Open APIs

Hi,

I'm pretty new to TMForum and this is my first time posting here so apologies if this has already been covered or question isn't clear.  I've been trying to understand the API flow around new customer creation.  From what I've read, it sounds like party role gets updated to customer(from portal user or similar level) and then a productOrderItem is added to the customer.  I wanted to know if I interpreted that correctly, or should it be that we get a productOrderItem first from product order management and then update the role to customer and attach the  productOrderItem?  

Separate from this, any insight on what fields/information should be directly kept in customer vs.  referenced from partyRole would be appreciated.  Still trying to get a better understanding of that relationship other just customer being a sub-class.  I've looked at TMF629 and in the resource model on page 4, It only shows @type = customer in Customer. 

Hello Tony,

Welcome to the forum. In accordance with my understanding, it is crucial to establish the customer profile before commencing the checkout process, whether it occurs within a cart or quote. For comprehensive guidance, please refer to the Product Order Open API622 documentation, which serves as a valuable resource detailing the essential prerequisites for customer data prior to order submission.

Hope it helps

Hi,

I'm pretty new to TMForum and this is my first time posting here so apologies if this has already been covered or question isn't clear.  I've been trying to understand the API flow around new customer creation.  From what I've read, it sounds like party role gets updated to customer(from portal user or similar level) and then a productOrderItem is added to the customer.  I wanted to know if I interpreted that correctly, or should it be that we get a productOrderItem first from product order management and then update the role to customer and attach the  productOrderItem?  

Separate from this, any insight on what fields/information should be directly kept in customer vs.  referenced from partyRole would be appreciated.  Still trying to get a better understanding of that relationship other just customer being a sub-class.  I've looked at TMF629 and in the resource model on page 4, It only shows @type = customer in Customer. 

Expanding on Ragavi's response (thanks for your contribution):

It's key to understand the Party and PartyRole concepts in TM Forum assets (e.g. the Open API and the Information Framework - SID):

• Party (with its concrete subclasses Individual and Organization) represents these real-world concepts (human beings and associations thereof) without regard to the relationship with the service provider.
• PartyRole represents a relationship between a Party and the service provider - where PartyRole.engagedParty is the party playing the party role. Examples could include Dealer, Supplier, Employee, and many more.
• Customer is a specific subclass of PartyRole, and it exists as a distinct classe because the concept of Customer is crucial to service provider business. At least currently (gen 5 Open APIs) there are actually no additional properties in Customer over and above PartyRole

Therefore, a typical flow could be:

• Create the Party (individual or organization)
• Create the PartyRole (i.e. Customer), setting engagedParty to point to the Party
• Create the financial structure BillingAccount so that you can bill the customer for services rendered. The relatedParty in the BillingAccount would be set to point to the Customer.
• Create ProductOrders (possibly start with Shopping Cart) to actually provide products and services to the customer. The relatedParty in the ProductOrder would be set to point to the Customer.

For more workflow examples in this area, look at the ODA end-to-end use cases TMFS001, TMFS002, TMFS003

Good luck and hope it helps

Hello Tony,

Welcome to the forum. In accordance with my understanding, it is crucial to establish the customer profile before commencing the checkout process, whether it occurs within a cart or quote. For comprehensive guidance, please refer to the Product Order Open API622 documentation, which serves as a valuable resource detailing the essential prerequisites for customer data prior to order submission.

Hope it helps

Hi,

I'm pretty new to TMForum and this is my first time posting here so apologies if this has already been covered or question isn't clear.  I've been trying to understand the API flow around new customer creation.  From what I've read, it sounds like party role gets updated to customer(from portal user or similar level) and then a productOrderItem is added to the customer.  I wanted to know if I interpreted that correctly, or should it be that we get a productOrderItem first from product order management and then update the role to customer and attach the  productOrderItem?  

Separate from this, any insight on what fields/information should be directly kept in customer vs.  referenced from partyRole would be appreciated.  Still trying to get a better understanding of that relationship other just customer being a sub-class.  I've looked at TMF629 and in the resource model on page 4, It only shows @type = customer in Customer. 

@Tony Jacob

for clarity and simplification, when Jonathan recommends these cryptic strings: TMFS001, TMFS002, TMFS003 (which are use case Id in TMF wiki), he probably meant to suggest you to read document IG1228 and its first 3 use cases.
(I could recommend to read the 6th use case as well)

Expanding on Ragavi's response (thanks for your contribution):

It's key to understand the Party and PartyRole concepts in TM Forum assets (e.g. the Open API and the Information Framework - SID):

• Party (with its concrete subclasses Individual and Organization) represents these real-world concepts (human beings and associations thereof) without regard to the relationship with the service provider.
• PartyRole represents a relationship between a Party and the service provider - where PartyRole.engagedParty is the party playing the party role. Examples could include Dealer, Supplier, Employee, and many more.
• Customer is a specific subclass of PartyRole, and it exists as a distinct classe because the concept of Customer is crucial to service provider business. At least currently (gen 5 Open APIs) there are actually no additional properties in Customer over and above PartyRole

Therefore, a typical flow could be:

• Create the Party (individual or organization)
• Create the PartyRole (i.e. Customer), setting engagedParty to point to the Party
• Create the financial structure BillingAccount so that you can bill the customer for services rendered. The relatedParty in the BillingAccount would be set to point to the Customer.
• Create ProductOrders (possibly start with Shopping Cart) to actually provide products and services to the customer. The relatedParty in the ProductOrder would be set to point to the Customer.

For more workflow examples in this area, look at the ODA end-to-end use cases TMFS001, TMFS002, TMFS003

Good luck and hope it helps

Hello Tony,

Welcome to the forum. In accordance with my understanding, it is crucial to establish the customer profile before commencing the checkout process, whether it occurs within a cart or quote. For comprehensive guidance, please refer to the Product Order Open API622 documentation, which serves as a valuable resource detailing the essential prerequisites for customer data prior to order submission.

Hope it helps

Hi,

I'm pretty new to TMForum and this is my first time posting here so apologies if this has already been covered or question isn't clear.  I've been trying to understand the API flow around new customer creation.  From what I've read, it sounds like party role gets updated to customer(from portal user or similar level) and then a productOrderItem is added to the customer.  I wanted to know if I interpreted that correctly, or should it be that we get a productOrderItem first from product order management and then update the role to customer and attach the  productOrderItem?  

Separate from this, any insight on what fields/information should be directly kept in customer vs.  referenced from partyRole would be appreciated.  Still trying to get a better understanding of that relationship other just customer being a sub-class.  I've looked at TMF629 and in the resource model on page 4, It only shows @type = customer in Customer. 

Thank you all for taking the time to answer and provide this insight!  This has been hugely helpful.

@Tony Jacob

for clarity and simplification, when Jonathan recommends these cryptic strings: TMFS001, TMFS002, TMFS003 (which are use case Id in TMF wiki), he probably meant to suggest you to read document IG1228 and its first 3 use cases.
(I could recommend to read the 6th use case as well)

Expanding on Ragavi's response (thanks for your contribution):

It's key to understand the Party and PartyRole concepts in TM Forum assets (e.g. the Open API and the Information Framework - SID):

• Party (with its concrete subclasses Individual and Organization) represents these real-world concepts (human beings and associations thereof) without regard to the relationship with the service provider.
• PartyRole represents a relationship between a Party and the service provider - where PartyRole.engagedParty is the party playing the party role. Examples could include Dealer, Supplier, Employee, and many more.
• Customer is a specific subclass of PartyRole, and it exists as a distinct classe because the concept of Customer is crucial to service provider business. At least currently (gen 5 Open APIs) there are actually no additional properties in Customer over and above PartyRole

Therefore, a typical flow could be:

• Create the Party (individual or organization)
• Create the PartyRole (i.e. Customer), setting engagedParty to point to the Party
• Create the financial structure BillingAccount so that you can bill the customer for services rendered. The relatedParty in the BillingAccount would be set to point to the Customer.
• Create ProductOrders (possibly start with Shopping Cart) to actually provide products and services to the customer. The relatedParty in the ProductOrder would be set to point to the Customer.

For more workflow examples in this area, look at the ODA end-to-end use cases TMFS001, TMFS002, TMFS003

Good luck and hope it helps

Hello Tony,

Welcome to the forum. In accordance with my understanding, it is crucial to establish the customer profile before commencing the checkout process, whether it occurs within a cart or quote. For comprehensive guidance, please refer to the Product Order Open API622 documentation, which serves as a valuable resource detailing the essential prerequisites for customer data prior to order submission.

Hope it helps

Hi,

I'm pretty new to TMForum and this is my first time posting here so apologies if this has already been covered or question isn't clear.  I've been trying to understand the API flow around new customer creation.  From what I've read, it sounds like party role gets updated to customer(from portal user or similar level) and then a productOrderItem is added to the customer.  I wanted to know if I interpreted that correctly, or should it be that we get a productOrderItem first from product order management and then update the role to customer and attach the  productOrderItem?  

Separate from this, any insight on what fields/information should be directly kept in customer vs.  referenced from partyRole would be appreciated.  Still trying to get a better understanding of that relationship other just customer being a sub-class.  I've looked at TMF629 and in the resource model on page 4, It only shows @type = customer in Customer.