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Make the "content" field optional in a TMF681 Communication Management Create Entity

  • 1.  Make the "content" field optional in a TMF681 Communication Management Create Entity

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 12, 2021 12:19
    Edited by Alasdair MacLeod Nov 14, 2021 16:02
    Hello,

    The TMF681 Communications Management 4.0.1 specification states that the "content" field is mandatory. I suggest making this an optional field. There are cases where we might wish to have a message sent and delegate generating the content to the sending system, making the content field optional would support those cases. Indeed, the example request in the specification heavily implies this very use-case.

    Below is a fragment of the create entity sample in the specification document.
    The "content" field doesn't actually hold the content of the message, it holds a template that will be used to generate the content of the message (presumably by merging in the characteristics).
    "content": "Dear $Parameter1, Here is the information of the promotion $Parameter2",
    "messageType": "SMS", 
    "characteristic": [{"name": "$Parameter1", "value": "Mr. Jones", "valueType": "string" }, 
                       {"name": "$Parameter2", "value": "4G_LTE Discount 30%", "valueType": "string"}],
    ​

    If we accept we're dealing with the spec covers use cases where the communications management application deals with merging template and data to generate the actual content then it follows that there are cases where we might not wish to pass the template in the request message:
    * we might wish to delegate selection of template to the system
    * the template might be large and we wish to pass a reference to the template
    In neither case above do we need a "content" field so I suggest making it optional.

    Of course, the corollary is that if we're not dealing with template use cases then the examples in the specification document need to be re-written.

    (edited to make comments less leading).

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    Alasdair MacLeod
    BT Group plc
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  • 2.  RE: Make the "content" field optional in a TMF681 Communication Management Create Entity

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 14, 2021 02:00
    Hi Alasdair
    Interesting suggestion. The API is currently owned by @Knut Johannessen, so he may want to consider a possible enhancement.​

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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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