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BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

  • 1.  BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 23, 2020 15:11
    Edited by Akshay Hiremath Nov 24, 2020 00:59

    Hi,

    We are building a self serve buy flow that will be used by the customer for new activations.

    We have one scenario where the business wants to allow a customer to choose an extra top-up amount in the new activation flow where a customer is choosing the main plan and addons.
    So this extra amount is going to be a top-up in the main pre-paid balance on the top of the main plan.

    Business wants to charge the customer only once for a total of the top-up amount and the plan amount.

    Now we have the plans, addons in the Catalog but the Top Up amount is a random value entity so naturally outside the catalog. We are looking for ways how this could be implemented,
    Which system in the ecosystem should do what? Which Open APIs will be involved in this flow.

    Option 1: Keep the item for top-up amount outside the main order
                      UI/UX layer calls
                      the order management to Calculate prices and taxes for all Catalog items in the Shopping Cart
                      then the taxation engine for taxes on the top-up amount   
                     aggregates both amounts and then calls the Payment service directly to make one payment.
    Problem: After the order is processed if we have to show the details of the main order we don't have the top-up in the order so which system should maintain the top-up item, payments? doesn't sound logical but then how will I show the details of the order to customer in the account management.
    Option 2: Create a placeholder offer in the Catalog and add the top-up item as another item in the catalog
                     UI/UX layer calls
                     the order management to Calculate prices and taxes for all Catalog items in the Shopping Cart (now even the top-up amount is represented by another offer)
                     the order management calculates the prices and taxes for all items and returns the response with aggregate amount and tax to the UI/UX layer
    Problem: Is it possible (and good practice) to create such a kind of placeholder offers/products in the Catalog? 
                      What kind of product specification will be associated with this offer?
                      Because this offer doesn't really belong to any actual product.

    looking for suggestions. I feel we are missing some elements/systems here.


    #Customer Experience

    ------------------------------
    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    Posted Nov 24, 2020 02:05
    One way would be to have a Credit product with a value of 1 and sell a quantity of Credits to the customer. Basically instead of having an order-line with one product with the value of X you instead would have an order-line with X products with the value of 1.

    ------------------------------
    Tony Wilhelmsson
    Tele2 Sverige AB
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  • 3.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 24, 2020 08:50
    Hi Akshay and Tony

    I think that we should separate concerns - topping up a balance is not something that we would want to associate with a catalog. I think the first option, UI/UX orchestration, is probably the way to go.

    Regarding taxation, as you probably realized, there is currently no separate Open API for tax calculation - tax amounts appear in the API model where relevant and there is a tacit assumption that the taxes are calculated as part of retrieval of the relevant entities (product offering price, product order, etc.). So, as you say, you would have to make a separate call outside the Open API framework to your favorite tax engine.

    In the Payment API, you would have (at least) two PaymentItems in your payment, one would be for the charge due to the product order, and the other would be for the top-up charge.

    One thing that might change this recommendation would be that if you wanted to give a discount due to the immediate top-up (e.g. the paid top-up amount is $10 but you give a value of $12 in the allowance). In that case it might make sense to model explicitly in the catalog. ​

    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.
    ------------------------------



  • 4.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 24, 2020 17:59

    Hi Jonathan,

    Thanks for your response. I appreciate your recommendation.

    Yes, the extra amount is a top-up and a separate domain.
    If we orchestrate this call while placing the order then the transaction data will go into two systems 1. Ordering, 2. Top up management

    Later in the Care view it will be difficult to show both extra amount and the order details together under one order.

    if it is modelled in the catalog
    1. it enables us to have promotions based on the extra(top up) amount and
    2. In the Care view if we have to show the details behind the order all items will be present on the order.

    Only top-ups done in the new(provide) order  flow can use top-up modelled products. Rest top-ups can be managed in the separate system.



    ------------------------------
    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 5.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    Posted Nov 26, 2020 11:43
    Hey Akshay,

    I agree to model the Extra Amount as a Catalog item. But that item should be used only for calculating the total of the Shopping Cart. That item should not be provisioned as a product in your system, and even it should not be used as a topup amount. Because, the topup amount is the whole purchased items' total + extra amount. 

    Regards,
    Roy Kucukates

    ------------------------------
    Roy Kucukates
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 6.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 29, 2020 11:02
    Edited by Akshay Hiremath Nov 29, 2020 11:11

    Hi Roy,

    About Top-Up:
    In this context, I would like to the define the term Top-Up such that I could distinguish it from the balance top up as a result of a normal order.

    In Pre-Paid 'technically' we can call all balance that you are adding to the subscriber's main bucket in the IN(Intelligent Network) a Top Up.
    From Business (marketing) point of view we are selling plans(which are Bundles in Offer Domain) to the customer and as a result of fulfillment of the plan sold we are topping up the customer's (in IN terms subscriber's) balance. 

    Hi Jonathan,

    If we decide to take advantage of being able to create promotions based on the extra amount and choose to model the extra amount in the Catalog then

    1. Is it possible to create an offer without any backing product specification?

    2. If we don't have product specification associated with it then how will we persist this in the Product Inventory (which I assume is a natural place for purchased offers) ?
    3. If not the Product inventory then, is there any place/system where we can store this and refer later to give accounts of the spend on order to the customer?

    A note: I'm considering the Top Up resulting from the extra amount will be modelled in the Catalog and used as a product only in the new activation order for the first time.

    later all top-ups will go outside the order management. I would like to combine the first top-up because without it,

    1. we can't run any promotions based on whether customer wants put some extra money at the time of activation,

    2. the order total amount and breakdown will be inconsistent.



    ------------------------------
    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 7.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 30, 2020 01:42
    Hi Akshay
    1. From Open API model perspective, a product offering can have a product offering price but no product specification. You could use this to model your top-up
    Note: In the Information Framework (SID) this is not the case, a SimpleProductOffering has exactly one product specification. Possibly the SID expects you to have a product spec that backs anything that you offer for sale via an offering. You would use a product offering price with a type of one-time
    2. The Open API TMF637 (Product Inventory) does not state explicitly rules by which Product can be instantiated from ProductSpecification or ProductOffering, the model has 0..1 cardinality from Product to both offering and spec. Thus you could (in principle) instantiate a Product directly from a ProductOffering.
    @Ludovic Robert - lead for TMF637 - might want to weigh in with his opinion.
    Note: Also in the SID the cardinality from Product to spec is 0..1, thus the SID appears to sanction this as well

    Hope it helps
    Disclaimer: I am not referring to any specific implementation of TMF620 or TMF637 by a vendor, just my understanding of the API from TMF perspective.​

    ------------------------------
    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.
    ------------------------------



  • 8.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Dec 03, 2020 00:26
    Thanks Jonathan, your responses were very precise. Appreciate it!

    ------------------------------
    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
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  • 9.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Nov 24, 2020 18:05

    Hey Tony,

    Appreciate your response, thank you. If we choose to model a product in the catalog then this sounds like a good idea to have a product of value 1. This will give flexibility to choose any amount. It has some downside we can't have 50 line items because someone chose to have $50 top up.

    In the order details view it would be necessary to show this as one line item with quantity column. Need to see feasibility of showing quantity in the view and also have to analyze impact on the Product Inventory. 



    ------------------------------
    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------



  • 10.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    Posted Nov 25, 2020 01:30
    Hi Akshay
    Well one can do it on a single line item using a Quantity i.e. one order line with Quantity=50 of Product = 1$ Credits.
    However I also agree to that managing balances are quite a bit different than ordinary payments for products. It's a bit like adding an amount to an account for later use.

    ------------------------------
    Tony Wilhelmsson
    Tele2 Sverige AB
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  • 11.  RE: BSS: Top Up amount in the Self Serve Buy flow for Prepaid

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Dec 03, 2020 00:26
    Thanks Tony, I will consider your point.

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    Akshay Hiremath
    Rogers Communications Inc.
    ------------------------------