Open APIs

Hi Everyone,

We're all in telco, a world rife with acquisitions. One of my goals in implementing TMForum is to ensure that new acquisitions can easily be folded into the system without too much effort. This leads me to decide that there shouldn't be the assumption that "customers" are "our customers." Instead, "customers" should be somehow linked to another party, so they are "customers of X" and "customers of Y."

I was hoping to receive some guidance on implementing TMF629 in this context.

As I understand it, TMF629 Customer Management expects us to POST a new resource with role=Customer and engagedParty=X-href to designate the hyperlinked party as a customer. However, this assumes that "customers" are "our customers." and I'd like to implement a design that allows for the concept of "customers of X" and "customers of Y."

I'm thinking of implementing a new PartyRole, called "Service Provider" and using it like this:

POST /customerManagement/v5/customer
{
    "@type": "Customer",
    "role": "Customer",
    "name": "Johnathan Alexander Doe",
    ...
    "engagedParty": {
        "@type": "PartyRef",
        "@referredType": "Individual",
        "id": "456",
        "href": "/partyManagement/v5/individual/456",
        "name": "Johnathan Alexander Doe"
    },
    "relatedParty": [
        {
            "@type": "RelatedPartyOrPartyRole",
            "role": "Service Provider",
            "partyOrPartyRole": {
                "@type": "PartyRef",
                "@referredType": "Organization",
                "id": "789",
                "href": "/partyManagement/v5/organisation/789",
                "name": "Aussie Broadband"
            }
        }
    ]
}

From the example, you can see I intend to use the relatedParty to represent the "customer of" part, using the role of "Service Provider."

Some questions arise from this:
1. Is this a valid use of TMF629? Is this a recommended approach?
2. Have I got it wrong? Is there only one TMF629 entity, "they are a customer (in general)" and then multiple accounts, which represent the billing relationship to the service providers?
3. Have I completely missed the mark? Is there another API that we use to represent "customers of X" and "customers of Y."?

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George Beatty
Aussie Broadband Limited
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Anyone?

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George Beatty
Aussie Broadband Limited
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The concept seems OK to me. But it's not clear to me that the example implementation is optimal.

Disclosure: I know nothing about the detailed telco market in Australia ...

Aussie Broadband Limited is indeed a Party, but that's not what you are looking for. You presumably want to relate to the role that Aussie Broadband plays with regard to (say) Telstra. So you'd create a Party Role Service Provider (perhaps backed by a Party Role Spec), and this party role would be the target of your related party reference in the customer.

I think it would look like this, hope it helps.

    "relatedParty": [
        {
            "@type": "RelatedPartyOrPartyRole",
            "role": "Other Service Provider",
            "partyOrPartyRole": {
                "@type": "PartyRoleRef",
                "@referredType": "PartyRole",
                "id": "789",
                "href": "/partyRoleManagement/v5/partyRole/789",
                "name": "Aussie Broadband"
            }
        }
    ]

------------------------------
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.
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Original Message:
Sent: Jul 21, 2024 17:43
From: George Beatty
Subject: TMF629 Representation of Multiple Service Provider Relationships

Anyone?

------------------------------
George Beatty
Aussie Broadband Limited
------------------------------