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  • 1.  Product Offering Qualification API working with existing customer product inventory

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 20, 2022 05:47
    Hi,

    I was looking at the Product Offering Qualification API (TMF679) and tried to accommodate some use cases using this API in the context of existing customer product inventory.
    In the context in which there are Product items in the customer product inventory and I would like to upgrade one of the Product items to a better offer let's say what should be included in the request? Is it enough to include only the Product item that has to be upgraded or all the other additional Product items linked to it (let's consider the example of a bundled Product). More than that some actions I require might not be possible, case in which what should be the result? The qualification item should have the proper actions in the response, different than then requested ones?
    Looking at the API definition it doesn't seem it has been designed to work with existing Customer Product Inventory. Or maybe I have a misunderstanding.
    Please consider the following example:

    -------------------------------------------------
    -------------------------------------------------
    Customer Product Inventory
    --------------------------------------
    MobileDeal <Product> - id: 110
       Gsm-S <Product> - id: 111
       Addon-X <Product> - id: 112

    Use Case 1: Upgrade Gsm-S to Gsm-L (there are 2 SPOs in the catalog for both)
    In order to check the validity of such scenario most probably the Product Qualification API is the best candidate to use (I couldn't find any other TMForum API being able to perform this validation). In this context the following request is a valid one?

    -------------------------------------
    QUALIFICATIONITEM   |  ACTION
    -------------------------------------
    MobileDeal                   |    MODIFY
       Gsm-S                         |  REMOVE
       Gsm-L                         |   ADD
       Addon-X                     |   KEEP
    --------------------------------------
    In case the Addon-X should be removed while purchasing Gsm-L the response to this request should have the action REMOVE for the Addon-X ? Has the API been designed to cover these kind of scenarios?

    Thank you,
    Calin

    ------------------------------
    Calin Mates
    Aplication Architect
    IBM Corporation
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Product Offering Qualification API working with existing customer product inventory

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 21, 2022 05:31
    Hello Calin

    For me, you can use the API TMF679 for this type of UC. As you noticed you can describe a product  for each POQitem and then you can pass the product.id to identify existing product.

    Your request example for UC1 is valid from my perspective:  It seems required to pass the mobileDeal to provide the offering context and then the old plan/new plan.
    Passing the addon-X is also requiring if there is some incompatibility with Gsm-L - if this is the case the qualificationItemResult will provide a 'fail' result and in the EligibilityUnavailableReason you can indicate that Addon-X is not compatible with Gsm-L (I do no think POQ response has to change the action but only provide qualification result and reason if any).

    hope it helps
    Ludovic

    ------------------------------
    Ludovic Robert
    Orange
    My answer are my own & don't represent necessarily my company or the TMF
    ------------------------------



  • 3.  RE: Product Offering Qualification API working with existing customer product inventory

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 21, 2022 06:12
    Hi Ludovic,

    Thank you for sharing your point of view here. It seems the same for me. What I am struggling with is how I should get the proper set of actions for the Product entities part of the request.
    Client apps should know exactly what to include in the product ordering request when an order is captured. In the situations of upgrading one of the Product items in the CPI (Customer Product Inventory) there are compatibility rules that has to be evaluated , some Addon Product items have to be removed, others new to be added and I was wondering which API is best suited to give this information to client apps. At the moment TMF679 seems to be a good candidate, actually the only one. Indeed, there is a problem with the fact that what is provided in the request (in terms of action provided for qualification items) should be provided back in the response, and providing the eligible action in the response (different than the one in the request)  will break this rule. On the other hand the alternate offering was designed to point to a different PO which is not necessarily the case.
    But overall what you suggested might work in the sense that whatever eligibility is broken, the response will finger point it. In this way the API provides the details needed by client app to capture the order via Product Ordering API.

    Thank you,
    Calin

    ------------------------------
    Calin Mates
    Aplication Architect
    IBM Corporation
    ------------------------------