Submitting Usage Data for an Account
When you've set up pricing for your Product Plans and attached these to an Account, you might want to generate some test Bills for the Account before you move to production. To do this, you'll need to feed some sample usage data for the Account into m3ter in readiness for generating test Bills against the Account. You can do this directly in the Console from the Account page.
Tip: Checking for Submitted Usage Data? Usage Data you've submitted for ingest into the m3ter platform can be queried for and viewed using the Data Explorer. See Performing Usage Queries and Reviewing Results for details.
Tip: Submit Test Usage Data for a Meter? Alternatively, you can follow similar steps to those explained here to submit usage data for a specific Account directly from Meter Details pages. See Submitting and Checking Test Usage Data.
To submit usage data for an Account:
1. Select Accounts. The Accounts page opens.
2. Select the NAME text of the Account for which you want to submit usage data. The Account page opens with the Overview tab selected.
3. You can start the submit usage workflow in two ways:
Select the Submit usage button above the Account details panel.
Alternatively, on the Account actions menu, select Account>Submit usage:
A Submit usage data dialog appears.
4. For Step 1 - Select a meter on the dialog, use the Meter drop-down list to select the Meter whose Data Fields were Target Fields for an Aggregation used for pricing a Plan you've attached to the Account.
5. Select Continue. The dialog adjusts to show Step 1 completed and moves you to Step 2 - Define measurements and send:
The default method to complete Step 2 is Simple:
A measurement UID is entered automatically. Note: If you edit this string, it must be unique and immutable.
A Timestamp date/time is entered for the current date and time. You can adjust this and enter a date/time value that is in the past for your submission. This is useful if you need to adjust billing on an Account retrospectively. For more details, see Using Timestamp to Submit Usage Data Adjustments.
The Code strings for the Meter and Account are entered automatically - these are required parameters for a Submit Measurements API call to the m3ter Ingest API.
Enter a Value for each of the Meter Data fields as required for the usage data submission. In this example, the selected Meter has a single MEASURE numeric Data Field.
Note that a Log of your submissions will be built at the right-hand side as you submit measurements:
Alternatively, you can switch to Advanced, where you can edit the raw JSON for the usage data submission:
Important!
The Submit Measurements call to the Ingest API requires the Account Code string for the
"account"request parameter. On the Simple format, the Account Name is used, but when you switch to the Advanced format, you'll see that it's the Account Code that is being used.Any change you make to the Ingest request body JSON in Advanced format before submitting - such as changing the
“account”parameter value - will persist and be reflected in the Simple format.For JSON well-formedness, do not have a trailing comma after the last Data Field parameter entry. If you do, then your Submit usage call will be rejected as invalid.
6. Select Submit usage. If the submission succeeds, under Log you'll see:
A confirmation message that the measurement was accepted at the bottom of the submit dialog.
The measurement UID has been regenerated allowing you to quickly enter new Values for Meter Data Fields as required and submit a further measurement:
7. Re-enter second set of measure values for the Meter Data Fields.
8. Select Submit usage again to submit a second set of usage data.
Tip: Account consumes several Products? If the Account for which you want to test Billing consumes more that one of your Products, you can select Back to select a Meter that is set up to collect usage data for a different Product, and repeat these steps for each of the Meters used as the basis for pricing each of the Product Plans attached to the Account.
Tip: Using Data Explorer to check usage data ingest:
Submitted usage data can be queried for and then viewed using the Data Explorer. See Performing Usage Queries and Reviewing Results for details.
However, please note that in the special case where, after submitting some usage data for an Account, you have:
Deleted the Account and recreated it using the same Code.
Submitted further usage data for the recreated Account.
Then, usage data queries using the Data Explorer will not be synchronized fully with the usage data linked to the Account for Billing purposes.
This is because the usage data linked to the now deleted Account is no longer available for Billing against the new recreated Account, but remains available for Data Explorer queries using the same Account Code.
As a matter of best practice when managing your customer Accounts, we strongly recommend against deleting and recreating Accounts using the same Code. Please see Managing Accounts - Best Practices for more on the implications of doing this.
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