Open APIs

Hi All,

I wonder what exactly does it mean by isBundle = true. Does it signify that an offering is a fixed/hard bundle ? Or it means both ? When design time, if i create a offering as bundle, should i restrict user in selecting at least one offering to be added to be part of bundle ?

If isBundle = true signifies both hard and soft bundles, do we have any standard on which parameter defines whether it's hard bundle or soft bundle ? 

Hi All,

I wonder what exactly does it mean by isBundle = true. Does it signify that an offering is a fixed/hard bundle ? Or it means both ? When design time, if i create a offering as bundle, should i restrict user in selecting at least one offering to be added to be part of bundle ?

If isBundle = true signifies both hard and soft bundles, do we have any standard on which parameter defines whether it's hard bundle or soft bundle ? 

Hi,

to expand on @Ragavi Ramasamy, there is no "parameter" in the Catalogue API to measure if the bundle is "hard" or "soft".

One solution is to check sub-resource "bundledProductOfferingOption".

If at least one bundled productoffering has an upperLimit > lowerLimit, then you could assume you have a "soft" bundle. 

You don't have a choice. You must restrict the quantity of bundled product offerings if you want to allow customers to choose an optional bundled product offering within acceptable lower/upper limits.

My 2 cents,

PS:

In general, the concept of soft or hard bundle is quite vague. people might think it's easy to differenciate them but it isn't.

most people would think a bundle is "soft" if it contain optional product offerings. But that doesn't say anything about who can make these changes. Is it the customer or a rule enforced by a rule engine?

We have bundles that include optional product offerings. These optional POs (mostly hardware and labour) can only be added by a rule engine in the productConfiguration. Never by user.

so it's a soft bundle but 

We call them "hard" bundle because it's not User-Configurable.

but technically, they are "soft" bundle since the quantities of the product offerings (lower and upper limits) are not fixed.

TMF620 currently does not define soft/hard or user configurable bundle.

Interestingly, the TMF670 product configurator API has recognised the limitations of TMF620 and has introduced 3 new attributes that currently don't exist in the product catalogue:

"isConfigurable", "isCustomerVisible" and "isVisible".

(We replaced "isConfigurable" by "isCustomerConfigurable" to be more explicit)

Food for thoughts.

Hi All,

I wonder what exactly does it mean by isBundle = true. Does it signify that an offering is a fixed/hard bundle ? Or it means both ? When design time, if i create a offering as bundle, should i restrict user in selecting at least one offering to be added to be part of bundle ?

If isBundle = true signifies both hard and soft bundles, do we have any standard on which parameter defines whether it's hard bundle or soft bundle ? 

Highly appreciate the insights @Matthieu Hattab and @Ragavi Ramasamy. In this case, can shed some light on how pricing is typically handled ? Usually the so called hard/fixed bundle will have price at the bundle level whereas the soft bundle will have price at each component rolled-up. Is there any standard that we look at when designing pricing for bundles? 

Hi,

to expand on @Ragavi Ramasamy, there is no "parameter" in the Catalogue API to measure if the bundle is "hard" or "soft".

One solution is to check sub-resource "bundledProductOfferingOption".

If at least one bundled productoffering has an upperLimit > lowerLimit, then you could assume you have a "soft" bundle. 

You don't have a choice. You must restrict the quantity of bundled product offerings if you want to allow customers to choose an optional bundled product offering within acceptable lower/upper limits.

My 2 cents,

PS:

In general, the concept of soft or hard bundle is quite vague. people might think it's easy to differenciate them but it isn't.

most people would think a bundle is "soft" if it contain optional product offerings. But that doesn't say anything about who can make these changes. Is it the customer or a rule enforced by a rule engine?

We have bundles that include optional product offerings. These optional POs (mostly hardware and labour) can only be added by a rule engine in the productConfiguration. Never by user.

so it's a soft bundle but 

We call them "hard" bundle because it's not User-Configurable.

but technically, they are "soft" bundle since the quantities of the product offerings (lower and upper limits) are not fixed.

TMF620 currently does not define soft/hard or user configurable bundle.

Interestingly, the TMF670 product configurator API has recognised the limitations of TMF620 and has introduced 3 new attributes that currently don't exist in the product catalogue:

"isConfigurable", "isCustomerVisible" and "isVisible".

(We replaced "isConfigurable" by "isCustomerConfigurable" to be more explicit)

Food for thoughts.

Hi All,

I wonder what exactly does it mean by isBundle = true. Does it signify that an offering is a fixed/hard bundle ? Or it means both ? When design time, if i create a offering as bundle, should i restrict user in selecting at least one offering to be added to be part of bundle ?

If isBundle = true signifies both hard and soft bundles, do we have any standard on which parameter defines whether it's hard bundle or soft bundle ?