Off-peak Period Definition Wizard

To manage the available off-peak periods, select Off-Peak Periods on the Tariff Management page.

The Off-Peak Period wizard provides users with a flexible tool for defining a new off-peak period. On a sequence of screens, the user may select a time interval, day of the week, day of the month, and month; multiple select is allowed. The following example illustrates the process of creating an off-peak period that starts at 6pm every day and lasts until 6am the next morning. Another off-peak interval is on weekends. We will also include some holidays, i.e. January 1^st and December 24–26.

In the first screen, select 6pm in the From column, and 6am in the Until column. Now click the Next button. The two text areas on the right of the screen give the user a display of the current period definition. The top text area displays a verbal definition of the period – From 6:00pm until 6:00am, and the bottom one contains this same information in a format that can be parsed by PortaBilling: hr{6pm-5am}. This sets up the first period; in order to continue, skip the following screens by pressing the Skip or Next button until the “Period definition completed” message is displayed, then press the Add button to add another definition to this period. The wizard now returns to the first screen.

NOTE: PortaBilling® treats all formula elements as “inclusive”. Thus, in the example above, 6pm to 6am will be represented as hr{6pm-5am}. This is perfectly correct, since 5am actually means “all of the 5^th hour – 05:00:00 … 05:59:59”.

Now for the weekends: pressing the Skip or Next button, go to the second screen and select Weekend, or, holding down the <Ctrl> key, select Saturday and Sunday from the list. Select the Next button and skip until the Period definition completed message is displayed. Press the Add button to add another definition to this period.

To include January 1^st in the off-peak period definition, skip to the Day of Month screen, and select 1. Click the Next button. Now select January, click Next, skipping forward to the next screen. Follow the same steps to select the December 24–26 interval. Hold the <Ctrl> key down to select multiple entries.

On the next screen, you can choose how the system will charge calls which overlap with your off-peak period, i.e. cover both peak and off-peak time. There are three options you can choose from:

• If the call starts in the off-peak period, it will be charged using off-peak rates (even if part of the call was made during peak time). This method is the easiest and most transparent for end user authorization of outgoing calls.
• If the call finishes during the off-peak period, it will be charged using off-peak rates; it does not matter whether it starts within the off-peak period or not.
• Or, the off-peak rate will only be used if the call both started and finished during the off-peak period. In this case, any call which partly extends into the peak period will be charged at the peak rate.

To evaluate your work, look at the top text area. The following text should be displayed:

From 6:00pm until 6:00am

any day of any month

OR Sunday and Saturday

of any month

OR 1

of January

OR 24-26

of December

If the definition is correct, click the Finish button.

Test the off-peak period

If you are unsure whether you have created a correct off-peak period definition, you may use the test utility to check if a specific moment in time fits into the period or not. In order to run the off-peak period test, either click the  Test Period icon on the off-peak periods page, or use the Test Period button on the last page of the off-peak period wizard.

Now simply enter any time / date and click the Test button to check whether this moment fits into the off-peak period definition.