Billing Calendar

The Billing Calendar supplements the Batch Manager form, giving you more options for scheduling certain Billing and Meter Management tasks.

In the Batch Manager, you can schedule a task to repeat at set intervals, but the task will use the same parameters each time it runs. For example, if you enter a billing cycle for a Bill Run Schedule task, the task will generate bills for the same cycle each time.

To generate bills for different cycles on different dates, you can set up a single task in the Batch Manager and then use the Billing Calendar to add multiple jobs for that task. Each job is scheduled for one or more specific dates, and has its own set of parameters. Each time the task runs it will first check the calendar for any jobs that are ready to be invoked, and run each job with the defined parameters.

Note that when you set up your task in the Batch Manager, you must select the Use Calendar check box. This will hide the parameter fields under Condition so you can enter parameters for separate jobs in the Billing Calendar instead.

When you schedule jobs in the Billing Calendar, you’ll notice that the parameters for each task type are the same ones that are displayed for that task type in the Batch Manager form. The difference is that rather than setting up a recurring schedule, you can use the Billing Calendar to enter one or more specific dates on which the job will be run.

It is important to note that the jobs you schedule in the Billing Calendar are not linked to specific task records in the TASK table. A job only specifies a task type, and any task of that type that uses the Billing Calendar will run the same set of jobs.

For example, you might have two Penalty Run tasks that use the Billing Calendar, one of which is scheduled to run every Monday, and the other every Thursday. Suppose you’ve used the Billing Calendar to schedule a Penalty Run job for Monday, September 26 and Thursday, September 29. When the first task runs on Monday the 26th, it will execute the job scheduled for that day. Similarly, when the second task runs, it will execute the job that is scheduled for Thursday.