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Changelog

This changelog lists the new features, functionality, and updates added in each version release.

Version: August 2023

Product Updates

• End-dating of the Billing entities associated with an Account - Contracts, Account Plans, Pricings, or Prepayments - can now be done directly from an Account page in the Console. This capability proves very useful for cases where you need to create new agreements with end-customers - such as for renewals or mid-service term amendments - and for service cancellations.

• A Search Account API call is now available, which you can use to build a query to return a selection of Accounts using a wide variety of search criteria. We expect the Accounts search functionality to be available in the Console soon.

Console Updates

• The Dashboard page has been re-modeled to now show a Recent Accounts listing, allowing you to quickly return to those Accounts you have worked on recently.

• Days before Bills are due after the initial Bill generation date can now be defined at the individual Account level and to override the setting defined at Organizational level. This allows Bill due dates to be set differently across different end-customer Accounts.

• Where an integration with an external system has been set up for sending Bills outbound, the Bill Details cards now include a status for the Last Completed Integration Run Date.

• Inviting users to join your Organization and managing your invitations can now be done more easily using a separate tab on the Access page.

• The Meter Details card now lists the Data Fields and Derived Fields set up for a Meter.

• When setting up External Mappings, if the possible values for the External entity ID field can be fetched for the External system and m3ter entity selections, then you can use a drop-down list to select the value for this field from the list of possible values returned.

• The layout for Bills has been restyled to improve readability and help differentiate main running totals from individual line item breakdown amounts when reviewing Bills.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: The option to select a Parent Account when editing an Account that is itself a Parent Account is now disabled on the edit Account form.

• Fix: The edit linked Plans button is now appropriately disabled on the Plan Group Attachment Details page when the Plan Group is empty.

• Fix: long-text entity Name and Code fields are now accommodated elegantly within UI details cards and forms.

• Fix: Error handling has been improved for Notification Rule calculation testing.

• Fix: Breadcrumb links have been removed where no destination page exists.

• Fix: Notification Rule can now be saved without testing calculation.

• Fix: When duplicating Plans or Plan Templates, the Name and Code field are no longer pre-populated with the existing Plan's or Plan Template's Name and Code values.

Version: July 2023

Product Updates

• API calls are now available which allow you to end-date the Billing entities - Contracts, Account Plans, or Prepayments - associated with an end-customer Account or with an Account a Contract has been attached to.

Console Updates

• Bill details page improved for ease of use and Bill review. When a Bill is opened the Bill entity details are now shown on a separate card from the breakdown of charges that make up the Bill total.

• General usability improvements:

  • Details cards now clearly indicate Custom Plans/Plan Groups and identify the Accounts they are Custom Plans/Plan Groups for.

  • Create/Edit/Add buttons labeled specifically for the entities being created or edited or added.

  • The selection click area for radio button and checkbox options now tightly restricted to area of text label footprint to prevent unintended selections by stray clicks.

  • The Pricing Schedule page now shows audit data for the Product Plan and Aggregation used to price it.

• A specific expiry date can now be set when inviting other Users to join your Organization and to override the default expiry date of 30 days from when the invite was sent out.

• The Pricing Editor now shows a pricing readiness guide when opened for a Product where not all of the required configuration for starting to price Product Plans has been completed. As the required pricing readiness configuration work is carried out, the guide show a percentage progression to completion.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Bill breakdown - usage per price band unit price didn't align with line item subtotals.

• Fix: Add missing account external mappings table translations.

• Fix: Data Explorer dimensions for usage data queries now loaded sequentially to ensure smooth loading.

Version: June 2023

Product Updates

• Audit data is now automatically generated for all main m3ter entity details pages. This logs which users created and which last modified the entity and when.

• Billing:

  • The order or selection for billing draw-down against Prepayment or Billing credit amounts on Accounts can now be defined. Options are: Prepayments first, Balances first, Prepayment only, or Balances only. This gives much greater flexibility for meeting specific use cases for handling the consumption of credits on end-customer Accounts.

  • You no longer need to attach a Product Plan or Plan Group to an Account in order to add a Prepayment to the Account and set up billing for fees on outstanding Prepayment amount.

  • Check if a Bill Statement needs refreshing by comparing the Bill calculation timestamp against the Statement last modified date, which is available in the response to a get Statement API call.

• Integrations:

  • Five new system Events are now generated for integration errors and are available for Notifications. When any of these Events occur, they are surfaced on a Console page with an explanatory message. Operational support for managing these integrations error Events is provided with a button linking you out directly to start the appropriate follow up workflow to troubleshoot and resolve. When resolved, error Events can be marked as actioned and removed from the Events page.

  • New options added for setting up a Chargebee Integration:

    • Multi-decimal values. If multi-decimal support is enabled in your Chargebee site, you can now set precise decimal places for sending price and unit values out from m3ter to match your Chargebee settings and achieve greater precision when integrating data.

    • Synchronize credits. For an outbound billing flow, negative bill line items can now be synchronized with credits in Chargebee

Console Updates

• Permission Policy Statements can now be quickly compiled using an advanced editor to choose Effect, Actions, and Resources.

• The Pricing Editor grid labeling has been improved making clear where a Plan has been priced directly instead of inheriting it's pricing from a Plan Template .

• General usability improvements:

  • Details pages standardized across main configuration entities and now show audit data and custom fields.

  • Radio button sets used where few available options for ease of option selection.

  • Simple on/off toggle for bill in advance/in arrears selections to avoid possible confusion.

• The submit test usage data measurements modal is improved to regenerate submit measurement UIDs for successive submissions. A submissions log is also now built as you make submissions, which is helpful when querying for ingested data at a later time.

• Billing:

  • Purchase Order Number now shows on Bill details.

  • Bill line items now ordered by Aggregation or Compound Aggregation.

• An AI-powered Help Assistant is now available directly in the Console through the Help Center. The Assistant is fully-trained on our entire documentation knowledge base and can quickly provide answers to your questions as you work on the platform, giving direct links into relevant documentation topics.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Prepayment fee billing setting on Organization Configuration card.

• Fix: Advanced usage data submission UID reset.

Version: April/May 2023

Product Updates

• You can now invite new Users to your Organization:

  • Assign Permission Policies to control their access level when they accept the invite.

  • Deactivate and reactivate invited User's access.

  • Set an expiry date for accepting the invite.

• When creating a Notification Rule, you can configure the Notification to always be triggered when an Event occurs, and without any further conditions for sending the Notification being defined.

• System Events available for Integration errors. Review and troubleshoot to resolve errors from the Integrations > Events page in the Console.

• Events on Statement Jobs - receive notifications when a statement job changes status so you can take action. For example:

  • Send statements to customers

  • Refresh your customer billing dashboard

• Integration run details can be reviewed in the Console for Bill and Notification integrations.

Console Updates

• Billing:

  • Add enable checkbox for bill numbering.

  • Update approve Bills modal to allow approval by date range.

  • Add Bill export button.

  • Listing Bills from Bill Management can now be filtered by date range and Locked or Approved/Pending status.

  • Extended line item details shown on Bills.

  • Target Currency selection available on Run Billing modal.

  • Billing data query results in Data Explorer show line item descriptions.

  • Pre-defined "Current Month" and "Last Month" ranges added to date range picker for Bills listing.

• Codes for Meter Data Fields and Derived Fields auto-generated from entered name string.

• Product details page added.

• Native Integration 3rd-party authentication set up separated from main integration configuration workflow.

• Plan creation workflow now requires existing Plan Template selection.

• Bulk delete available on External Mappings page.

• Account Actions menu added to Account details page.

• Accounting Product selection required when creating a Prepayment/Commitment.

• Line Item charge types for draw-down against a Prepayment/Commitment can now be selected.

• Details pages for main configuration entities show audit data on User activity for "Created by" and "Last modified by".

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Filtering of plans on custom plan group page.

• Fix: Order pricing grid columns and rows by name.

• Fix: Incorrect Bill prefix and sequence number on account overview.

• Fix: Bill line item reference numbers displaying undefined.

• Fix: Remove hard-coded page size from Bills lists.

• Fix: Allow adding custom plan to custom plan group.

• Fix: Duplicating prepayments that use a Bill schedule.

• Fix: Missing translations for External Mappings.

• Fix: Date picker pop-up positioning bug.

• Fix: Save issue when creating Pricing using wizard.

• Fix: Date selection for Epoch dates.

• Fix: Prepayment Consumption chart only shows trending data up to the Prepayment's end date.

Version: March 2023

Product Updates

• Chargebee and Quickbooks now available as native integrations.

• Billing:

  • Bill Statements can now be defined and generated as backing sheets for end customer Bills. Once generated, you can then download Statements in either JSON or CSV format to transpose and compile them into the required format.

  • Download Bills in CSV format.

  • Approve Bills for selected date range.

  • Using the List Bills API call, you can now filter Bills returned by Locked status or Start/End dates.

  • Switch available on Bill details to hide zero quantity line items and reduce Bill clutter.

  • Set Global lock date for Bills.

  • Bill currency conversion summary added to Bill details.

• Notification Rules can now be created and configured in the Console for system Events. You can then link Notification Rules to integration Destination webhooks to complete alerting and notification set up and have your Notifications sent through to your external systems.

• You can now use an option to show Prepayment fee overage usage charges as separate line items on Bills.

Console Updates

• Prepayment/Commitment details page now contains a consumption chart showing minimum expected consumption, actual consumption, and consumption trend for the service period.

• Balance Create form now has options to select the products consumed and charge types that can drawn-down against the Balance amount.

• Overage Percentage setting now available for Balances.

• Bill line item groupings now show clear labels for Product/Prepayment charges.

• Bill details page now shows total at top of page.

• Custom Bill reference prefix and numbering sequence start can now be set at Organization level.

• Service User creation now supported with wizard.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Handle error when cancelling bill jobs.

• Fix: Fix default for last day month changes.

• Fix: Prevent usage explorer error if we can't load dimensions.

• Fix: Disable close on overlay click for run billing modal.

• Fix: Increase Bill list page size to 50.

Version: February 2023

Product Updates

• Added Balance amount events. Users can now trigger notifications when a Balance amount is updated and reaches a certain threshold.

• New overage pricing and overage surcharge settings for Balances. When a Balance is fully consumed, merchants can configure 3 different actions:

  • Specify a rollover amount and expiry date. This is the existing behavior.

  • Specify an overage percentage, either positive or negative, which will increase or decrease the standard billed rate at which any further usage is charged against an Account once any Balance on the Account is fully consumed. This can be used to incentivize end customers to top up their Balance, or to move onto a different billing arrangement with you.

  • Specify overage pricing. When creating pricing using a tiered pricing structure for Plans, overage pricing can also be defined. Overage pricing cuts in when the Balance is fully consumed. This is another way to increase or decrease the standard billed rate charged against an Account once a Balance on the Account has been consumed.

• Service Period dates.

  • Balance consumption shown on m3ter Bills now includes the service period that the Balance covered.

• Bill Statements.

  • Bill Statements can be used as informative backing sheets to invoices. They provide a breakdown of the usage charges that appear on the Bill, and help your end customers understand better those charges and gain a better picture of their usage over the billing period.

  • Bill Statements can be defined for Meter usage data measures that form the basis of pricing rates used to calculate billing charges together with other Meter usage data dimensions. These other usage data dimensions are used as the basis for a breakdown of the billed usage to produce backing sheets for invoices. Usage data can be de-aggregated and grouped for use on the end customer Statement. It is downloadable in .csv or JSON format for rendering via 3rd party tools.

Note: The Bill Statements features is available on request.

• Access

  • m3ter Support. Console users can now submit a request to grant m3ter Support access to their m3ter Organization for troubleshooting purposes, and when they have submitted a Support ticket.

  • Permission Policies.

    • In the Console, Administrator users can create custom Permission Policies to assign to other users and service users, and then apply these Policies to control precisely users' access to Organization resources. Permission Policies can be defined to assist with the separation of duties for users within the Console, in addition to restricting access to specific areas. For example, an ingest only user will not have access to any other m3ter functions.

    • User groups are now available in the m3ter Console. Permission Policies can be applied to User Groups. Users can then be added to a User Group and any Permission Policies applied to the Group are applied to the member Users. User Groups:

      • Allow logical grouping of resources for different roles within your Organization. For example, a Billing Operations User Group can have a Permission Policy applied to the Group to restrict access to only those resources needed to perform their routine billing tasks - such as Bills, Accounts, and so on. All Billing Operations team members can then be assigned to the Group.

      • Help solve common issues when trying to apply very fine-grained permissions.

Console Updates

• Added capability to create and manage Permission Policies.

• Line item currency now used for Bill unit prices.

• New search field in External Mappings list.

• Added maximum decimal places column to currencies list.

• Improved labels for Product and Bill hotlinks in External Mappings list.

• Added Bill in Advance / Arrears to Plan and Plan Template details.

• Obligations panel in the Data Explorer > Prepayments tab.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Date range picker bug.

• Fix: Handles single zero-priced band on Pricing edit.

• Fix: Pick list currencies now use the number of decimal places specified.

• Fix: Page titles now always show and update correctly.

• Fix: Global lock date setting now works as expected.

Version: January 2023

Product Updates

• Draw downs across Account hierarchies enabled for Prepayments fee billing. New drawdown mode enables control of whether to draw down Prepayments against the child or parent account.

• Add debit memos to bills that can be used to correct undercharges for example.

• New Consolidate Bills option in the Organization Configuration. Bills are currently created by bill date and billing frequency. When enabled, charges that are billed on a given bill date are automatically added to the bill regardless of charge billing frequency. All charges due on the date are put into one bill instead of separate bills for each of the different billing frequencies.

Console Updates

• "Commitment Details" now known as "Prepayment Details".

• Timezone field is now a pick-list. As well as UTC and GMT-relative tz database formats being listed, a complete set of tz database regional timezones is also available for selection.

• Custom field editor columns now have labels.

• Bills list filter now uses date range picker.

• Organization Settings now uses a Debit Reason pick-list.

• Added full currency symbols to distinguish for example, between Canadian and US Dollars.

• "Aggregated Usage" has been added as an external mappings m3ter entity type.

• Added pagination to Users list.

• Settings > Access page now has a Support Access tab. Enables granting m3ter Support temporary access to your Organization for investigation and troubleshooting.

• Added Product label to Account Plans list.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Bill list date resetting.

• Fix: Error in Pricing Grid Pricing Navigator.

Version: December 2022

Console Updates

• New Prepayment/Commitment details page accessed directly from Account>Prepayments tab. Includes Prepayment Fee details and Fee billing dates.

• Added links to Plan, Plan Template, Meter, and Aggregation from the Pricing Edit form.

• Added Custom Fields for Aggregations and Compound Aggregations.

• Account Custom Fields sorted by key now displayed on Account Overview>Details card.

• New switch in the Organization Configuration form to suppress generating bills when they are empty.

• Added Code field in the Balances tab.

• Added Currency Code to Account Details card.

• Implemented inline Learning Center panel with direct links to documentation and context-sensitive Help call outs.

• Added gift-box button for direct access to latest What's New blog.

• New String manipulation functions available for calculations.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Billing spinners showing after job is complete.

• Fix: Timezone related issues with bill dates when running billing, approving all bills or setting the lock date.

• Fix: Long balances layout issue.

• Fix: Destinations list data in External Mappings.

• Fix: Restored account name to Account Details page.

• Fix: Prevent long account names breaking layout.

• Fix: Exclude archived currencies from the currency drop-down.

Version: November 2022

Product Updates

• New Events and Notifications feature available in the API. Define and implement notifications that are triggered by system events in your m3ter Organization.

• Automatically send outbound Bills from m3ter to Paddle with updated native Paddle integration.

Billing

• Bill Management enhancements

  • Can now run bill jobs within an Account.

  • New Bill Job modal enabling billing of one or all bill frequencies based on bill date.

  • Can now view all bills within a period - m3ter will show you all the Bills from the 1st of the month to the current day.

  • Added ability to delete one or more pending bills.

  • Can now view running bill jobs in the Console.

• Bills

  • New field invoiceRef added to Bills.

• Accounts

  • Added account currency setting, which enables setting a different billing currency against an account. Optional field.

    • Allows Bill Jobs to be run from UI and use the account currency setting.

    • If left blank, the organization billing currency is used.

• Organization

  • External Invoice date can now be set in the Console and via API (new field externalInvoiceDate). Use case is when recognizing usage revenue in the same period that it is consumed, rather than in the following month.

  • Days before bill due setting now available to enter the number of days after bill generation date that you want to show on bills as the due date.

Miscellaneous

• New Currency pick list for use when defining the currency for an Organization, Account, Plan Template, Plan Group, Balance, or Prepayment/Commitment. Required currencies must first be defined at Organization level, which helps prevent billing errors due to mixed and undefined currencies being used.

  • Allows both standard world currencies to be used or user-defined custom currencies, such as "[Company Name] credits".

• Bill Jobs now use the account currency as a default. If not set at the account level, the default Organization currency is used by the Bill Job.

• Twelve new bill period variables now available for use in compound aggregation calculations giving tight control over the number of hours, days, or dates in a billing period.

1
ts.hoursInPlanArrearsPeriod
2
ts.datesInPlanArrearsPeriod
3
ts.daysInPlanArrearsPeriod
4
ts.hoursInPlanAdvancePeriod
5
ts.datesInPlanAdvancePeriod
6
ts.daysInPlanAdvancePeriod
7
ts.hoursInBillArrearsPeriod
8
ts.datesInBillArrearsPeriod
9
ts.daysInBillArrearsPeriod
10
ts.hoursInBillAdvancePeriod
11
ts.datesInBillAdvancePeriod
12
ts.daysInBillAdvancePeriod

Console Updates

• Show option to select currencies on any screen that require a currency.

• Added approve all bills modal - new pop-up that enables you to set the bill approval date for the selected bills.

• New remove / unlink to child accounts list - easy access to remove child accounts from a billing hierarchy.

• Bill line item rows now always show service periods.

• Can now test notification rule calculations.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Consuming Balances for Bills fails at first attempt.

• Fix: Incorrect units on parent breakdown line items.

• Fix: Commitments / Prepayments error when trying to save prepayment after switching between billing options.

• Fix: Bill item service period not reflecting account plan effective dates in some cases.

Version: October 2022

Product Updates

• New Balances functionality that enables crediting accounts with positive or negative amounts.

• New "native" integrations for NetSuite and Stripe, which allow the set up and configuration for controlling outbound Bills flow for these integrations to be performed directly in the Console.

• New user defined custom billing schedule option for Prepayments/Commitments.

• New math functions supported for use in Derived Field and Compound Aggregation calculations:

  • Math.floor()

  • Math.ceil()

  • Math.round()

  • Math.pow()

  • Math.abs()

• Data Explorer: new "Overage Usage" and "Credit Memo" as line item types.

• Ability to set up tiered overage pricing on Plans for when a Prepayment/Commitment has been consumed.

• If Scheduled Billing is enabled for Organization, allow a 24 hour grace period beyond active Plan end date to include charges due for late-arriving usage data in Bills.

• Added navigation links to access m3ter Support web ticketing system.

• New Ad Hoc Bill line item type for ad hoc charges, such as for charges on Prepayments/Commitments that have a manual (custom) bill schedule.

Console Updates

• Alerts modal size is reduced.

• Improved UX for adding a default segment.

• Pricing:

  • Added overage pricing bands to the Pricing form.

  • Added time controls for start and end date entries to the Pricing form.

  • Duplicate pricing is now possible when overriding from a Pricing template.

  • Pricing wizard now allows negative pricing.

• For clarity and to remove doubt, the text "inclusive" (start date) and "exclusive" (end date) has been added to the configuration form Date field labels.

• The Remove User button in User Settings now removes the Organization user.

• The Scheduled Bill Interval options now include 15 minute and 30 minute interval options in addition to hourly interval options.

• Added a Contract field to Prepayments and Account Plans.

• New Balances tab on Account details page.

• The Code field in the Plan creation form now has a user editable default Code value auto-generated.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Bill webhook not firing on approved bills.

• Fix: Commitment form fee dates validation.

• Fix: Prepayment bug when switching from old Prepayments to scheduled billing.

• Fix: Resolved potential XSS problem in returnPath query parameter.

Version: September 2022

Product Updates

• Initial Pay-As-You-Go (PAYG) release:

  • Top-up balances for an account as many times as required.

  • Ability to draw down account balances via billing or manual adjustments.

  • Time-bound balances with the option of a grace period.

• Improved billing hierarchies for parent/child account billing:

  • Bill a child account with pricing at the parent level.

  • Rollup child billing to the parent on a single bill item.

  • Create a Bill item per child account with price averaging.

• Negative pricing and the ability to generate negative Bills:

  • Enables you to refund your customers for unused services.

• Can now add Bill line item descriptions for Standing charges and Minimum spends.

• Auto-approve Bills. Can now schedule automated Bill approval from 15 minutes to 10 days after Bill generation.

Console Updates

• Pricing band range now visible on Bill items.

• When creating a new entity and you enter a Name, a Code is auto-generated based on the Name.

• Number field formatting now shows a thousands separator.

• A last updated date was add to the to Alerts list modal.

• Improved Data Explorer Query Builder form for easier filter selection.

• Pricing Schedule can now be opened directly from pricing grid.

• Historic/future pricing can now be shown in the pricing grid.

• Better Pricing Schedule layout to suit smaller screens.

• Ability to add start/end dates to all pricing.

• Added Account Plan details to custom Plan details page, with a links to edit Plan. Same for Account Plan Group/custom Plan Group.

• Accounts page 'Plans' tab renamed to 'Attached plans' to make clear the separation between Plan and Account Plan.

• Added Duplicate button to Prepayments/Commitments list.

• Added scheduled Bill interval setting to Org Config page for regular updating of Bills.

• Added link from Bill details to Account.

• Replaced Bill Period with Bill Date in several places.

• Added search to popup entity selectors (for example, when picking an Aggregation from pricing grid).

• When adding child accounts to a parent, a searchable Select Accounts modal is now shown.

• Data Explorer usage data Query Builder now shows both Account name and code in selection list.

Resolved Issues

• Fix: Update Org config form validation (issue with using 0 as the bill schedule).

• Fix: Prepayments Data Explorer calculation bug.

• Fix: Include global Aggregations in missing data check.

• Fix: Re-open date pickers on the selected month.

• Fix: Stop date pickers causing double scrollbars.

• Fix: Correctly show active/inactive for plan template pricing on pricing schedule.

• Fix: Pricing edit when using negative values for fixedPrice/unitPrice.

• Fix: Account tabs not fitting on smaller screen widths.

• Fix: Speed up Data Explorer by loading data batches in parallel.

• Fix: Lists create button enabling/disabling (for example, when creating Compound Aggregations and you only have global Aggregations).

Additional Support