Open APIs

Hello,

I have a use case of forming the soft bundles and providing the discounts on offers forming the bundle at run time depending on some rules.

I don't want to create a bundle offering in advance but in back end (in database) want to store some information like which all offers and their prices (Recurring, One-off) will form the components of the bundle.

For e.g.- Customer has added a Broadband service in the cart. No any discount applied.

Before submitting the order customer also adds a Mobile Postpaid service to the cart.

Now Broadband and Mobile Postpaid services are configured to form a bundle at run time and discount needs to be provided on the activation charge of the Broadband service . So, as soon as the other eligible service is added the individual discounts are applied on the services in the cart.

The challenge here is the productOffering API would not know in advance the contents of the cart as the offers are added individually. So, in this case how the discounts can be applied on both the services as it needs to be added at run time.

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Lalit Modhave
CSG Systems, Inc.
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"soft bundle" can mean different things to different people. I work with a CRM that would do exactly what you describe and it was called "dynamic bundle". In wikipedia they use the term "non composite bundle".

what TMF API is your "productOffering API".
the closest TMF API we have with that name is the TMF679 "Product Offering Qualification API".

I have done what you're trying to do a lot when I worked in the TV shopping retail industry. It's very difficult and system intensive. Lots of caching is required.

every benefit (discount, voucher, free stuffs, free shipping...) are based on the ECA rule model (event, conditions, actions) which is also used by TMF, see "policy" ABE in GB922.

a simple example: buy product A + 2x products B + product D to get 10% on product D. This has 4 conditions and 1 action.

then we analyse the shopping cart content at runtime. If cart has met N-1 conditions (only one condition is not yet met), we would show a recommendation to customer to buy the missing product. Using above example: 

1. Event 1: customer adds 1x product A (that's 1 condition met, or N-3). No recommendation.
2. Event 2: then customer adds 1x product B (that 2 conditions met, or N-2). No recommendation.
3. Event 3: then customer adds one more product B (that 3 conditions met, or N-1). Show the recommendation.

At this point (N-1 conditions met) we recommend the last condition "buy product D" (condition N) and highlight the possible discount (= the action).

Basically, it's like a cross-sell recommendation. Amazon does that a lot.

I'm currently implementing a similar capability for telecom and we use the product configurator TMF API, which we extended to offer pre-pick cross sell recommendations (if you buy or already "have"*) internet 500 and Xbox all Access, we'll give you 1000 mbps at no extra cost). But I'm not super satisfied by this solution and I'm now looking at other options. 

TMF has a recommendation API. it is used in IG1228 (use case 2, approach B), which I'm seriously considering.

* Have: product is already bought and is active in the product inventory or  product is in in-flight order.

you can also consider external services, they are a few SaaS vendors that offer great recommendation engine, but they're usually great for retail but not so good with telecom concepts of bundles, subscription and product inventory.

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Kind regards,

Matthieu Hattab
Lyse Platform
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Hello Lalit,

     I agree with Matthieu that - "soft bundle" can mean different things to different people -.  I also work in a CRM company and we call it "Linear relations" or "relies on". During the offerings' definition (related Open Api: TMF 620) you don't define the relationships but the offerings that you will sell. On the other hand, at runtime you can add the different offerings to the cart and link them together  (related Open Api: TMF 622) . For that magic to happen, you need to create a "productRelationship of type relies on" so your CPQ can use it during the customer's product configuration. At this point, you have created the "soft" bundle in your cart.

From now you need a rule that based on the combination of the offering recommends, or apply, a discount at the cart level. As Matthieu said, please check "policy" ABE in GB922.

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Santiago Lorente
Salesforce
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Hi Santiago,

good point on productrelationships specifically for what we believe is soft (product) bundling.
This made me rethink the question and I wonder if Lalit actually means to do product bundling.

@Lalit Modhave
can you clarify your acceptance criteria?
it seems you really just want to give a discount if customer buy these 2 products. you don't need product bundling for that.