Target Skill:

Describe the function and features of the sample end-user application (stencil)

How Do Stencils Work?

To speed development and implementation of billing applications, BillerXpert provides for industry-specific stencils.  Stencils are generic, prefab applications that billing organizations can adapt to their unique requirements. BillerXpert 1.0 includes stencils for the Telco and Cable industries, although only the Telco stencil is completely supported at this time. 

The use of stencils makes it easy to modify billing applications at different levels of sophistication, depending on the biller’s need for customization.  The following illustration shows how a stencil, containing five types of objects, provides the front-end interface between a billing customer and the NAS back-end.

A stencil provides AppLogics, templates, validation logic, and output forms, which implement the features required for billing in a particular industry. The biller organization can easily modify the stencil in various ways to customize it for a specific organization.  The way that these components interact and how they can be modified is described in Module 4 of this course. The Telco stencil provided with BillerXpert 1.0 provides the following features. 

  • Login/logout 
  • Customer registration 
  • Customer profile and bill payment information 
  • Bill summary, details, account status and payment history 
  • Payment options 
Note that not all features are completely implemented in the sample implementation.
 
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