these fields set initially to Business Class = CLEC, Service Class = PrimaryLongDistance, Franchise = false, Regulated = true, and Facilities-Based = true. If (No Value) is set for Business Class, CLEC will be assumed, and if (No Value) is set for Service Class, PrimaryLongDistance will be assumed. These options will be passed to the Avalara API when the tax elements screen is used and when taxes are calculated.

160013 - Enable Avalara Tax Logging

This is currently only implemented for Avalara, and is not yet implement for CSI. On the System Info screen, under the Avalara API Options section (Avalara must be the tax provider), there is an option labelled Enable Tax Service Logging.

When taxing service logging is enabled (and the Tax Provider is Avalara), a request, response, and some metadata (round-trip time, start time, and endtime) will be saved in a folder generated based on the current time,

{T4SystemsDirectory}\Tex\Log\YYYYMMDD_HHmmSSffffff_{5-ish random characters}, as Request.json, Response.json, and meta.dat.

160757 - Tax API Test Connection Options

There is a "Test API Connection" button on the Tax Elements screen. Clicking this button will send an empty request to the tax provider's API. This is to ensure that the API key is valid, and that the connection to the API is being established properly. The message "The connection test to the taxing API was successful." indicates that the connection was successful, while the message "There was an error connecting to the taxing API." indicates a problem.

150411 - Note Communication Through Email

This involves updates and changes to email integration functionality, specifically pertaining to the creation of Notes by email in response to notes and tasks notifications.

The note visibility settings (customer- and agent-visible) default to the visibility settings of the top-level parent. If a note is created in response to another note, the top level parent is the note which initiated the conversation thread. If a note is being created in response to a task notification, the task is the top-level parent. The user notifications on a note created from an email will be set to the same notifications that the top-level parent has.

Notes which are posted from an incoming email will include the from-address of the sender at the end of the note being posted.

Creation of notes via email is only supported for creation of notes on customers, agents, or tasks.

When creating a note on a customer, the from address is checked against the ContactEmail, AltContactEmail, and TechContactEmail of every location connected to the customer, the customer's BillingEmail, the customer's PaymentConfirmationEmail, and the email addresses of all UserSettings records in the system. If any match is found, the note is created.

When creating a note on an agent, the from address is checked against the agent's Email, OrderEmail, TTEmail, and the email addresses of all UserSettings records in the system. If any match is found, the note is created.

When creating a note on a task, the from address is checked against the task's ContactEmail, the NotificationEmails, the above-mentioned emails on the task's customer (if it has a customer), the above-mentioned emails on the task's agent (if it has an agent), and the email addresses of all UserSettings records in the system. If any match is found, the note is created.

If a note cannot be created, an email will be returned to the sender and to the failure BCC address specified in T4CompanyMaster.

146952 - Add the InvoiceAmount to the TBSBillHistoryV2 InvoiceInformationView

The REST invoices endpoint now includes a new field: InvoiceAmount.

155336 - Add Payment Email BCC to lkBaseInfo

A new field has been added to the Bases screen called "Payment Confirmation Email BCC". If this field is filled any email that is sent to a customer's payment confirmation email will also BCC the listed email address(es).

137559 - ACH Deleted queued payment and recurring payment

Previously, it was possible for an ACH payment to be deleted when it was queued for processing. This has been fixed.

Queued ACH payments (payements with ACHInfo records with ProcessAmountNow other than 0.00) cannot be deleted.

The recurring process does not look at ACHInfo records that are deleted.

163518 - Bug: Agent Add Error - Master Sales ID

This only applies to anyone using the new Agents UI. We fixed a bug that was causing an error to appear when trying to add a new agent.

162995 - Bug: Issue found with Pencil Edit Option

This change applies to the tasks screen as well as the new customers screen. Any time that the pencil icon is used to enter edit mode and the screen is refreshed from a pop up window closing, the screen will no longer return to edit mode after the pop up window closes.

161256 - Corporate Payment Option issues on sub accounts where sub pays

Fixed a bug where the Corp Payment Option was not being defaulted on a sub account. This value will now be defaulted on a sub account to match the value of the corporate account that it is tied to.

162453 - Bug: Exporting Reports Menu Doesn't Render Correctly

Traditional Products - Enhancements & Bug Fixes

161252 - Checkrates issues

The Check Rates grid will now show one row per NPANXX when entering multiple NPANXXs.

When checking rates for multiple NPANXXs, only one row will appear per entered NPANXX with all the data that the user has selected: local, long distance and/or DSL. Only one Local rate plan will appear, based on the list order of the local plans. The user now has the option to view between 1 and 5 Long Distance plans based on their selection in the "# of LD Plans to Display" drop down list.

The Export Grid button has also been updated to stay consistent with the display settings of the grid.

Note that no changes have been made to the screen when checking the rates for one NPANXX. Entering one NPANXX will still show all available local and long distance plans, and does not account for the "# of LD PLans to Display" drop down list.

148495 - Add Transaction Classification to Dedicated

Transaction Classification has been added to Dedicated products. This is primarily to help with GL reporting; setting a value here will override the Transaction Classification on the LkDedicated table.

Integrated Products - Enhancements & Bug Fixes

158653 - Filter default button on International rate plan filter

Default filtering is now available on the rates admin screens, including the international rates admin screen.

Users can now set and save a default filter for the rate plans admin screens.

Available screens include: conference calling, efax, inbound, local, long distance, long distance exceptions, long distance cost markups, class, international, intrastate, lata ocn, lata tier, npanxx orig terms, tier, tier with lata, and standard rates and plans.

161801 - Replicate Tool: Automatic Creation of Zipcode locations based on NPANXX

When replicating a product, it is now possible to have location(s) automatically created based on a billing telephone number (BTN).

When replicating a product, the user can choose to create or use an existing location based on the BTN for a replicated products. To use this feature, the user should select "Use BTN to create new or use existing location(s)" in the Locations section.

There are three places or ways to enter a BTN. First, the user can enter the new product IDs followed by a "|" and the BTN into the "New Product IDs" textbox. This will work for any product type.

Second, the user can choose to use the BTN from the original product under the Voice section. This will not work if the original product does not have a BTN set. This will only work for Voice product types.

Third, the user can choose to use the ProductIDs they enter into the "New Product IDs" textbox as the BTN by selecting Voice Product Behavior: Use the replicated ProductID. In this case, the new ProductID must also be able to pass as a BTN. This option is only available for Voice product types.

In all cases, the BTN must be a valid phone number or at least 6 digits for an NPANXX.

The entered BTN will be used to look for an existing location in TBS. If one is found, that location will be used if it is on the customer the replicated product is being assigned to, or it will be copied to the customer the replicated product is being assigned to. If no location is found in TBS, one will be created.

It is possible to control which locations are used or copied when replicating a product with a given NPANXX. There is a new field on Locations called "ReplicationNPANXX" that can be set to a 6-digit NPANXX. Any BTNs entered with a matching NPANXX during product replication will use that location.

 

Quote Requests & Task Tickets - Enhancements & Bug Fixes

162317 - Agent ID and Agent Name column in inventory disappear when sorting on another column

In the Tasks Grid: Previously, agent ID and name would take up multiple columns, and customer name and id would take up multiple columns. Also, agent and customer columns would sometimes disappear when doing a sort, and the agent id and name column would show up on the tasks grid for a specific agent.

Now, on the tasks grid, the agents id column and agents name column are combined in the agents name column, with the id linking to the agent's page.

The customers id column and customers name column are combined in the customers name column, with the id linking to the customer's page.

In the inventory, if any task-types in the task type group which the grid is for are customer-associated, the customer name column is shown, and if any task-types of the task type group which the grid is for are agent-associated, the agent name column is shown. The columns no longer disappear when a sort is performed.

The agent name and customer name columns do not appear on tasks grids on an agent or on a customer.

160453 - Ability to hide any workflow status that returns no associated Tasks

The tasks tree now includes a checkbox that can hide or show statuses that have no tasks.

Checking "Hide Statuses with no Tasks" and clicking "Refresh Tree" will cause the tasks tree to only show statuses that have tasks. The option the user chooses will be saved automatically upon clicking "Refresh Tree" so that the page will load their preference the next time they visit the page.

140014 - Task Metrics - Show Status as word instead of key

The Tasks metrics page has been updated to show the names of Statuses instead of their key values.

To make the Tasks metric page more useful, the Old Value and New Value columns now show the name of the status, such as "In Progress" or "Completed" instead of a key value like 10 or 15. The Field name column has also been updated so that it displays 'Status' instead of 'LkStatusGroupItemsKey.'

147975 - Add Time Log Module to T4Validation Overrides

We have added the option to make the category field required on the time log grid and the time log quick add screen. It was the only field on the time log screen that was not already required so it is the only field that was affected by these changes.

There is also a new admin screen that this can be set up on. To change the permissions to this field the table name would be "TimeLog" and the field name is "CategoryDropDownGroupItemsKey". These screens now also apply values that are entered in the T4ValidationFields Table. If there is a value in the T4ValidationFields table it will apply across all task types. If a record exists for a specific task types key in the overrides table then that record will apply to the specific task type it is set up for.

150656 - New Field - Task Title

A new "Task Title" field has been added to the tasks screen. If this field is filled it will be used as the title for that task throughout the system. This includes in the tasks page header, tasks page breadcrumb, tasks summary screen, recently viewed tasks, tasks tree, and tasks grid. If it is not filled the title will remain in the same format it previously had. This also changed the fields displayed in the small side panel grid on the tasks screen. Now only the task title, which will be filled with the default if left blank, and the task status show in the grid.

Release Database Changes

Database Changes

These are the differences that will be made to your existing database when upgrading to version 43.00.

TBS Database (please see BillHistoryV2 changes in the next section)

 

The following fields will be dropped:

  • Referrals.ReferralsKey
  • Referrals.ReferredBy
  • Referrals.ReferringCustKey
  • Referrals.ReferredCustKey
  • Referrals.AddDate
  • Referrals.FirstBillingDate
  • Referrals.InvoiceCount
  • Referrals.PaidDate
  • Referrals.Amount
  • Referrals.EnteredBy
  • Referrals.EnteredDate
  • Referrals.Modified
  • Referrals.ModifiedBy
  • Referrals.ModifiedDate
  • Referrals.DeletedFlag
  • SchedulerReportInfo.UseDocsRepo
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraApiKey

 

The following fields will be altered:

  • ACHInfo.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • ACHInfoView.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • Agents.MasterSalesID IsNullable (False -> True)
  • AgentsView.MasterSalesID IsNullable (False -> True)
  • BillingRPT_TaxReportCredits.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • BillingRPT_TaxReportDebits.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • BillingRPT_TmpTaxReportCredits.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • BillingRPT_TmpTaxReportDebits.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • CCInfo.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • CCInfoView.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • CustomerInformation.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3)
  • Locations.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3)
  • LocationsView.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3)
  • PaymentsLog.State CharacterMaximumLength (2 -> 3)
  • TTStatusView.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3)

 

The following tables will be added:

  • DataIssueCategories
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView

 

The following fields will be added:

  • Company.PrecisionAccountIdentifier
  • CustomerInformation.TechContactName
  • CustomerInformation.TechContactPhone
  • CustomerInformation.TechContactEmail
  • DataIssueCategories.DataIssueArea
  • DataIssueCategories.CategoryId
  • DataIssueCategories.Category
  • DataIssueCategories.Description
  • DataIssues.CategoryId
  • DataIssuesView.IssueCategoryId
  • DataIssuesView.IssueCategory
  • Dedicated.LkTransClassificationsKey
  • lkBaseInfo.PaymentEmailBCC
  • LkBaseInfoView.DefaultTTTaskTypeKey
  • LkBaseInfoView.PaymentEmailBCC
  • Locations.TechContactName
  • Locations.TechContactPhone
  • Locations.TechContactEmail
  • Locations.ReplicationNPANXX
  • Locations.CSIVerified
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraUsername
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraPassword
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraBusinessClass
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraFacilitiesBased
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraFranchise
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraRegulated
  • T4CompanyMaster.AvalaraServiceClass
  • T4CompanyMaster.EnableTexLogging
  • T4CompanyMaster.BillingCDRThresholdDate
  • T4CompanyMaster.MaxNumberOfAPITransactions
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.T4ValidationPermOverridesKey
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.TableName
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.FieldName
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.Editable
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.Visible
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.Required
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.ControlTitle
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.TaskTypesKey
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.TaskType
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.LkBaseInfoKey
  • T4ValidationPermOverridesView.Base
  • Tasks.Title
  • TasksView.Title
  • UserSettings.HideEmptyTaskStatuses

 

BillHistoryV2 Database Changes

The following fields are dropped:

  • None

 

The following fields are altered:

  • ROLLUP_CorpLevel.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3), IsNullable (False -> True)

  • ROLLUP_TopLevel.State CharacterMaximumLength (50 -> 3), IsNullable (False -> True)

 

The following tables and views are added:

  • None

The following fields are added:

  • InvoiceInformationView.InvoiceAmount