Core concepts in OmaVaana

Introduction

When using OmaVaana, it is useful to understand the core concepts of the system and how they relate to each other. It is important to realise that, although legislation in Finland defines certain rules under which service vouchers must operate, it still leaves a lot of details open. Thus, unless noted otherwise, the information presented in this chapter is specific to how service vouchers and their management is implemented in OmaVaana.

The basic concepts and their relations to each other are simple. Each municipality has an account, and under this main account several sub-accounts. Each sub-account has its own balance as well as several voucher types. Service voucher types serve as the basis for the service vouchers defined by law. Service vouchers have available balance as well as transactions. Service voucher transactions are explained in detail here. 

The following diagram illustrates these main concepts and their relationships, and all of these are described in more detail in the following chapters:

Accounts

Both municipalities and service providers have a main account and sub-accounts in OmaVaana. A main account exists mainly for the purpose of gathering all sub-accounts under one customer relationship. In municipalities, the main account typically applies to the entire municipality, while the sub-account concerns a specific unit, such as veteran services or early childhood education. For service providers, the main account is company-specific, while the sub-accounts are company's venues. 

Typically, almost all actual functionality, such as ordering balance, creating service voucher types, creating vouchers and debiting, occurs in sub-accounts. However, OmaVaana also has user roles that are specifically associated with the main accounts. Main account user roles are used to view transactions for the entire account. 

User roles

Each user in OmaVaana has the right to one or more accounts, whether they are main accounts or sub-accounts. In addition, each user has an account-specific authorisation role that determines what actions the user can perform on the account and what information they are entitled to view. Typically, a user has one role in the organisation to which he or she belongs to and a list of accounts to which he or she has certain rights based on the role. However, in principle, it is possible for the same user to have different roles in different accounts. A used can also have multiple roles in the same account, so that he or she can access all functionality or view all information to which at least one of the roles entitles to. 

Most roles are set by Vaana's customer service, but some roles can be managed in OmaVaana. This will be discussed in more detail in the upcoming chapters. 

Each user uses OmaVaana with their personal user name, which is their own email address. In this way, the actions taken by the user can be identified, which is necessary to ensure the safe use of the product. 

Service vouchers and service voucher types 

Before the actual service vouchers are created in OmaVaana, a service voucher type is created to which the voucher belongs to. A service voucher is defined by law, while a service voucher is purely an internal feature of OmaVaana that is used to facilitate the administration of service vouchers. The service voucher type has two main purposes: 

• To provide a way to group service vouchers, which facilitates the handling of the service vouchers created for the same purpose, and 
• To provide a way to enter information that is common to the service voucher type only once, which speeds up the creation of the actual service vouchers.

It is important to note that service voucher type is only the basis for creating a service voucher. This means, among other things, that changes made to the service voucher type are typically not reflected in the service vouchers themselves. This may seem cumbersome or illogical at first, but existing service vouchers are payment instruments created based on a governmental authorisation, so once they are issued, they must be carefully managed and traced so that the entire history of the service voucher, including any changes, can be reviewed as needed. 

Both service voucher types and service vouchers always belong to a specific sub-account. 

Allocation of service vouchers 

Service vouchers may be targeted or unallocated. The allocation of service vouchers means that it is already addressed to a specific service provider at the time of the creation and only that service provider can charge the voucher. Targeted service vouchers are mainly used in residential services or early childhood education , where the customer pre-selects the service provider. Again, an allocated service voucher may be charged by any service provider who has a valid contract to provide the service in question. 

Validity, balance and transactions of service vouchers

Service vouchers usually have certain balance that is usable for a certain period of time. For many vouchers, this is a perfectly sufficient way of thinking. However, if an existing service voucher is renewed at some point, it should be understood that the voucher may in fact contain one or more credits, each with its own issue dates, expiration dates and balances. When a service voucher is initially created, it is always created with a single credit, but later on, new credits can be added to the same service voucher. 

Therefore, a service voucher does not have its own period of validity, but the validity is always related to a credit. Whenever a voucher is debited, the money is first taken from the oldest credit. The balance of the service voucher is the sum of all valid credits. 

Service voucher transactions consist of the transfer of credits, refunds, invalidations, and debits. 

• When a service voucher is created or renewed, it basically means that a new event is created to the voucher to record a money transfer from a sub-account to the service voucher in question. 
• The money transferred to a service voucher can be refunded within 24 hours of the transfer as longs as the service voucher has not been debited. In this case, the money is immediately returned to the municipality's account. 
• If more than 24 hours has been passed, or the service voucher has been debited, the service voucher can only be invalidated. In this case, the service provider is no longer allowed to provide new services on the voucher, but it has 30 days to debit the services that have already been provided. After the 30 days, the remaining balance is refunded to the sub-account.