Network features define how devices interact with your network resources. Network features contain one or more policies, and these policies can be service policies to manage data, voice, or messaging, entitlement policies to allow specific functionality, data session policies to manage device data sessions, and WiFi policies to manage interaction with WiFi networks. The network features you create are sent to embedded-client devices and to the ItsOn server for policy enforcement. Device and user behavior trigger evaluation of network features, which then control relevant device-network interaction.
You can use network features to combine different types of policies to accomplish specific goals. For example, you can use the properly configured combination of a data service policy and a data session policy to accomplish the goal of roaming data reduction for devices that connect to your network.
You begin by defining your network management, device management, and cost saving goals. Then in Service Design Center, create a network feature for each goal. Add policies to the network feature, then configure those policies to match your desired goal.
The Network Features page lists the following details for each feature:
Network features have three statuses, or modes, that define a workflow that ends with deploying to the ItsOn server and to live embedded-client devices: Draft, Testing, and Published. Network features are in Draft mode when you first create them and configure them. Once you have added policies to a network feature and configured those policies, you add testing subscribers, either individually or through subscriber groups. Then move the network feature to Testing mode, where the network feature is pushed to the defined, limited set of devices, the subscribers you added, so you can test and validate the network feature definition. When you are satisfied that the network feature accomplishes your goal through testing, you move it to Published mode, and the network feature is pushed to the ItsOn server and to all of the embedded-client devices on your entire network. Embedded-client devices receive the network feature when they next check in with the network, typically within 24 hours.
When features are in Testing or Published mode, the subscriber records on the Customer Support page reflect the features that embedded-client devices have received.
With today's smart devices wanting to maintain connections to the cellular network, your costs have increased as more devices maintain those connections on foreign networks, which are networks that you have roaming agreements with. In Service Design Center, you can design a policy that will, for example, prevent data sessions from being opened on roaming, or partner, networks unless the device's screen is on and an app attempting network access is in the foreground.
Data-hungry processes, such as file downloading and video streaming, use an ever-increasing amount of your network capacity. While their coverage does not approach that of your cellular network, publicly available WiFi networks are extending their reach, and your users are credentialed to use some of them. In Service Design Center, you can design a policy that will, for example, recognize when a customer's device is within range of a WiFi network that it has credentials to use and direct the device to use the WiFi network rather than the cellular network.