Luigi Poderico

www.poderico.it

BestPrice tutorial
Beginner guide
BestPrice tutorial
Beginner guide

Introduction
This document shall guide the user through the main
BestPrice functionalities, giving simple examples.
All the necessary files to follow this tutorial are stored in the
enclosed tutorial.zip file.
The first step is to create a new project.

Creation of a new project

Run the application and from the File menu select the New
command. Now BestPrice is ready to import area codes, price
lists and distributions calls.

The next step is to import area codes.

Import area area codes

The command that import intentional area codes loads in the
system the base of area codes that is the list of covered
terminations. For each termination the name, the area code
and the area identification are loaded.
The terminations are partitioned in areas, an useful concept
used for convenient or homogeneous area codes
subdivisions. As we see further, areas are also used in end-
user price list presentation.
To import area codes, select from Data base menu the
command Import area codes... and select the file
area_codes.csv. Notice that all the file imported from
BestPrice are csv formatted.

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To verify the correct area codes loading you can select from
Data base menu the Prefixes... command. A window shall
open with the list of all area codes loaded.

The next step is the price lists loading.

Price lists loading

This operation allow the user the providers price lists loading
in the system. Each price list gives for each termination:
● the termination area code in case extended with a
local area code;
● the termination name used by the provider;
● the cost per minute and the cost per call;
● the quality of services granted or measured. It is
represented with a number between 0 and 1, where
0 is the worst quality and 1 the best quality.

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To load price lists into the system select from the Data Base
menu the command Import price lists..., loading all the
random price lists PriceList1.csv to PriceList5.csv.

To verify the correct price lists loading is it possible to

display them using the command Price lists... from the
Data Base menu. A window shall open allowing two different
data view: by termination and by provider.
To start the BestPrice data analysis just the distribution calls
are required.

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Loading the distribution calls
With the term “distribution calls” we refer to the data
describing how the telephonic traffic is distributed over the
terminations in case extended over local area codes where
available. The number of calls and the total duration in
minutes are provided for each of them.
To load the distribution calls select from the Data Base
menu the command Import distribution calls... and select
the DistributionCalls.csv file.

To verify the correct data loading is it possible to display the

distribution calls using the command Distribution calls...
from the Data Base menu.

Now BestPrice has all the data to perform its analysis. Let we
start with the best minimum cost price list.

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Minimum cost price list
BestPrice performs different multi objective analysis on the
termination price lists; in fact cost and quality of service are
opposing indexes generally. All the analysis have got the
objective to understand the best way to satisfy the outgoing
traffic.
Let we see how to calculate the best minimum cost price list,
that is the best way to buy traffic from the providers
spending less possible. Speaking of multi-objective analysis
the minimum cost price list grant the best quality of service
at lower cost.
From the Algorithm menu select the command Minimum
cost, after few seconds a window shall appear with two
panels: Details and Areas.

Details
In this panel is displayed for each termination the provider to
use. For clarity the costs and the quality are displayed as
well. Two global indexes complete the solution: the total cost
and the total quality that the solution grant. All this
information can be exported in a csv file using the CSV
button.

Areas
Following what specified in the area code base, all the
terminations are divided in homogeneous areas used to
simplify end-user price lists. To assist the formation of such
price lists the common statistics on price and quality are
calculated and provided by area.

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Following the same concepts the maximum quality price list
is calculated.

Maximum quality price list

As for the minimum cost price list, the maximum quality price
list represent the best way to satisfy the out-going traffic
granting the maximum quality, that is the maximum quality
at minimum cost.

All the consideration for the minimum cost price list are
applicable to the maximum cost price list with the opportune
changing. For this reason we avoid to repeat them. Let we
say that the algorithm is activated with the command
Maximum quality of the Algorithm menu.

Il passo successivo è l'analisi della qualità al variare del

costo.

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Quality over cost
One of the most rich of information analysis is the study of
the existing relationship between cost and quality of service,
that is establish which quality is it possible to guarantee with
a given total cost. Such a relationship is expressed in a table
as well as in a graph. The table contains two columns for the
cost and quality couple; the graph plots the quality over cost
relationship.
The quality over cost analysis is activated by the command
QOS over cost of the Algorithm menu. A window shall
appear with both the table and the graph empty. Clicking the
Calculate button the analysis process starts. The process is
quite long spending also some minutes.

A progress bar shows in real time the status of the analysis.

At the end of the process both the table and the graph shall
appear with the expected data. The table is exportable
pressing the CSV button, allowing more analysis with
external tools.
A discussion on the usefulness and the expressivity of the
quality over cost analysis results is beyond the objectives of
this tutorial and is deferred in other documents.
The next step shows how to extract solutions at a given cost
or quality.

Solutions at a give cost or quality

After the quality over cost result analysis, the user would
calculate the price list at a given cost or a given quality. This
is gained with the commands Given cost and Given QOS of
Algorithm menu.
Activating one of the above commands, a dialogue shall ask
which cost or which quality the requested solution must
satisfy.

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At the end of the calculus, the required solution shall be
displayed in a table, with the CSV exportation and area
statistics options, just as the minimum cost or maximum
quality do.
This page close the tutorial.