Welcome to the Genesys
Product Support Center

Billing Data Service

BDS provides the data required for the Genesys financial organization to bill customers for subscription services.

The main functions of BDS are:

• Daily extraction of historical reporting and configuration data needed for billing.
• Aggregation of that data into daily and monthly summary files.
• Automated transmission of daily and monthly files to Genesys back-office for invoicing.
• Local storage of encrypted billing files as backup, or for other purposes.
• Creates local reports based on the various agent seat metric calculations.

Supported Kubernetes platforms

Billing Data Service is supported on the following cloud platforms:

• Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE)
• OpenShift Container Platform (OpenShift)

See the Billing Data Service release notes for information about when support was introduced.

Release notes

Find out about changes in each release: Billing Data Service Release Notes

Private edition

The Billing Data Service Private Edition Guide provides information about deploying, configuring, and operating BDS.

Find detailed information about how to deploy this service in your environment.

Billing Data Service Guide

Get started

Billing Data Service (BDS) provides data that the Genesys financial organization uses to bill customers for subscription services. After you have completed deployment of BDS in Genesys Multicloud CX Private Edition, see the links in this section for additional information.

The Genesys Multicloud CX Private Edition release of BDS is has different functionality / features than previous on-premises releases of the software. However, the following on-premises documentation resources can be useful as a reference:

• The Control utility (Note that some commands / options may not be relevant in Genesys Multicloud CX Private Edition deployments)
• Metrics used in BDS (Note that not all metrics are supported, and some may not be described in this document)
• The Metric Statistics utility
• Enabled / concurrent seats detailed report

NOTE: Genesys Multicloud CX private edition is being released to pre-approved customers as part of the Beta Program. Please note that the documentation and the product are subject to change. For more details about the program, please contact your Genesys representative.

Billing Data Service (BDS) is a service available with the Genesys Multicloud CX private edition offering.

Overview

Learn more about BDS its architecture, and how to support high availability and disaster recovery.

• About BDS
• Architecture
• High availability and disaster recovery

Configure and deploy

Find out how to configure and deploy BDS.

• Before you begin
• Configure BDS
• Provision BDS
• Deploy BDS
• Upgrade, rollback, or uninstall BDS

Operations

Learn how to monitor BDS with metrics and logging.

• Observability
• BDS metrics and alerts

NOTE: Genesys Multicloud CX private edition is being released to pre-approved customers as part of the Beta Program. Please note that the documentation and the product are subject to change. For more details about the program, please contact your Genesys representative.

Limitations and assumptions

In a private edition environment, Billing Data Service (BDS) currently supports deployments only on the specific Kubernetes platforms cited in About BDS. Deploying BDS in environments that are not officially tested and certified by Genesys is not supported. If your organization requires a special business case to deploy BDS in an uncertified or unsupported environment (for example, mixed-mode), contact your Genesys Account Representative or Customer Care.

Download the Helm charts

For general information about downloading containers, see: Downloading your Genesys Multicloud CX containers.

To learn what Helm chart version you must download for your release, see Helm charts and containers for Billing Data Service.

The BDS Helm chart defines a CronJob:

BDS Helm chart package [ bds-cronjob-<version>.tgz ]:

Scripts in this container run Extraction, Transformation, and Load process according to the main configuration specified as Config Map.  

BDS queries data primarily from Genesys Info Mart, GVP Reporting Server, and the Framework Configuration Management Environment, and can transmit the data to the SFTP server.

Third-party prerequisites

Before deploying BDS, configure the following 3rd party components:

• Consul
  • Version: 1.9.5 - 1.9.x
  • Purpose: Service discovery, service mesh, and key/value store
  • Notes: Provision Consul to provide gvp_config_dbid and ivr_app_dbid parameters with Tenant ID and default IVR application ID values from the GVP Configuration Server database. Where,
    • gvp_config_dbid is the DB ID for a particular tenant.
    • ivr_app_dbid is the DB ID for the default IVR application for that tenant.
      
      Example request:
      
      curl -H "Authorization: Bearer <token>" https://<consul_url>/v1/kv/tenants/<tenant_uuid>/gvp
      {
      "gvp_config_dbid": "161",
      "ivr_app_dbid"  : "217"
      }
  • Command Line Interface
    • Purpose: The command line interface tools to log in and work with the Kubernetes clusters.

Storage requirements

To deploy a BDS container on a node (or a worker computer), you need the following storage elements:

• dual-core vCPU
• 8 GB RAM
• 40 GB PVC*
• Database - BDS does not require any database but extracts the data from the GIM database, that is, Postgres. Hence, BDS supports any Postgres version that GIM currently supports.

* BDS creates the persistent volume claim (PVC) file storage to save the extracted and transformed files with current ETL time stamps.

• The file share must be persistent, and must be mounted inside the pod to /mnt/fileshare folder. Note: Mount name cannot be changed, once created.
• The information and files necessary to start BDS in between launches is stored on PVC.
• Data in the file share must be backed up with a retention period of 90 days, and data protection.

Network requirements

Not applicable

Browser requirements

Not applicable

Genesys dependencies

BDS interoperates with the following Genesys software applications to receive billing data:

• Genesys Voice Platform Reporting Server (GVP RS) 9.0 or later
• Genesys Info Mart 8.5.015.19 or later

Depending on the metrics that you need, you must ensure that the corresponding data sources are available in your environment for BDS to generate meaningful reports.

To build requests for main data sources, BDS obtains additional information from the following sources:

• GVP Config Server
• Genesys GWS

NOTE: Genesys Multicloud CX private edition is being released to pre-approved customers as part of the Beta Program. Please note that the documentation and the product are subject to change. For more details about the program, please contact your Genesys representative.
Did you find this page useful?

Introduction

Billing Data Service (BDS) operates as a CronJob, which runs once a day, consisting of a sequence of steps that collect various data from sources -- such as Genesys Info Mart, GVP RS, and Configuration -- and transforms that data into usage statistics that track your consumption of Genesys services, which is used for billing purposes. Files are securely transferred to Genesys back-office using SFTP.

Autoscaling is not supported.

For information about the overall architecture of Genesys Multicloud CX private edition, see the high-level Architecture page.

See also High availability and disaster recovery for information about high availability/disaster recovery architecture.

Architecture diagram - Connections

The numbers on the connection lines refer to the connection numbers in the table that follows the diagram. The direction of the arrows indicates where the connection is initiated (the source) and where an initiated connection connects to (the destination), from the point of view of Billing Data Service as a service in the network.

Connections table

The connection numbers refer to the numbers on the connection lines in the diagram. The Source, Destination, and Connection Classification columns in the table relate to the direction of the arrows in the Connections diagram above: The source is where the connection is initiated, and the destination is where an initiated connection connects to, from the point of view of Billing Data Service as a service in the network. Egress means the Billing Data Service service is the source, and Ingress means the Billing Data Service service is the destination. Intra-cluster means the connection is between services in the cluster.

NOTE: Genesys Multicloud CX private edition is being released to pre-approved customers as part of the Beta Program. Please note that the documentation and the product are subject to change. For more details about the program, please contact your Genesys representative.

Billing Data Service (BDS) is a Cronjob that runs on a per-tenant basis, so High Availability (HA) is not applicable.

See High Availability information for all services: High availability and disaster recovery

NOTE: Genesys Multicloud CX private edition is being released to pre-approved customers as part of the Beta Program. Please note that the documentation and the product are subject to change. For more details about the program, please contact your Genesys representative.

This article defines the measurements used in all Genesys Multicloud CX offers, including Private Edition, to determine consumption for billing purposes. You can also download a spreadsheet of the definitions from the Resource Center: Genesys Multicloud CX billing measurement definitions.

• User: An individual who (i) is authorized by Customer and (ii) has been supplied a user identification and password(s) by Customer to access the Genesys Multicloud CX Services on Customer’s behalf.  A User may be a Concurrent User or Named User.
• Supervisor: A subtype of user, Customer technical, operational, and support personnel authorized to use the administrative functions and features of the Multicloud CX Services, but not otherwise authorized to use the Genesys Multicloud CX Services in production.   
• Agent: A subtype of user that is authorized to handle customer interactions in production but not authorized to use the administrative functions of the Genesys Multicloud CX Services.
• Concurrent User: The maximum number of unique User IDs that are logged into a Genesys Multicloud CX Service within any one second interval in a given geographic region (US, EU, AP) during the applicable month. Concurrent Users are calculated and billed separately for each geographic region and for each Multicloud CX Service. If, during an applicable month, the same User ID logs into the same Multicloud CX Service in multiple geographic regions, that User ID is counted as a Concurrent User in each of those regions and for that Multicloud CX Service. Concurrent User excludes any User IDs used by Genesys for test purposes but includes any User IDs used by Customer for test purposes.
• Named User: The total number of unique User IDs that are logged into a Genesys Multicloud CX Service in a given geographic region (US, EU, AP) during the applicable month. Named Users are calculated and billed separately for each geographic region. If, during an applicable month, the same User ID logs into the same Multicloud CX Service in multiple geographic regions, that User ID is counted as a Named User in each of those regions during that month and for that Multicloud CX Service. Named User excludes any User IDs used by Genesys for test purposes but includes any User IDs used by Customer for test purposes.
• Multicloud CX Services: Multicloud CX Services provided by Genesys such as, but not limited to, Inbound Voice, Email, Chat, Outbound, Digital Messaging, Callback, Predictive Routing, Voice 1, Voice 2, Digital 1, Digital 2, Gplus Wfm Adapter, CRM Adapters, Interaction Recording.
• Port: A semi-permanent interactive information interchange between two or more communicating devices, or between a computer and User (that is, a session). A Port is set up or established at a certain point in time and ended or otherwise closed at a later point in time.
• IVR Minutes: The total sum of minutes associated with all IVR services during a billing period.
• ASR & TTS Minutes (Nuance): ASR and TTS Minutes for Nuance are calculated as the sum of total call duration in minutes for all call segments during which any of the Nuance Software is used. Each segment is a minimum of 20 seconds and rounded up to the next six (6) second increment.
• Voice Mailbox: A recording device that stores voice mails either for individual users or for groups of users. It is billed by number of unique users configured to use any voicemail box(es) during the billing period and billed separately for each geographical region.
• Recording Storage: Is measured in Gigabytes and is used for voice, IVR, and screen recordings when those services are enabled. Usage is measured using the highest value rounded up to the nearest GB and then summed across the geographic regions (US, EU, AP).
• Interaction: An interactive information interchange between two or more communicating devices, or between a computer and User across a single media. Media includes but is not limited to Voice, E-mail, Chat, and other Digital messaging services.
• CX Outbound Interaction: A subtype of interaction that is either initiated by an agent or by a computer towards a target number. This subtype of interaction is counted regardless of a connection being established between the two parties or even if no attempt is made to reach the target number because the target number is part of a "Do not call List". CX Outbound Interactions are also counted for outgoing SMS and E-mails.
• Predictive Routing Interaction: A subtype of interaction that is counted when a customer interaction is routed to an agent as a result of a predictive routing recommendation. A connection between the customer agent does not have to be established for a Predictive Routing Interaction to be counted.
• Chatbot Interaction: "A subtype of interaction that is defined as an unlimited number of messages exchanged back and forth between the Consumer and a Chatbot, using a single communication channel. The interaction ends with the following criteria: 
  • Consumer or Chatbot ends the conversation.
  • Conversation is queued or transferred to an agent. If the agent transfers the customer back to the Chatbot, a new interaction is incurred. 
  • A customer-defined “interaction duration timer” expires (the maximum duration of the timer is 24 hours)."
• Voicebot Minutes: "A subtype of interaction that is defined as an unlimited number of messages exchanged back and forth between the Consumer and a Voicebot, using a single communication channel. The interaction ends with the following criteria: 
  • Consumer or Voicebot ends the conversation.
  • Call is queued or transferred to an agent. If the agent transfers the customer back to the Voicebot, a new interaction is incurred.
    The duration interaction is counted in minutes rounded to the nearest minute."
• Task Routing Interaction: A subtype of interaction that is defined as request that is submitted to Genesys routing to route a task. Note: The task does not actually need to be routed in order to be counted.

Cloud CX licenses are no longer billed during the ramp period

NOTE: Refer to your Services Order for details on billing for Cloud CX software, telco usage, messaging, taxes, third-party product fees, and App Foundry charges.

In a concurrent licensing model, Genesys charges for the maximum number (peak) of concurrent (simultaneous) users during a billing period.

To support shift changes, we disregard usage peaks shorter than 30 minutes in duration.

The charges reflect the highest Cloud CX level license that users were assigned during the billing period. Concurrent billing in Cloud CX is limited to organizations that are contained within a single geographic region and they are billed separately for each region.

All feature functionality remains the same as the Cloud CX 1, 2, or 3 named and concurrent offers, but now you can choose contracting types where you are billed at an hourly rate for the total duration of time users are logged in to Cloud CX.

After a subscription has been purchased, any admin with the ‘billing subscription’ permission can use the Subscription Admin tool to see how many of each user type license is in use.

You can also run a report to see the historical usage of each license and the users

Cloud CX 1, 2, and 3 can be licensed as either a named user or a concurrent user.

Cloud CX does not support mixing named and concurrent users for Cloud CX contact center.

Cloud CX does support adding digital channels or advanced workforce engagement capabilities to a subset of users within Cloud CX 1 or 2. 

Prerequisites

Any of the following Billing permissions:

• Billing > All Permissions
• Billing > Subscription > Add
• Billing > Subscription > View

You can download your bill at any time. Charges in your bill are based on your activation date. The charges shown reflect what you have incurred from the beginning of your current billing cycle through the previous day’s usage.

For example, suppose you activate Cloud CX on October 21:

• Your billing cycle is from October 21 to November 21.
• If you view your bill on November 19, then you see all the charges from October 21 to November 18.  
• If you view your bill on November 24, you see all your charges from November 22 to November 23.

Proceed with the following to download your bill invoice.

1. Go to Admin > Account Settings > Subscription.
2. Click Download Bill (PDF).
   
3. On the Invoices tab, specify your date range.
4. Click Download Bill.
5. Check your Downloads folder for your report.

All non-recurring charges are invoiced immediately after your order is placed. Invoices for hardware are sent after your hardware ships.

Annual pre-pay subscriptions

Your annual subscription invoice is sent after you place your order.

During your ramp period, you receive monthly invoices for the actual charges billed in arrears.

After the ramp, you receive monthly invoices only if there is usage beyond the contractual commitment.

Annual monthly subscriptions

You receive your service invoices monthly during the ramp period for the actual charges billed in arrears.

At the end of the ramp period, your invoice includes the actual charges for the prior period and your pre-pay based upon your committed number of users.

You continue to receive monthly invoices during your subscription period for your pre-pay commitment.

Any usage beyond your established (pre-paid) commitment is included on the invoice and is billed in arrears based on actual usage for the previous billing period.

Monthly subscriptions

Please contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) to assist with any service changes.

If you have elected an annual subscription with monthly billing, we invoice you at the start of each billing cycle.

This invoice is so you can prepay for the committed or contracted number of users.

Users that are not shown as prepay on the invoice represent actual users that were active on the platform beyond the committed number.

These users were active on the platform in the previous billing cycle, or during the service dates listed in the Billing Details section.

Check out this YouTube video breakdown:

• https://youtu.be/kbyay4lyFpY

Your Cloud CX invoice includes all the items on your Cloud CX subscription, including user licenses (both pre-paid and overage), device charges, resource charges, telco usage charges and applicable taxes. 

Billing details

• Payable in: Customer’s currency for payment
• Payment Terms: “Net 30″ indicates that full payment is expected within 30 days. 
• Service Period: The dates of service for which usage is being billed. 
• Description: Name of the product. 
• Qty: Quantity of the product consumed during the service period.
• Rate: Per Unit Rate for the product
• Amount: Total amount for the line item 

Core services and fees

These include your user licenses for Cloud CX 1/2/3, Communicate, and apps / add-ons to Cloud CX purchased via the AppFoundry.

Genesys Cloud CX User vs. Genesys Cloud CX User – Prepay: Your invoice may contain both “User” and “User – Prepay” line items for products that have pre-paid and overage rates. 

Genesys Cloud CX User: Number of Cloud CX users to be paid in the billing cycle at the overage (non-prepay) rate

Genesys Cloud CX User – Prepay: Number of Cloud CX users to be paid in the billing cycle at the pre-pay rate

Resource charges

These include any IVR Overage or Data Storage charges for usage in the period above the Fair Use Policy, as well as SMS & Messaging charges (Cloud CX 3 and Cloud CX 2 customers).

Your Cloud CX subscription comes with an allocation of monthly included IVR minutes and Data Storage. 

• IVR allocations are described in detail here: Fair use routing usage charges. 
• Data Storage allocations are described in detail here: Fair use data storage usage and charges.  
• Public API usage charges are described in detail here: Fair use API on-demand charges.
• SMS messages are billed per message sent or received. ACD messaging is billed per conversation.  
• SMS and ACD Messaging rates and charges are described here: ACD messaging and SMS pricing.

Device charge

These include charges for Physical Edges, Virtual Edges, Phones, or other physical devices that may be included on your subscription.

Telco Usage Charges: These charges include Toll-Free Calling Service, Inbound and Outbound Calling Service, Call Surcharges and Number Setup Charges. Telco Usage Charges and bill reconciliation processes are described in detail here: Reconcile your Cloud CX Voice invoice against your usage report.

Taxes and Fees: These include federal, state, and local taxes and fees that apply to your Cloud CX charges. 

Finding Cloud CX usage information 

You can view your billing and usage summary inside of Cloud CX as described here.

The subscription area will show you the Users, Devices and Resources that you are consuming including contracted (committed) and overage amounts. 

Understanding committed users

Question: I committed to 20 users, and only used 10, why I am still being billed for 20?  

You will be billed for at least your committed user amount, regardless of actual usage. Any users over the committed amount are billed at an overage rate. 

Understanding ramp billing

Question: I am in the ramp period, why does my invoice have 20 prepay on it?  

On your last invoice during the ramp period, you will start being invoiced for your prepay users. 

Understanding resource overages

Question: I had 3671 GB of overage storage. Where do I see my usage?

1. Go to Admin > Subscription > Download Usage Report.
2. Click Resources Usage Report.

Understanding license usage

Question: I had 25 Cloud CX 2 Users and 10 Cloud CX 2 User-Prepay. Where do I see my usage?

Prerequisites

Any of the following billing permissions:

• Billing > All Permissions
• Billing > Subscription > Add
• Billing > Subscription > View

Download your reports

1. In Cloud CX, go to Admin > Account Settings > Subscriptions > Download Usage Report.
2. On the Usage Data tab, specify the date range.
3. Select the type of report.
4. Click Download Usage Data.
5. The file will download to your Downloads folder.

Usage breakdown in reports

Your usage is based on your activation date. The data available is based on the previous day’s usage. 

For example, suppose that you activate Cloud CX on October 21, 2017:

• Cloud CX tracks your usage data from October 21 to November 21.
• If you view your usage data on November 19, then you see all data from October 21 to November 18. 
• If you view your usage data on November 24, then you see all data from November 22 to November 23.

Available reports

Billable Usage

Tracks your charges for your Cloud CX usage during the date range that you specify.

The report organizes usage charges by: Charge name (license type), Entity (user email or device ID), and Timestamp (date/time in UTC of the first billable login during current billing cycle).

• Example Billable Usage report

Concurrent Usage

Displays the peak number of concurrent users that log in to Cloud CX per day during the date range.

For each day, the report shows the peak concurrent users for that day and the number of minutes that the peak concurrent users log in.

• Example Concurrent Usage report

Resources Usage

Tracks your organization’s consumption of billable Cloud CX resources, including IVR overage minutes and data storage overages, SMS/Messaging (Cloud CX 3 and Cloud CX 2), API Overage charges, and BYOC charges.

This report includes the quantity of each billable resource consumed during the period by day.

• Example Resources Usage report

Cloud CX Voice and BYOC Cloud CX Usage

Tracks your organization's consumption of Cloud CX Voice services, including information about call origin and destination, and the type of call.

• Example Cloud CX Voice Usage report

User Hour Usage

This report includes a row for each logged in user for each day of the billing cycle, with their logged in duration in the format HOURS:MINUTES:SECONDS:MILLISECONDS.

• Example of User Hour Usage report

You can reconcile your Cloud CX Voice invoice against your usage report.

In addition, you can use the filter feature on the Cloud CX Voice or Number Management page to check the phone numbers that appear on the invoice.

The total usage charges on your invoice include the following: 

• Calling service charges
• Non-recurring charges (set up fees) for toll-free and DID numbers
• Monthly recurring charges for toll -fee and DID numbers
• Short duration call surcharge

When you’re looking at your Cloud CX Voice usage report, you will see records that correspond to

• Outbound calling service
• Inbound calling service
• Extended outbound calling service.

NOTE: Monthly recurring and non-recurring charges are not included in call detail records and must be reconciled separately by looking at the Number Management page. 

Telco usage charges

To reconcile the Telco Usage Charges section of the invoice to the Call Detail Record (CDR):

The number in the CDR Total Cost column will match total of the numbers in the Extended Outbound Calling Service + Inbound Calling Service + Outbound Calling Service rows in the invoice.

NOTE: For the invoice rows there might be a U.S. and International breakout.

Non-recurring and monthly-recurring charges

The Telco Usage Charges section of the invoice includes non-recurring charges (NRC) and monthly recurring charges (MRC) that are not reflected in the CDR detail. 

See below to reconcile NRC/MRC.

Local Number – Prepay

1. Access the Cloud CX Voice / Number Management page and take note of the total number of DID and toll-free numbers you own.
2. This number should match the number listed on the invoice under the Qty column.

Outbound calling service rate calculation

1. Access your Cloud CX Voice usage report and take note of the NPA (Area Code) in the Destination column where the direction is listed as Outbound.
2. Access the Cloud CX Voice pricing article.
3. Select your region.
4. Click the Outbound Usage Charges link.
5. In the Search box, enter the country name associated with the NPA you noted in step 1.
6. You’ll then see rate for that country.

Inbound calling service rate calculation

DID

1. Access your Cloud CX Voice usage report and take note of the NPA (Area Code) in the Destination column where the direction is listed as Inbound. 
2. Access the Cloud CX Voice pricing article.
3. Select your region.
4. Click the Number purchase and usage charges link.
5. In the Search box, enter the country name associated with the NPA you noted in step 1. 
6. You’ll then see rate for that country.

Toll-free

1. Access your Cloud CX Voice usage report and take note of the NPA (Area Code) in the Origin column where the direction is listed as Inbound. 
2. Access the Cloud CX Voice pricing article.
3. Select your region.
4. Click the Number purchase and usage charges link.
5. In the Search box, enter the country name associated with the NPA you noted in step 1. 
6. You’ll then see rate for that country.

Short duration call surcharge

Process to reconcile the Short Duration Call Surcharge QTY.

1. Access your Cloud CX Voice usage report.
2. Filter for the following:
   • Direction = OUTBOUND
   • Adjusted Duration (Seconds) = 6
   • Usage Rate Per Minute != 0.
3. The number of rows displayed –1 will match the QTY in the invoice.

NOTE: To determine when a surcharge will apply to a short duration call, see also: 

• Do short duration calls and surcharges apply to outbound dialing calls? 
• Do short duration surcharges apply to outbound international calls?
• Do short duration surcharges apply to inbound calls?