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  • 1.  TMF701: inventory and catalog functions

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jun 17, 2022 03:45
    Hello,

    The recent release of TMF701 (Version 4.1.0) adds catalog-type functionality (management of ProcessFlowSpecification and TaskFlowSpecification resources) to the original inventory-type functionality (management of ProcessFlow and TaskFlow resources.) It is quite unusual, as in all other cases I am familiar with these two types of functionality are divided to separate APIs.

    I wonder if this is a temporary solution, with an intention to split them in a future release; or they are expected to remain together under a single API.

    Thank you,
    Opher

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    Opher Yaron
    Proximus SA
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  • 2.  RE: TMF701: inventory and catalog functions

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jun 23, 2022 03:54
    Hello Opher,

    This is a fair observation. As we slightly modified the ProcessFlow & TaskFlow resource to add links (respectively) to ProcessFLowSpecification & TaskFlowSpecification  we opted to add the 2 new resources in 701. Up to my knowledge we plan to let them together in the same API.

    Hope it helps
    Ludovic

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    Ludovic Robert
    Orange
    My answer are my own & don't represent necessarily my company or the TMF
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  • 3.  RE: TMF701: inventory and catalog functions

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jun 23, 2022 05:43
    We have APIs (primarily in the catalog P/S/R/E domains) where the definitions (specifications) are in separate APIs from the instances (inventory).
    But we also have APIs that combine the definitions and instances in the same API, e.g. usage, party role (in progress), and process flow.

    Apart from technical considerations (shared swagger file, shared end-point), I'm not sure what the practical functional difference is between the two approaches. But happy to hear discussion comments.

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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.
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  • 4.  RE: TMF701: inventory and catalog functions

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jun 25, 2022 14:05
    Hi,

    having implemented the full stack of TMF701 on top of a camunda flow engine (in a separate ms) on a modified (hopefully close to v5 version of the API after discussions with Ludovic but based on 4.0.0), i suggest to extract the catalog part in a separate API in the future.
    If the implementation is using a flow engine (BPMN, BPEL, camel, ...), you probably will have no use for the catalog section as it is actually in the flow engine itself where you design the flows and their tasks. In this case, TMF701 is used more in a tracking way (where camunda calls it to update flow/tasks execution) with the exception of mainly createProcessFlow and updateTaskFlow which will be used by the client applications to trigger the flow execution or update a user task (for example).

    I think this catalog will be useful only if your code takes care itself of the process execution and so need to know what to do...

    best regards,

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    Frederic Thise
    Proximus SA
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  • 5.  RE: TMF701: inventory and catalog functions

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Jun 27, 2022 03:16
    Edited by Ludovic Robert Jun 27, 2022 03:20
    Thanks a lot Frederic for this feedback.
    I copy/paste your feedback in a Jira to track it ;)

    It could trigger some discussion in the team moving forward to v5.

    Ludovic
    Edit: Jira created: [AP-3924] 701 (ProcessFlow) feedback/ Split the API in 2 - TM Forum JIRA

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    Ludovic Robert
    Orange
    My answer are my own & don't represent necessarily my company or the TMF
    ------------------------------