Open APIs

Hi! 

Hope that this was not answered before, but couldn't find the same scenario: We are currently trying to expose prices via the POQ API qualification response. So far I've identified two ways to do so. First one would be the most straightforward, which is using ProductOfferingRef pointing to our Product Catalogue resource where the standard prices reside. 

But, sometimes the prices are "dynamic" or, more specifically, based on a customer specific contract or agreement. For this case, we are fetching prices from other APIs that provide the pricing information for those specific cases where a customer has a special price negotiated. To me, it seems that ProductOfferingRef is not the adequate place to put the price... I've checked also the ProductRefOrValue, but to be honest I still struggle to understand the differences between that resource and ProductOfferingRef. This one I see it has Pricing resource linked to it tho...
What would be your suggestions or how would you overcome the situation? Is it okay to just extend the API specification or should another API take the role for this scenario?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help!

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Alejandro González Pérez
Telia Company
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Hi Alejandro
ProductRefOrValue is actually another way of saying Product, i.e. an installed/assigned product in the inventory, or contained within a product order. We could expect there to be 10,000,000s (or 100,000,000s) of these, as distinct from catalog entities such as ProductOffering, where there could be 10s, 100s, 1000s (but not millions). RefOrValue means just that - the entity can be referred to or embedded by value. So you could use the ProductPrice class, contained within Product, to communicate back the price, in the qualification output.
Hope it helps

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Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
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Okay, maybe it is because I'm still quite "new" to the Telco/TMForum world haha, but could you give me an example/elaborate a bit more on what would be the difference between a Product and a Product Offering? 

Again, thanks a lot for your help!

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Alejandro González Pérez
Telia Company
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Original Message:
Sent: Feb 16, 2021 11:33
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: TMF679 - Product Offering Qualification: How to represent prices in the qualification response

Hi Alejandro
ProductRefOrValue is actually another way of saying Product, i.e. an installed/assigned product in the inventory, or contained within a product order. We could expect there to be 10,000,000s (or 100,000,000s) of these, as distinct from catalog entities such as ProductOffering, where there could be 10s, 100s, 1000s (but not millions). RefOrValue means just that - the entity can be referred to or embedded by value. So you could use the ProductPrice class, contained within Product, to communicate back the price, in the qualification output.
Hope it helps

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
------------------------------

Hi Alejandro

In the Product functional domain, we distinguish between:

• Product Catalog - entities here are created and managed by telco marketeers, technical staff, and so on. These represent the things that the telco wants to sell. Basically we have
• - Product Specification - technical definition of a product (e.g. broadband, with characteristics such as up/down bandwidth),
• - Product Offering - commercial terms for a product (e.g. broadband for students, premium comms package, etc.), and bundling. Typically many offerings will re-use the same specification, and offerings will tend be created/modified at a far higher frequency than specifications
• - Product Offering Price - the prices to be paid for a product

and:

• Product Inventory - entities are are created and managed by end customers directly, or by telco staff (CSRs, dealers, shop people) on behalf of the end customers. These are instantiated from the entities in the product catalog. We have
• - Product - instantiated from Product Specification or Product Offering - represents an installed or otherwise assigned product owned by a customer
• - Product Order - manages the purchase, supply and provisioning of a product

Hope it helps

P.S. There are no stupid questions here, as the Talmudic aphorism states: the person who is embarrassed to ask will not be able to learn :) .

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Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 17, 2021 03:05
From: Alejandro González Pérez
Subject: TMF679 - Product Offering Qualification: How to represent prices in the qualification response

Okay, maybe it is because I'm still quite "new" to the Telco/TMForum world haha, but could you give me an example/elaborate a bit more on what would be the difference between a Product and a Product Offering? 

Again, thanks a lot for your help!

------------------------------
Alejandro González Pérez
Telia Company
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Feb 16, 2021 11:33
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: TMF679 - Product Offering Qualification: How to represent prices in the qualification response

Hi Alejandro
ProductRefOrValue is actually another way of saying Product, i.e. an installed/assigned product in the inventory, or contained within a product order. We could expect there to be 10,000,000s (or 100,000,000s) of these, as distinct from catalog entities such as ProductOffering, where there could be 10s, 100s, 1000s (but not millions). RefOrValue means just that - the entity can be referred to or embedded by value. So you could use the ProductPrice class, contained within Product, to communicate back the price, in the qualification output.
Hope it helps

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.

You can learn more about these terms (many terms sound familiar to us but have specific meanings in TMF context) in the information model (GB922), then use the Product pdf/word document for full details. These documents also provide real-life examples.
Further reading (with examples) could also include Product best practices

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Matthieu Hattab
Altibox AS
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Original Message:
Sent: Feb 17, 2021 03:05
From: Alejandro González Pérez
Subject: TMF679 - Product Offering Qualification: How to represent prices in the qualification response

Okay, maybe it is because I'm still quite "new" to the Telco/TMForum world haha, but could you give me an example/elaborate a bit more on what would be the difference between a Product and a Product Offering? 

Again, thanks a lot for your help!

------------------------------
Alejandro González Pérez
Telia Company
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Feb 16, 2021 11:33
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: TMF679 - Product Offering Qualification: How to represent prices in the qualification response

Hi Alejandro
ProductRefOrValue is actually another way of saying Product, i.e. an installed/assigned product in the inventory, or contained within a product order. We could expect there to be 10,000,000s (or 100,000,000s) of these, as distinct from catalog entities such as ProductOffering, where there could be 10s, 100s, 1000s (but not millions). RefOrValue means just that - the entity can be referred to or embedded by value. So you could use the ProductPrice class, contained within Product, to communicate back the price, in the qualification output.
Hope it helps

------------------------------
Jonathan Goldberg
Amdocs Management Limited
Any opinions and statements made by me on this forum are purely personal, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the TM Forum or my employer.