If you find yourself in a situation where a change was made to the Source Collector or the provisioning changed for a specific product / service of a client (e.g. the collected product code was changed) and you want to bill for a full month's worth of data using the newly collected data, you can follow the steps below without affecting broken periods:


Step 1: Determine if the source system keeps track of historic data

  1. If this is the case, 
    1. and you are making Source Collector changes without changing the provisioning of the product or service on the source system, then follow steps 2, 3 and 5, then re-run your Source Collector and re-import the data you wish to bill for. Confirm your newly collected data by repeating step 2.
    2. but the provisioning or the product or service was changed and the source systems' historic data is not updated either, then continue with the below steps.
  2. If this is not the case then continue with the below steps.


Step 2: View the newly collected data

This would be the data that was imported via a Source Collector and is in the correct format - i.e. you don't need to make changes to any of the data and are happy to use it As-Is for billing.

  1. Navigate to the Data Maintenance screen on Varibill.
  2. Ensure that there are no filters/groups already on your grid (Read more on the basic functionality (grouping, filtering, displaying columns) of Varibill).
  3. Ensure that only the following column/s are visible in the grid before you perform your search.
    1. Client Identifier,
    2. Product Code,
    3. Record ID,
    4. GUID,
    5. Last Seen Date,
    6. Quantity.
  4. In the "Search" bar, search for the changed value (e.g. the new product code).
    1. Be sure to search for records under unlinked pending as well as linked pending. (Billed data cannot be updated) (Read more on the invoice status of billing records)
  5. Select the dates for the period for which you know the data collected correctly.
  6. Click SEARCH.
  7. Wait for the results to be displayed then ensure the newly imported billing data reflects the change you wish to apply to the historically collected billing data.


Step 3: Search for the incorrectly collected data (historic data) to which you wish to make changes / wish to delete

  1. Keep the grid columns as in step 2 and be sure that there are no filters/groupings on your grid.
  2. In the "Search" bar, search for the historic data (e.g. by entering the "old" product code value in the search bar).

    1. Be sure to search for records under unlinked pending as well as linked pending. (Billed data cannot be updated) (Read more on the invoice status of billing records)

  3. Select the dates for the period for which you want to update the data.
  4. Click SEARCH.
  5. Wait for the results to be displayed.
  6. Confirm the displayed results only contain the historic data to which you wish to make changes. 
    1. DO NOT CLOSE YOUR DATA MAINTENANCE WINDOW


Step 4: Prepare a file to manually import corrected data to match the newly collected data

  1. Open the Data Import screen.
  2. Click "Download Template" in order to download the manual import template that you will need to populate (Read more about the fields on the template).
  3. Open the template.
  4. Save it somewhere.
  5. Return to your Data Maintenance screen as in Step 3.
  6. Copy your search results from the screen by selecting the data on the screen by highlighting the results and then selecting CTRL + C on your keyboard
  7. Paste the copied data into the Excel template. (You may need to move some data around to ensure the data is in the related columns in the template - i.e. the record id field from Varibill was pasted in the RecordID column in the template) - ensure that you paste as text.
    1. Ensure that you copy ALL data that matches your search - including any data that may be on page 2 or 3 etc.
  8. Check that the dates of the data you pasted into the Excel file are correct - i.e. it is a complete list of records for your current billing period (so essentially, once you upload this file along with the new data being collected via the source collector you will have a full month's worth data for your billing period)
  9. Change the relevant data to match the newly collected data.
    1. E.g. if the product code changed, then only update the product codes of the data in your Excel file to match the product code of the newly collected data.
    2. *NB - do not forget to select RecordType "R" for every record you add and at the end of your data you have to select RecordType "T" and indicate, in Column B, the number of records you have captured in your template that you will be importing into Varibill (headers do not make up part of this count). Also ensure all captured data is in the correct format to ensure your file will import successfully**


Step 5: Delete the incorrectly collected data

  1. Return to your Data Maintenance screen to view the data searched for in Step 3.
  2. Please make sure that the data displayed is the data you want to delete and is the data that is currently populated in your Excel file (it will not be possible to restore the data if you delete the incorrect records).
  3. Select all the records by selecting the tick box in the header row. This selects all the record on this page.
  4. Select ACTIONS and then select "Delete Selected"
  5. Make sure that you delete all records that match your search parameters - there may be records on multiple pages (for completeness purposes just do a search under each of the radio buttons - "Include unbilled data", "Include linked pending data", "Include unlinked pending data" in case, just to ensure that you delete all of the necessary records.
  6. Repeat this for page 2, 3 etc. until no more data is displayed on your grid.


Step 6: Import the file prepared in Step 4

  1. Follow these easy steps.


Step 7: Confirm the imported data in Step 6 matches the newly collected data in Step 2.

  1. Return to your Data Maintenance screen.
  2. Repeat your search in Step 2.
  3. Confirm you are happy with the data as it's been re-imported in step 6. If not, repeat all the above steps.


Read more on docs.varibill.com for additional Data Maintenance options and possible next steps.