Profitec Gives Omnibill EBPP, Online Provisioning Capability

By Chris Garifo

Connecticut-based Profitec, Inc. (Booth 704) has released the most recent upgrade to its flagship Omnibill customer management system, the company announced this week during the ASCENT Spring 2000 Conference and Exhibition in Anaheim, California.

Omnibill 7.3 includes OmniView, an electronic bill presentment and payment (EBPP) system; and an online provisioning manager.

Profitec Sales and Marketing Vice President, Randal Minervino says that among about 30 additional capabilities available in the upgrade, the Online provisioning manager is the most significant because, until its development, Omnibill resembled many billing system in that “once a day or several times a day, a responsible person executes the provisioning routine that generates these batch files that sends them out.”

“From the perspective of reducing internal expenses to handle that load, our clients are going to find it to be a very significant increase in capability,” Minervino said.

Billing clients can specify Online’s operating frequency, ranging from every minute to once a day. The provisioning manager sweeps the provisioning interim module, looking for specific records. When a scan of the files reveals one or more new entries, the system automatically reformats the record and sends it to an IP address or destination folder for downstream processing.

Online supports carrier provisioning systems, third-party links and switch management software. The only requirement is a clearly defined record layout, which a billing client sends to Profitec for incorporation into Omnibill.

The upgrade also gives Omnibill EBPP capability for the first time. OmniView lets end users access and view current and past statements, and produce online interactive reports and charts. Secure payments can also be made through application support with VeriSign, Inc. The interface supports private messaging and other links to information sources and portals.

End users can access the application through links from the Profitec clients’ websites. Billing clients can use the web to administer OmniView-controlling system and welcome messages, authorizing users and initializing customers, controlling e-mail notification details and viewing payments processed through for the payment network.

OmniView operates on a Windows 2000 server using Microsoft IIS and Microsoft SQL server 7.0. Data is populated from the Master Omnibill data warehouse to OmniView by transactional data replication.