The number plan and destination classes

Before a call can be priced, Tenvara has to know what was dialled: which country, what kind of number, and which of your billing terms it falls under. That is the number plan. Every country's numbering plan is built in, so it works from the first call with nothing to import.

Open Settings > Number plan. The page has three parts: Try numbers, Destination classes and National range files.

How a number is read#

Numbers arrive the way the caller dialled them, so each is read in the caller's context:

1. The caller's country is the site's, else the customer's, else your own from Settings > Regional. A call record source can have its own country.
2. Cleaning. Spaces, brackets, dashes and the wrapping some phone systems add are removed.
3. Emergency numbers are spotted first, including when dialled with an outside line prefix, so 9 then 999 is still 999.
4. Prefixes come off. The customer's outside line prefix and codes that withhold the caller's number are removed.
5. Short numbers. A service code of the caller's country is a short code. Anything else up to the internal extension length (4 digits by default, per customer) is an internal call.
6. Everything else is read as a full number, understanding the national prefix and the international access code of the caller's country, and the forms carriers write in their files.

Each number ends up with its international (E.164) form, its country, and a type: landline, mobile, freephone, shared cost, premium rate, personal, VoIP, pager and so on.

International means the number's country is not the caller's. It is relative to the customer, not to you, so one set of classes serves customers in several countries.

What is never billed#

• Emergency calls, in every country, whatever your classes say.
• Internal calls between extensions.

Both have their own class, marked Never billed.

Destination classes#

A destination class is your billing term for a kind of call. Rate cards price by class, and the itemised bill groups by it.

A call takes the first class from the top whose rules all match, so order matters. Tenvara comes with a full set, in this order: Emergency, Internal, National landline, National mobile, Freephone, Non-geographic and shared cost, Premium rate, Personal numbers and pagers, National VoIP, Special services and short codes, International mobile, International landline, International other, and Other.

Each row shows the Class, Calls to, what it Matches, whether it is Billed and whether it is On. Use the arrows to move a class up or down.

Add or change a class#

1. Press Add a class, or edit an existing one.
2. Give it a Name. Leaving the name of a shipped class empty keeps its name translated in each language.
3. Set the rules. A call must match all of them:
   • Calls to: National (the caller's own country), International or Any.
   • Number types: empty means every type.
   • Countries of the number: empty means every country.
   • Starting with: E.164 prefixes such as +4420, or dialled digits such as 118, with commas between.
   • Network: part of an operator's name from an imported range file, for a class per mobile network.
4. Switch Billed off to make every call in the class free. Switch On off to skip the class.
5. Press Add class, then move it above the classes it should win over.

Some examples of what people add:

• A "North America" class with the countries US and CA, to price them together.
• A class for the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man with Calls to set to Any, placed above the international classes, if you price them with the United Kingdom.
• A class for one directory enquiries number, starting with its digits.

The class's Key is made from its name when it is created and never changes, because rate cards refer to it. Renaming a class keeps its prices.

Removing a class sends its calls to the next class that matches, and rate card prices for it stop being used. Add back shipped classes restores any shipped class you removed, in its original place. The emergency class can be renamed and moved, but not billed, switched off or removed. Every change is in the audit log.

Try numbers#

Use Try numbers to see how numbers will be read before real calls arrive, or to work out why a call landed in a class.

1. Type or paste numbers into Numbers, one per line, as a call record shows them.
2. Optionally choose a Customer to use its country and outside line prefix, or pick the country in Calling from.
3. Press Read numbers.

The result says which country the numbers were read as calls from, with its national and international prefix, then lists each number As given with its E.164 form, Country, Type, Destination class and Network. A number that cannot be read, or that no class matches, says so: those are the calls rating would list as unrated.

Tip: After changing the classes, paste a handful of real numbers from last month's bill into Try numbers. It is the quickest check that mobiles, freephone and premium numbers land where you expect.

National range files#

The built-in plan knows the type of every number. A national range file adds finer detail where a regulator publishes who holds each number range: the network a number belongs to, and more precise types.

This is optional. Use it when you price by network, for example a different rate per mobile operator.

• Fetch downloads a regulator's published files directly. Ofcom's files for the United Kingdom and ACMA's register for Australia can be fetched this way.
• Upload a file takes a file up to 64 MB: a regulator's file as published, or for any other country a CSV you make with a prefix column (E.164) and optionally number_type, operator, service and area.

The list shows each imported file with its country, the number of Ranges and Networks, and the recent Imports with their counts. Importing a file again replaces that file's ranges and leaves the others alone. Remove takes a country's ranges out, and its numbers are then read with the built-in plan only.

With a range file in place, a class's Network rule can match on the operator's name.

Related settings#

The outside line prefix and the length of internal extensions are set per customer. When a single odd number needs classing, do it on the call in Call rating; to class every call to such numbers, add the prefix to a class here.