Last verified with: 10.8.6.0
Overview #
Mediation is the process that turns raw usage data from external systems into standardized, billable usage records inside LogiSense Billing.
In practice, businesses often receive usage data from many different sources. Those sources may use different file layouts, different field names, different identifiers, different units of measure, and different record types. Mediation gives the business a configurable way to interpret that incoming data, decide what should be processed, transform it into a consistent structure, and prepare it for downstream rating and billing.
This is important because pricing flexibility depends on clean, reliable usage data. The more effectively a business can filter, map, and normalize incoming feeds, the easier it becomes to support creative pricing models without forcing every external source to conform to one rigid format.
What Mediation Does #
At a business level, mediation performs four important jobs:
- It receives usage data from external sources such as file-based feeds or API-based integrations.
- It filters out records that should not be processed.
- It maps the relevant source fields into the billing system’s internal usage structure.
- It normalizes values so downstream rating logic can work with consistent data.
The result is a mediated usage record that contains the core information needed for pricing, such as the usage date, the identifier that ties the event to a customer or service, the usage value, the usage class, and the import history reference for traceability.
Why Mediation Matters #
Raw source data is rarely ready for billing as-is.
External systems are built for operational purposes, not for monetization. A network platform, SaaS application, device manager, or partner feed may produce records in whatever structure is convenient for that source. Billing needs something different. It needs consistency, clarity, and enough control to decide how those records should be interpreted commercially.
Mediation closes that gap. It allows a business to accept source data in its native form while still producing a clean, repeatable structure for rating, taxation, bucketing, and invoicing.
That creates several important benefits:
- Faster onboarding of new usage sources.
- Less manual cleanup before billing.
- Better consistency in how usage is interpreted.
- More reuse of downstream pricing logic.
- Fewer billing disputes caused by inconsistent source formatting.
Feed Filtering And Exclusions #
One of the first jobs of mediation is deciding which incoming rows should be processed and which should be ignored.
Not every line in a source feed is necessarily billable usage. A feed may contain headers, trailers, control records, rejected records, operational messages, or record types that are not relevant to billing. Mediation allows the business to define filters so only the right rows move forward.
This is valuable because it keeps non-billable or irrelevant data from polluting the billing flow.
Examples of filtering and exclusion include:
- processing only rows for a specific record type,
- ignoring administrative or summary rows,
- excluding records with statuses that indicate failure or cancellation,
- or filtering a mixed feed so only the billable event categories are mediated.
This gives businesses much more control over intake quality. Instead of forcing every upstream system to send a perfectly pre-cleaned billing feed, LogiSense Billing can selectively process what matters.
Conditional Mapping #
Many usage feeds do not use one fixed structure for every record.
A single source may contain several different event types, each with slightly different field meanings or field positions. Mediation supports conditional mapping so the platform can interpret one kind of record differently from another, even when both come from the same feed.
This means businesses can define rules such as:
- when a row represents one event type, use one set of source fields,
- when it represents another event type, use a different set of source fields,
- or when a condition is met, derive a different identifier, value, or usage class.
This is especially powerful because it reduces the need to split every source into separate integration projects before billing can begin. A business can work with mixed feeds and still create a clear mediated output.
Conditional mapping is also important for reuse. Instead of rebuilding pricing structures around every source-specific variation, businesses can use mediation to translate those variations into a common internal model.
Normalization #
Normalization is the process of converting inconsistent source values into a common format.
Even when two systems describe the same kind of usage, they may not express it the same way. One system may send a phone number in international format while another sends it locally. One source may send country names while another sends country codes. One may send duration in seconds while another sends minutes. One may report data usage as upload and download separately while another sends a total.
Mediation can normalize those values so the rating engine sees a consistent input.
Normalization can be used for things like:
- phone numbers,
- country and country code values,
- carriers and networks,
- date and time values,
- usage identifiers,
- and units of measure such as time or data.
Normalization can also include mathematical preparation of the usage data. For example, separate upload and download values can be summed together before rating, or source values can be converted into a standard unit such as kilobytes, megabytes, minutes, or occurrences.
This matters because pricing flexibility depends on comparability. If equivalent usage arrives in inconsistent formats, pricing rules become harder to reuse and exceptions become harder to manage. Normalization solves that problem at the mediation layer instead of pushing complexity into the catalog or rating design.
Handling Special Cases With Call-Outs And Plug-Ins #
Most mediation scenarios can be handled through feed configuration, mapping rules, filters, and normalization. In some cases, however, a business needs additional logic for a source-specific or customer-specific scenario.
This is where call-outs and plug-ins add value.
They provide an extensibility layer that can be attached to the mediation process so special handling can be applied when standard mapping alone is not enough. This can be useful when a business needs to:
- derive a value using more complex logic,
- apply customer-specific handling to a source feed,
- enrich a record using additional lookup data,
- adjust how a usage class is selected in a special case,
- or transform the mediated output before it continues into rating.
The business value of this approach is flexibility without losing structure.
Instead of redesigning the entire feed model or creating duplicate catalog constructs for edge cases, organizations can use mediation call-outs and plug-ins to handle exceptions at the intake layer. That keeps the standard mediation model reusable while still allowing special-case requirements to be addressed in a controlled way.
This is especially important for large or fast-moving businesses that onboard many partners, support customer-specific feed nuances, or need to accommodate non-standard integration patterns without turning every exception into a one-off billing design.
How Mediation Supports Pricing Flexibility #
Mediation is not the pricing model itself, but it is one of the key reasons flexible pricing is possible.
By translating many kinds of source data into a standard mediated record, the platform makes it much easier to reuse downstream pricing assets such as:
- Usage Classes,
- Usage Rate Groups,
- Usage Rate Plans,
- Entitlements and Buckets,
- taxation logic,
- and location-based or condition-based rating rules.
Without mediation, businesses often end up building source-specific workarounds everywhere else in the billing model. With mediation, the source complexity is handled once at intake, allowing the rest of the pricing stack to remain cleaner and more reusable.
Telecom Examples #
Mixed Call Detail Record Feeds #
A telecom provider may receive one usage feed that contains multiple call record types, such as voice, SMS, and control rows.
Mediation can:
- filter out non-billable rows,
- detect which type of telecom event each row represents,
- map the correct originating and terminating identifiers,
- normalize phone numbers and country information,
- and convert duration or volume values into standard rating units.
Benefit:
- Supports multiple telecom event types in one intake flow.
- Improves consistency before rating.
- Reduces the need for separate custom pre-processing outside the platform.
Carrier-Specific Variations In The Same Commercial Model #
Different carrier feeds may represent similar usage in different layouts or with different field conventions.
Mediation allows those differences to be translated into the same internal usage structure so the business can still apply reusable pricing logic.
Benefit:
- Makes it easier to onboard new carrier sources.
- Preserves reuse of pricing and rating rules.
- Reduces operational effort when source formats vary by partner or network.
SaaS Examples #
Mixed API And Platform Usage In One Feed #
A SaaS business may receive a source feed that includes API calls, compute activity, and storage consumption in the same exported dataset.
Mediation can:
- use filters to identify which records should be billed,
- apply conditional mapping based on event type,
- normalize identifiers and timestamps,
- and convert different measures into the units needed for pricing.
Benefit:
- Supports multi-metric pricing from a shared source.
- Allows one feed to support several product or usage models.
- Reduces the need to redesign upstream systems for billing.
Usage Feeds From Multiple Product Teams #
Different product teams may emit usage in different structures even when the business wants one commercial pricing framework.
Mediation makes it possible to standardize those differences before rating so the business can price customers consistently across the portfolio.
Benefit:
- Improves consistency across independently built products.
- Makes catalog and pricing reuse much easier.
- Helps create a more unified customer billing experience.
Why Customers Value This Capability #
Mediation is valuable because it gives businesses control over the point where source data becomes billable data.
That control matters when a business wants to:
- bill from multiple external systems,
- work with feeds that contain mixed record types,
- apply source-specific filtering and exclusions,
- use conditional logic to interpret different event patterns,
- normalize inconsistent identifiers and units,
- and keep downstream pricing design reusable instead of source-specific.
In other words, mediation helps businesses absorb source complexity without turning that complexity into catalog bloat or pricing sprawl.
The Bigger Business Benefit #
The real strength of mediation is not just that it transforms data. It creates a cleaner commercial foundation.
When usage data is filtered properly, mapped conditionally, and normalized consistently, businesses gain more confidence in billing accuracy and much more freedom in how they price.
That means they can launch new usage-based offers faster, support more diverse data sources, and build more creative monetization models without losing control of billing quality.