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Confusion between AccountRef and RelatedParty in TMF629 Customer management

  • 1.  Confusion between AccountRef and RelatedParty in TMF629 Customer management

    Posted Jan 19, 2021 09:35
    Hi. We are implementing customer model for our business use cases. And we are working on TMF-629, TMF-632 and TMF-666

    TMF-629 Customer resource has AccountRef and RelatedParty. Here AccountRef means either PartyAccount,BillingAccount or FinanacialAccount (TMF-666) and RelatedParty is an individual or organisation (TMF-632) 

    Is this understanding correct. 

    In many TMF API's we have related party so it maps to Individual/Organisation defined in TMF-632.

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    ~Dheeraj Joshi

    Nokia
    dheeraj.joshi@nokia.com
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  • 2.  RE: Confusion between AccountRef and RelatedParty in TMF629 Customer management

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jan 19, 2021 11:25
    Hi Dheeraj

    "Out there in the wide world" there can be a confusion as to what the word Account means, some use it to describe customers.

    So in TMF (Open API and also in the underlying information framework - SID), this is resolved. Account is strictly a financial thing, and does not deal with the wider aspects of being a customer (or some other relationship with the service provider). We have the following concrete Account classes (Account itself is abstract):
    • Party Account - reflects a financial situation between the service provider and some party role. The party account includes balances (e.g. ongoing balance, deposit balance, and more), and specification of how bills/invoices are generated for the account. Would most likely be instantiated as one of:
    • Billing Account - for accounts receivable, i.e. moneys owed by the party role (most likely Customer) to the service provider, and the bill/invoice is presented to the party role
    • Settlement Account - for accounts payable (perhaps also accounts receivable) for party roles such as supplier, partner, etc.
    • Financial Account - has balances but no billing information, would typically be used to aggregate balances from party accounts
    Customer has a reference to the accounts that it "owns".

    RelatedParty is a reference either directly to a Party (individual or organization) or to a PartyRole.

    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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  • 3.  RE: Confusion between AccountRef and RelatedParty in TMF629 Customer management

    Posted Jan 20, 2021 04:04
    Thanks Jonathan.
    This helps. (y)

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    ~Dheeraj Joshi

    Nokia
    dheeraj.joshi@nokia.com
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