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  • 1.  TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 17, 2020 11:56
    All,

    Some services need an engineering visit which means we need to capture some information about the site like hazard notes, and contact person details as well as appointment details. How do I pass this information in TMF 641 to the fulfilment system? 

    Regards

    Milind Bhagwat

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    Milind Bhagwat
    BT Group plc
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  • 2.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 18, 2020 00:36
    Excellent point. Probably you are aware that Product Order (TMF622) has a reference from Order Item to Appointments, perhaps we should considering updating TMF641 so that it has the reference in the same way. The main challenge would be - what logic to apply to determine which of the negotiated Appointments goes with which Service Order Item, it needs to be part of the Product=>Service decomposition.

    @Ludovic Robert, @Kamal Maghsoudlou - what do you think?​​​​

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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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  • 3.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 19, 2020 03:52
    Generally, can a site visit be though as a service request (order) or a part of another service request? I understand that TMF641/622 has a reference to appointments but my first practical approach would be to treat a site visit as a service order and all related details as characteristics of that service order. That seems to allow to pass over all necessary details to a downstream app for further processing.

    I didn't work with appointment in TMF641 but it looks like TMF641 has only references to appointments (not appointments themselves). So the appointments have to be created somehow else (as a part of another call/process)? What TMF API is used for that?

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    Alexander Morozov
    Salesforce
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  • 4.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 19, 2020 04:40
    Shouldn't it be TMF646 Appointment API?

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    Simon Kuzin
    SingTel Optus
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  • 5.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 19, 2020 05:31
    Ah, this makes sense, indeed. If an appointment is created before a TMF641/622 interaction (using TMF646 or anything else) - one can hook a reference to a previously created record (with interface extensions to capture appointment-specific details like mentioned in the original request). 

    If this is not an option - probably using a CFS/CFS component with characteristics is a reasonable practical approach.

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    Alexander Morozov
    Salesforce
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  • 6.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    Posted Aug 21, 2020 17:48
    One thing to consider is that some visits might not be appointed but the same information is required for the visit anyway.

    This can occur for products like Ethernet where there are multiple visits for surveys and construction work.

    Often the question posed to the business customer is just "When can we typically have access to your premises?"

    What then follows is that the provider schedules a series of visits as the planning and provisioning work progresses.

    For that reason this sort of information is not necessarily associated with an appointment.

    Derrick Evans







  • 7.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 19, 2020 04:51
    BTW there circumstances ( edge case)  where the name of the CSP person attending the appointment needs to be given  e.g. secure sites like prisons and sometimes up to 24hours beforehand to permit the customer to carry our security checks.

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    Dave Milham
    TM Forum CHIEF ArchItect
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  • 8.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Aug 19, 2020 05:13
    All,

    As part of the installation service, we have an appointment. We need to provide site contact details, hazard and warning notes , business opening times etc.
    The way I was thinking of achieving this is as follows
    1. Create a Installation CFSS.
    2. 641 resource model allows sending appointment detail with the order  as well as association of Party details with the Service
    3. We use Related Party to send contact details.
    4. Installation need not be stored in the inventory along with the service.
    5. We need to find holders for the various notes we send to the installer. 

    Regards

    Milind

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    Milind Bhagwat
    BT Group plc
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  • 9.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    Posted Aug 21, 2020 17:48
    Interesting thread.
    I am not sure I would address the requirement using the appointment API (although I note you can attach notes to an appointment).
    From my perspective an appointment is nothing more than a reservation of a slot of a particular skill type in a geographic area for a period of time.
    Until the task is allocated to a person (usually on the day) you would not even know who the appointment is with.

    Also I would say that not all visits to a customers premises are necessarily appointed in this manner.
    Complex products like Ethernet have long lead times and multiple site visits the timing of which is dictated by the provider and not the consumer (survey visits and the like).
    But one still needs to know locations, accessibility times, contact names and hazard and other notes.
    I notice the site API has the notion of opening times and related parties but nothing about physical access and hazards (hazards would include working by a rail track, the presence of hazardous materials like asbestos, high voltage 'hot' sites and the like).
    Adding that information to site might help but that implies long term management of that data in a site database with all the data quality issues that would arise.
    That might be appropriate for a database of cell sites and managed services customers but not possibly for mass market consumer/SME products.

    So. I suggest it would be more appropriate to associate this information with the order itself as one would want to capture this irrespective of an appointment is made or not and also make sure it is current and up to date as of the time of the order.

    The resource model for product order has related place ref or value but no other characteristics associated with place where one could add this information?
    As Milind says one can use the party information for contact detail.
    There seems to be no concept of order notes for general information associated with the order (perhaps not a bad thing as these can be abused).

    So that leaves ProductOrderItem and the referenced product and its characteristics?
    I guess you could have a bundle and include product items related to visit(s).
    These need not be limited to a simple install of a network termination point.
    These could represent an entire portfolio of "service" products such as.

    "Installation of managed CPE"
    "Meet up on site with a 3rd party installer to connect equipment"
    "A site survey"
    "External construction"
    "Internal fit and test"
    "Installation and demonstration of service for vulnerable customers" and so on.

    The only concern is that if one has many of these product items would you want to repeat the access and hazard information every time.

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    Derrick Evans
    TO BE VERIFIED
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  • 10.  RE: TMF 641 - Site contacts and appointment details

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Sep 02, 2020 02:17
    Hi Milind

    3. We use Related Party to send contact details.

    Can you please share the subresource structure?
    I'm trying to use relatedParty to capture customer details. Want to capture contact medium-phone, sms, email etc. for the Customer related party

    Best,
    Anuradha

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    Anuradha Shukla
    Tech Mahindra Limited
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