Overview

The Usage Provider is responsible for loading the usage data required to calculate the billing in case of usage-based billing.

Out-of-the-box Usage Provider

The out-of-the-box Usage Provider loads the usage data from the Consumption object.

We can refer to this Provider as Consumption Provider as it’s a specific implementation of the Usage Provider for the Consumption out-of-the-box object.

You can create multiple settings for the Consumption Provider depending on your needs. This is actually useful when you need to bill different types of usage data.

Consumption Settings

This settings are handled in the Consumption Settings in the Metering & Consumption Settings. Each settings you create has a filter definition that will be evaluated against the Device related to the billable element.

The settings are defined as follows:

Category	Field	Description	Example
Filter Criteria		Sets the filters to evaluate if the settings apply to the current Billable Element
Filter Criteria	Device Type	The Device Type that the settings apply to	Industrial
Filter Criteria	Device Model	The Device Model	Telemetry
Filter Criteria	Device Record Type	The Device Record Type	Electricity
Setup		The setup for the settings
Setup	Mode	It’s set the strategy to load the Consumptions it can be Base or Koala	Base
Setup	Mode Con	The mode to group the consumptions: Total, Range or Daily	Daily
Setup	Calculation Mode	It sets the algorithm to calculate the consumption: Difference or Keep	Difference
Setup	Split Method Implementation	Apex Class Name implementing the ConsumptionSplitMethodInterface used to split the consumption in case is required. For example, in Water is usually required to split the consumption in different ranges.	WaterSplitMethod
Setup	Range Type	It specifies the logic to retrieve the consumptions: Open – Open, Open – Close, Close – Open, Close – Close	Open – Open
Setup	Increasing Order	It specifies if the consumptions must be ordered in increasing order	True
Data Handling	Key Field	The field on the Consumption object poiting to the Device.	Device__c
Data Handling	Fieldset	Fieldset API Name with the fields to retrieve from the Consumption Object.	ConsumptionFields
Data Handling	Ordering	ASC or DESC	ASC
Data Handling	Group by Field	Field api name to group the consumptions	Device__c

Mode Con

Calculation Mode

Split Method Implementation

Range Type

Increasing Order

Key Field

Fieldset

Ordering

Group by Field

Custom Usage Provider

In case you need to implement your custom logic to load the usage data, you can create your own Usage Provider by implementing the UsageProvider interface.

For instance you may want to load the usage from an external service.

Usage Provider Interface

The Usage Provider interfaces defines the methods that must be implemented by the custom provider. The interface is defined as follows:

public interface UsageProviderInterface {
    Map<Id, List<UsageDTO>> loadUsages(Set<Id> servicepointIds, Date fromDate, Date toDate, List<String> status, Boolean validated);
    Set<String> getUsageFieldset(String fieldSetName);
    List<CalculationResult> postProcess(List<CalculationResult> calculationResults, Map<String, Object> sharedContext);
}

loadUsages

Returns the usage data for the specified Service Points and date range.

getUsageFieldset

Returns the fields corresponding to the specified FieldSet.

postProcess

Processes the data after the invoice has been generated. This is useful when you need to update the data in the system after the invoice has been generated, for instance if you want to link the billed usages to the invoice.

UsageDTO

The UsageDTO is the object that the provider must return. It is defined as follows:

public virtual with sharing class UsageDTO {
     String id;
     String meterList;
     String device;
     String servicePoint;
     Date fromDate;
     Time fromTime;
     Date toDate;
     Time toTime;
     String status;
     Boolean validated;
     String valmessage;
     Map<String, String> moreinfo;
     Map<String,Decimal> values;
}

Metering and Consumption

As stated before, the Consumption Provider is a specific implementation of the Usage Provider for the Consumption object that is included in the Metering and Consumption module.

If you need more information about this module, please refer to the Metering & Consumption documentation.