Understanding how the priority setting in network features and eCommerce policies directs the ItsOn software to use the correct policy when devices interact with your network is important for selecting the right priority in the network feature and eCommerce policy properties. This topic explains why network features and eCommerce policies have priorities and provides some scenarios showing how priorities work.
One very important reason for priorities is for conflict resolution. Because usage can be attributed to one and only one policy, if a customer uses a service that matches more than one policy or feature, the use is attributed to the correct one based on priority settings.
To demonstrate how priorities work, you must first establish an ordered list of priorities. That list could vary depending on a carrier's needs, but the following list and order is used for the examples in this topic:
The important thing to understand is that the order of the list determines the priority. The higher on the list, the higher the priority. The names you use do not define priority, but you should use names that help you remember the priority order. Numbers are added as an aid (the lower the number, the higher the priority).
These scenarios illustrate how you use priorities to manage real world use cases and use the example priority list shown above.
A customer has a 100MB data plan. The plan is based on a policy with (6) Paid (Default) priority. The customer has also purchased a Facebook plan, which is based on a policy with (5) Paid Application priority. If the customer then uses Facebook, that use would not be charged against their 100MB data plan because the Facebook plan uses a higher-priority policy. On the other hand, if the Facebook priority was configured lower than (6) Paid (Default), the 100MB plan would be consumed for Facebook usage, which is probably not the intention.
You may offer plans in a bundle where some types of usage could match one of several plans in the bundle. However, usage can be attributed to one and only one policy. Policy priority determines which plan is used first. For example, you have a plan bundle that includes a 100-minute voice plan that includes international calling and a 10-minute international calling plan. The international calling plan is based on a policy with a higher priority than the 100-minute voice plan, so a user's international calling would consume the minutes from the international calling plan first. Usage from the 100-minute voice plan for international calling would not begin until the international calling plan was depleted.
In your list of priorities, you've defined one, (5) Paid Application, that you use for the plans your customers purchase. You also allow sponsored products in your store. That is, products that are paid for by sponsors, not your customers. You give service eCommerce policies used for sponsored products a priority of (4) Sponsored. Let's say that there's a major sporting event in Arizona, and a major athletic apparel company wants to sponsor data service for all your customers so they can tweet about the event, post updates to Facebook, photos to Instagram, and so on. You create an eCommerce policy that allows data access when social media apps are used within that geographical area and give that feature (4) Sponsored priority. You make the product that uses that policy available for only a specific time period around the event. Now, your customers can get this product for free from your store, and when they are attending the event and posting updates to Facebook, the priority means that the data usage will come from the sponsored plan and not their purchased data plan.
You don't want your customers usage to be attributed to their purchased data plans when they visit your website to pay their bills or to shop for more plans. So you create a network feature with a filter that defines your URL and allows access, and you give that feature (1) Carrier priority. When your customers then access your website from their devices, the usage never gets charged to any plans that they have purchased.
Necessary connections are when you need to allow devices to make connections when they don't have existing plans that specifically allow them. For example, for diagnostic reasons, devices might need to send data to the ItsOn servers. You would create a network feature that allows those specific connections and give it the lowest priority, (7) Carrier Backstop in our example list, so if there are no other plans that the usage can be attributed to, the usage will still be permitted.