The product or service that you want to meter is mapped in usage metering as meter type.

When you create your meter type you need to decide:

• when the product should be available

• the unit you want to use for aggregated usage (e.g., minutes, days, or number of coffee cups for a coffee service).

• the type of aggregation you want to use

• how often you want the meters to be reset and sent to downstream systems

The meter types can be created in the graphical user interface or by using APIs that can be integrated with your product catalog.

See: Creating Meter Types

Once your meter type is set up, you need to create a stream. A stream will ingest the usage data and guide it to the impacted meters.

You can configure a stream by using the Stream Editor. Your stream can be set up to collect, validate, enrich and format your usage data as required before it is fed into your meters via the Meter Processor function.

The meter processor function directs the usage data to the appropriate meters based on pre-defined guiding rules.

Once a meter's reset period occurs, the metered records are sent to external systems, such as billing or analytics systems. This is done by placing one of the forwarding functions after the meter processor.

You can also make further modifications to the data, before it is sent to external systems, by adding additional functions to the stream.

When a customer signs up for a metered product. The bucket that measures the usage data needs to be created. These buckets are known as ‘meters’.

To create a meter you need to have a User Id. A User Id is a unique identifier for a customer, for example, a phone number or email address.

Meters can only be created using APIs. These APIs also need to be integrated into relevant external systems, like your billing or analytics systems.

See Managing Meters with the API