Cost Estimation

Note: Spartacus 2.x is no longer maintained. Please upgrade to the latest version.

Note: This feature is introduced with version 1.3 of the TUA Spartacus libraries.

Contents

Overview

This feature determines and displays the average cost for a product offering considering the provided yearly consumption entered by a customer.

Certain types of product offerings (i.e. commodity products - electricity and gas) are charged by consumption. In order for customers to get an idea of how much these type of product offerings could potentially cost them on a monthly or yearly basis, customers will need to provide additional information regarding their anticipated usage. Once the customer enters their anticipated annual consumption information, the search result list of all applicable product offerings are displayed.

Customers are able to view the average cost that each of the product offerings would cost them based on their anticipated usage. Additional pricing-related information for each product offering is available by expanding the offering. The products shown in the search result list must be properly configured for this scenario and have prices defined for maximum 1 usage unit (such as kWh, cubic meter etc). The Average Cost for a product offering is determined using the following algorithm:

Average Cost / Year = PayNowPrices + YearlyRecurringCharges + (YearlyConsumption – YearlyIncluded) * UsageCharges

Average Cost Algorithm

IMPORTANT NOTES:

  1. Average Cost is determined using the algorithm presented in the above illustration. The calculation works with simple price information, such as one-time charges, recurring charges, and usage charges, for which the price has a fixed value and not a complex price formula.

  2. Average Cost is determined for those product offerings that have prices defined for a maximum of 1 usage unit. In case the product offering has prices defined for more than 1 usage unit, the average cost cannot be properly determined, case in which it will not be displayed. Please see the following illustration.

Average Cost Algorithm

Prerequisites

  1. Product offerings for which the average cost has to be calculated and displayed must have prices defined for maximum 1 usage unit (kWh, minutes, sms, etc).
  2. CMS components must be properly defined in the CMS system (in our case in SAP Commerce, in the content catalog).

Business Use Cases

Use Case 1: Discover product offerings by consumption from homepage

Customer lands on the homepage and is able to search for product offerings by consumption. Customer selects the desired option for gas or electricity and provides the annual consumption manually in the consumption input area. Alternatively, if a customer does not provide a value, a default value will be taken into consideration. Customer conducts the search, and search results with list of product offerings are presented. For each product offering, the customer is able to see the average cost that was calcuated using the provided input. For each product offering listed, the customer has the option to expand the row and view additional pricing-related information including the contract duration, one-time charges, recurring charges, and usage-based charges. From the search results page or from the Product Details Page, the customer has the ability to re-calculate the costs using a different anticipated consumption value.

Use Case 2: Customer lands on category page

Customer accesses a category page (in this use case example, a commodity category of either electricity or gas). As a result, the customer lands on the product listing page displaying the product offerings in that category. If the customer has not yet provided any personal consumption usage criteria, each offering shown will display pricing information based on the default value. Customer will be able to view additional pricing-related information, view the details of a selected product offering or change the consumption criteria.

Use Case 3: Content Manager defines the CMS components enabling customers to search by consumption in backoffice tools

A Content Manager wants to define and enable the cost estimation feature. The Content Manager accesses the Backoffice to create the necessary components including:

  • Component of type SliderOptionComponent
  • Component of type PoSearchByConsumptionComponent (Note: Slider option components part of a PoSearchByConsumptionComponent are selected within the list of the SliderOptionComponent objects)
  • Component of type ConsumptionListComponent (Note: Search by consumption components part of a ConsumptionListComponent are selected within the list of the PoSearchByConsumptionComponent objects)

Content Manager updates the homepage by including the desired ConsumptionListComponent objects in the corresponding slot.

Frontend and Backend Dependencies

Dependency Detail
Spartacus 1.x, < 2.0
Telco & Utilities Accelerator Version 2003 (latest patch)
SAP Commerce Version 1905 (latest patch)

Configuring and Enabling Cost Estimation

Configuration Type: SPA or Backend Details
Define discover by consumption CMS components Backend (CMS) Define corresponding discovery by consumption CMS components such as Consumption components and Slider option components.
Configure default consumption values for PO types and usage units SPA Customer consumption preferences are saved in localStorage. If the customer is visiting the website for the first time or localStorage is emptied, default values that can be configured are used. In case the customer has provided a preferred consumption through the Consumption Component, it is saved in the localStorage and that value is used to calculate average cost.

Configure default consumption values for PO types and usage units: Consumption values are stored based on the product specification of the product offering and the usageUnit in the following format:

```
consumption_<productSpecification>_<usage_Unit> : <value>
```

Example:

consumption: {

    defaultValues: [

        { productSpecification: <string>, usageUnit: <string>, value: <string>},

        ...

        { productSpecification: <string>, usageUnit: <string>, value: <string>}

    ],

    default: <string>

}

CMS Component Configuration for Anticipated Consumption

The Content Manager creates CMS components for consumption (defined in b2ctelcoaddon). This is the list of CMS components that a Content Manager would need to define in CMS to enable the cost estimation feature.

Component Name Description Component Structure
SliderOptionComponent CMS component representing the predefined value and media associated to it defining a consumption option. See the sample list of SliderOptionComponent objects listed below the following table. It extends SimpleCMSComponent. See Attributes
PoSearchByConsumptionComponent CMS component defining a list of consumption options available for a specific usage unit, consumed in a specific amount of time and applicable to specific type of POs. It extends SimpleCMSComponent. See Attributes
ConsumptionListingComponent CMS component defining a list of PoSearchByConsumptionComponent objects. It extends SimpleCMSComponent. See Attributes

SliderOptionComponent - Sample List

Following is the sample list of SliderOptionComponent objects:

1000 kwh

  • uid: 1-person-option
  • name: 1 person
  • value: 1000

2000 kwh

  • uid: 2-persons-option
  • name: 2 persons
  • value: 1750

Attributes

Attribute Name Type Description
SliderOptionComponent   * - attributes are defined in super type
uid* String Unique identifier of the component
name* String Name of the component
media Media Media item
value Long Number representing the value of the option component
PoSearchByConsumptionComponent   * - attributes are defined in super type
uid* String Unique identifier of the component
name* String Name of the component
productSpecification TmaProductSpecification Product specification defining the type of offers available for search
usageUnit UsageUnit Usage unit defining the type of consumption
billingFrequency BillingFrequency Billing frequency defining the amount of time when the consumption was consumed (consumption value specified by the slider options)
sliderOptionComponents List<SliderOptionComponent> List of SliderOptionComponent objects. They represent the available consumption options available in the search component
ConsumptionListingComponent   * - attributes are defined in super type
uid* String Unique identifier of the component
name* String Name of the component
searchByConsumptionComponents List<PoSearchByConsumptionComponent> List of PoSearchByConsumptionComponent objects

Examples of how components can be defined in CMS as sample data:

SliderOptionComponent components

Detailed sample data

Electricity specific slider option components

Component UID Name Value Media
OnePersonElectricitySliderOption 1 person/ 1000 kwh 1000 Electric-Specific Slider Option
TwoPersonElectricitySliderOption 2 person/ 2000 kwh 2000 Electric-Specific Slider Option
ThreePersonElectricitySliderOption 3 person/ 3500 kwh 3500 Electric-Specific Slider Option
FourPersonElectricitySliderOption 4 person/ 6000 kwh 6000 Electric-Specific Slider Option

Gas-specific slider option components

Component UID Name Value Media
ThirtyM2GasSliderOption 30 square meters/ 800 cubic meters 800 Gas-Specific Slider Option
FiftyM2GasSliderOption 50 square meters/ 1200 cubic meters 1200 Gas-Specific Slider Option
OneHundredM2GasSliderOption 100 square meters/ 2500 cubic meters 2500 Gas-Specific Slider Option
OneHundredFiftyM2GasSliderOption 150 square meters/ 4500 cubic meters 4500 Gas-Specific Slider Option
OneHundredEightyM2GasSliderOption 180 square meters/ 6000 cubic meters 6000 Gas-Specific Slider Option

PoSearchByConsumptionComponent components

Detailed sample data

Electricity search by consumption components

Component UID Name Product specification Usage Unit Billing Frequency Slider option components
DiscoverPOByElectricityComponent Electricity electricity kwh year OnePersonElectricitySliderOption, TwoPersonElectricitySliderOption, ThreePersonElectricitySliderOption, FourPersonElectricitySliderOption

Gas search by consumption components

Component UID Name Product specification Usage Unit Billing Frequency Slider option components
DiscoverPOByGasComponent Gas gas cubic_meter year ThirtyM2GasSliderOption, FiftyM2GasSliderOption, OneHundredM2GasSliderOption, OneHundredFiftyM2GasSliderOption, OneHundredEightyM2GasSliderOption

ConsumptionListingComponent components

Detailed sample data

Consumption listing component for electricity and gas

Component UID Name Search by consumption components
UtilitiesPoSearchByConsumptionComponentList UtilitiesPoSearchByConsumptionComponentList DiscoverPOByElectricityComponent, DiscoverPOByGasComponent

Components

The following new and updated components must be enabled in the TUA Backoffice to appear on the Spartacus TUA storefront:

Component Name Status Description
Consumption Components   Renders display of discovery by consumption CMS components.
TmaConsumptionComponent New  
TmaConsumptionDialogComponent New  
TmaPoSearchByConsumptionComponent New  
TmaSliderOptionComponent New  
Product Components   Product components are updated to display the average cost for a set of configured POs (by their type). If a PO has charge prices defined for more than 1 usage unit, the average cost is not displayed.
TmaProductDetailsTabComponent Updated  
TmaProductGridItemComponent Updated  
TmaProductListComponent Updated  
TmaProductListItemComponent Updated  
TmaProductSummaryComponent Updated  

Further Reading

For further reading, see the following topic in the TUA Help portal: