Open APIs

Hello,

In all catalog variants, the entity Category contains a field named parentId. In a system where versioned entities are supported, this field does not uniquely identify the parent category instance. It should have been a CategoryRef object. Is there a plan to update this object/field in the upcoming revisions?

We are planning to extend Category with a new field named 'parent' with type CategoryRef, and we'll keep parent.id and parentId in sync as best as we can. Is there anything that we can do to make sure that it is in line with future versions of the catalogs?

Best Regards,
Vedat Hallac

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Vedat Hallac
PiA Bilişim Hizmetleri A.Ş.
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Hi Vedat
You have highlighted a more general issue in the catalog entity model.
Effectively, in implementations that support versioning, the version is part of the primary key of the catalog item, along with the id. And therefore any <entity>ref in the model should include version as well as id. This has not been done in all entities, for example in ProductSpecificationRef and CategoryRef we have version but in ProductOfferingRef we don't.
I'm going to open a change request to get this fixed. It applies also to other catalogs (service, resource, entity).
Specifically with regard to category, we should, as you say, add a new field called parent, type CategoryRef. I'll open another change request, and hopefully your enhancement will be consistent with that.

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

Hi Jonathan,

We've already noticed the mentioned references without version. Let me list the ones we'll update as an extension in our implementation:

1. TMF-651 - Agreement: ProductOfferingRef
2. TMF-620 - Product Catalog: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
3. TMF-637 - Product Inventory: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
4. TMF-679 - Product Offering Qualification: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
5. TMF-622 - Product Ordering: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
6. TMF-663 - Shopping Cart: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef

There may be others, but these are the ones we've found so far.

Thank you for opening the change requests.

Best regards,
Vedat

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Vedat Hallac
PiA Bilişim Hizmetleri A.Ş.
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 06, 2023 03:02
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: TMF 620 - Product Catalog - Category parent specification of versioned categories

Hi Vedat
You have highlighted a more general issue in the catalog entity model.
Effectively, in implementations that support versioning, the version is part of the primary key of the catalog item, along with the id. And therefore any <entity>ref in the model should include version as well as id. This has not been done in all entities, for example in ProductSpecificationRef and CategoryRef we have version but in ProductOfferingRef we don't.
I'm going to open a change request to get this fixed. It applies also to other catalogs (service, resource, entity).
Specifically with regard to category, we should, as you say, add a new field called parent, type CategoryRef. I'll open another change request, and hopefully your enhancement will be consistent with that.

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

Thanks Vedat.
Be aware that the API model is unified, so there is only one definition of each entity. When we fix PORef and POPRef, all APIs using those references will benefit from the change (after regeneration of each API assets). I suspect we will fix only in v5 of the APIs.

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

Original Message:
Sent: Feb 06, 2023 04:01
From: Vedat Hallac
Subject: TMF 620 - Product Catalog - Category parent specification of versioned categories

Hi Jonathan,

We've already noticed the mentioned references without version. Let me list the ones we'll update as an extension in our implementation:

1. TMF-651 - Agreement: ProductOfferingRef
2. TMF-620 - Product Catalog: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
3. TMF-637 - Product Inventory: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
4. TMF-679 - Product Offering Qualification: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
5. TMF-622 - Product Ordering: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef
6. TMF-663 - Shopping Cart: ProductOfferingRef and ProductOfferingPriceRef

There may be others, but these are the ones we've found so far.

Thank you for opening the change requests.

Best regards,
Vedat

------------------------------
Vedat Hallac
PiA Bilişim Hizmetleri A.Ş.
------------------------------


Original Message:
Sent: Feb 06, 2023 03:02
From: Jonathan Goldberg
Subject: TMF 620 - Product Catalog - Category parent specification of versioned categories

Hi Vedat
You have highlighted a more general issue in the catalog entity model.
Effectively, in implementations that support versioning, the version is part of the primary key of the catalog item, along with the id. And therefore any <entity>ref in the model should include version as well as id. This has not been done in all entities, for example in ProductSpecificationRef and CategoryRef we have version but in ProductOfferingRef we don't.
I'm going to open a change request to get this fixed. It applies also to other catalogs (service, resource, entity).
Specifically with regard to category, we should, as you say, add a new field called parent, type CategoryRef. I'll open another change request, and hopefully your enhancement will be consistent with that.

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