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Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

  • 1.  Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 27 days ago

    Hello ,

    I am implementing TMF620 v5.0 and came across a potential inconsistency between the Product Catalog Management API User Guide v5.0 and the Product Catalog Management Conformance Profile v5.0 (TMF620B).

    • In the User Guide, productSpecCharacteristicValue inside ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse is shown with cardinality 0..* (optional).

    • In the Conformance Profile (page 7), the table for ProductOffering → prodSpecCharValueUse states that, when prodSpecCharValueUse is present, the field productSpecCharacteristicValue is mandatory and must contain at least one CharacteristicValueSpecification.

    Could you please confirm:

    1. Is at least one CharacteristicValueSpecification indeed mandatory when prodSpecCharValueUse is included in a ProductOffering payload, even if the characteristic is meant to be configurable at runtime (i.e., no predefined values)?

    2. Does the "mandatory" rule apply only within ProductOffering, while in ProductSpecification the array can still be empty (0..*) for template characteristics?

    Any clarification will help us align our implementation and certification tests with TM Forum expectations.

    Many thanks in advance.

    Kind regards,
    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Group



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    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Ltd.
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  • 2.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 26 days ago

    The ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse pattern in the ProductOffering was intended to restrict the possible values from the product specification when modelling the offerings.  As a result, SID has the ProductSpecCharacteristicValue as mandatory (as per the conformance profile for TMF620)..


    In the case of a configurable characteristic, you are not necessarily restricting the possible values in the offering, so, but without knowing your use case, the CharValueUse should probably not be present at the ProductOffering level.



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    Dan d'Albuquerque
    Entronica Company Limited
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 26 days ago

    Hi,

    CharacteristicValueSpecification (CVS) are always optional in the CharacteristicSpecification(CS), so why make CVS mandatory just because they're embedded in a ProductSpecificationCharacteristicValueUse (PSCVU)?

    Here is an example we use:

    • ProductSpecification  "IPTV" has 100 CS. Each CS represents a TV channel.
      • These CS don't have any CVS

    Product Manager creates an new atomic ProductOffering (PO) "UK News", which would only offer 3 TV channels:

    • BBC One
    • ITV1 
    • Channel 5

    PO "UK News" has a PSCVU relationship to "restrict" these 3 CS. (the other 97 CS are de facto excluded from this PO.)

    since the 3 CS have no CVS, it seems the conformance test would fail.



    ------------------------------
    Kind regards,

    Matthieu Hattab
    Digital Sales Domain Architect
    Lyse Tele AS
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 4.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 25 days ago

    Hi,

    Thank you for the response, but I believe it does not address my original question.

    My question was specifically about the mandatory nature of the productSpecCharacteristicValue field inside the prodSpecCharValueUse object in ProductOffering, as stated in the TMF620 v5.0 Conformance Profile.

    The example you provided focuses on characteristic-level inclusion (i.e., selecting which characteristics to expose) but does not clarify why the conformance profile marks productSpecCharacteristicValue as mandatory when prodSpecCharValueUse is present – even in cases where the characteristic is intended to be configurable at runtime and does not have predefined values.

    My conclusion:

    • The object prodSpecCharValueUse should only be used when we want to filter or limit the values of a characteristic that comes from the ProductSpecification.

    • As such, productSpecCharacteristicValue must be included in that object, because filtering is not meaningful without explicitly listing the allowed values.

    • All characteristics defined in the associated ProductSpecification are automatically inherited by the ProductOffering.

    • If we don't want to restrict values, we simply don't use prodSpecCharValueUse at all.

    This interpretation is supported by the Conformance Profile and aligns with the intended behavior of configurable characteristics in runtime systems.

    Please let me know if this understanding is correct based on TM Forum guidance.

    Kind regards,
    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Group



    ------------------------------
    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Ltd.
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 5.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 25 days ago
    Edited by Dan d'Albuquerque 25 days ago

    Hi Emir

    Your conclusion represents how we have also implemented the CharValueUse pattern.  However, Matthieu's example is not unreasonable.

    I have raised a JIRA ticket at [AP-6846] TMF620 Product Catalog API - Inconsistency between API schema cardinality and CP - TM Forum JIRA

    Might get a reply later today.



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    Dan d'Albuquerque
    Entronica Company Limited
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    Original Message


  • 6.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 25 days ago

    Hi,

    Thank you for confirming that my understanding of the prodSpecCharValueUse pattern is correct - it's helpful to hear that it's implemented that way on your side as well.

    I also saw your note that Matthieu's example is not unreasonable, but I agree it doesn't reflect the mandatory constraints defined in the conformance profile.

    Thanks for opening the JIRA [AP-6846] to clarify the inconsistency.

    One more question:

    While reviewing the Conformance Profile, I noticed that under the section:

    

    prodSpecCharValueUse.productSpecCharacteristicValue

    there are duplicate rows for both valueType and @type, each marked as:

    • valueType - M (if present)

    • @type - M (if present)

    repeated twice in the same table.

    Could you please confirm if this is an editorial error, or if there's a special case (e.g. multiple levels of polymorphism or nested structures) that explains the repetition?

    We just want to make sure we interpret the mandatory fields correctly during validation and certification.

    Kind regards,
    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Group



    ------------------------------
    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Ltd.
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 7.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 25 days ago

    The duplication in the CP appears to be an error with the documentation generation tooling.

     

    In V5, valueType should not be mandatory.  It is likely that this field will be removed at some point as it overlaps with @type.  I will update the JIRA accordingly

     




    Original Message


  • 8.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 24 days ago

    Hi, just checking if you've received any response to the JIRA ticket?



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    Emir Torlak
    ZIRA Ltd.
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    Original Message


  • 9.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 23 days ago
    Sorry no.  I forgot it was DTW this week.  Should get a reply next week but timing may be unpredictable due to the Berlin SpecJam



    Original Message


  • 10.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 25 days ago

    My example was to demonstrate that the conformance profile is wrong by showing that the relationship must be optional!

    the final decision will always be for TM Forum.

    Regarding your conclusions.

    They are incomplete (the last 2 are correct and represent what the user guide also says)

    prodSpecCharValueUse has multiple purposes:

    • Restriction (Level 1): Restrict the list of Characteristics available to the ProductOffering, that's what my example demonstrated.
    • Restriction (Level 2): Restrict the list of Characteristic values (obviously only if the parent Characteristic has values)
    • Override (Level 1 and 2): override the attributes. (this is a very rare case, I personally only used this feature a couple of times to override the validPeriod from/to date attributes for some Characteristic values that were end of life sooner for a specific Product Offering)
    • then we have other purposes for pricing but that's another discussion



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    Kind regards,

    Matthieu Hattab
    Digital Sales Domain Architect
    Lyse Tele AS
    ------------------------------

    Original Message


  • 11.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 23 days ago
    Edited by MMH HH 23 days ago

    @Matthieu Hattab - Just curious to know why you didn't create just one CS e.g. "Channels" with 100 CVS in the PS and restrict this CS to only 3 CVS in the "UK News" PO.



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    Manu
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    Original Message


  • 12.  RE: Clarification on mandatory productSpecCharacteristicValue when using prodSpecCharValueUse in TMF620 v5.0

    TM Forum Member
    Posted 23 days ago

    Hi Manu,

    Yes, this is definitely possible but it depends on how flexible your PCFG UI is. Some PCFG I have worked with were tightly coupled with the UI and required the end-user to manually instantiate the CS, then select the CVS, and repeat the process for each CVS needed. The user experience was awful. We could not show all channel instances (CVS) at once in the UI for customers to simply tap the ones they wanted.

    Personally, I would recommend using POs for two main reasons:

    1. Many product-oriented applications that have a big impact on CS and UX-such as recommendation engines, promotions, discounts, vouchers, eligibility, loyalty, product experience management, CMS, and others-are designed to work with product offerings. Most of them do not integrate well with PS, CS, or CVS.

    2. Product catalogue modelling should always start with the user experience. Too often, I have seen models that are tightly coupled with OSS or billing constraints, or shaped by what BSS can or cannot support or designed "by convenience". I believe product modelling should be guided by the customer experience first.



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    Kind regards,

    Matthieu Hattab
    Digital Sales Domain Architect
    Lyse Tele AS
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    Original Message