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  • 1.  TMF641 - Sharing an attachment with other interfaces

    Posted Feb 22, 2022 15:56
    We have a requirement to accept few files / documents from the customer and they need to be sent to the supplier.  
    The system exposes a TMF641 API (While submitting the request on the UI, it's converted to a TMF641 service order request).
    How can these attachments (files / docs) be sent to the supplier? On TMF exposure, is it possible to send attachments across interfaces?

    The possible solutions we have are: 
    1. The attachments to be stored on a common space and share the file name and the url of that location with the suppliers in the service characteristics.
    2. The attachments (preferably PDFs) to be converted / encoded using algorithm and that generated text string is shared with the suppliers via TMF request.

    If anyone has any further ideas on how will TMF 641 help us in getting these files transferred across systems?


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    Prasanthi P
    Infosys
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  • 2.  RE: TMF641 - Sharing an attachment with other interfaces

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Feb 23, 2022 04:39
    Many APIs, e.g. Product Catalog (TMF620), use the Attachment object. This exactly meets your requirement, the object supports:
    1. attachment.url - a url that allows retrieval of the attachment from a document store, S3 bucket, etc.
    2. attachment.content - binary64 encoding of the actual attachment content
    For some reason we don't have attachments on order and inventory APIs, of course you are free to add as an extension.

    Hope it helps

    ------------------------------
    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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  • 3.  RE: TMF641 - Sharing an attachment with other interfaces

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Apr 27, 2022 16:27
    What is the meaning of the href attribute in the attachment in this case?
    I saw an example in the TMF639 as below:
    "resourceAttachment": 
    [{ 
      "id": "123", 
      "href": "http://server:port/documentManagement/document/123" 
    }]​

    This attribute (resourceAttachment) is defined as an array of AttachmentRefOrValue. But in the TMF667 specification is said that attachment is not a manageable resource. Even it would, it is addressed in this sample like a document resource.  Maybe it should have value like this  "http://server:port/documentManagement/attachment/123". But in the TMF667 separable endpoint for attachments is not defined. So I'm I have to say that I'm confused here.



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    Paul Stanek
    Suntech S.A.
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  • 4.  RE: TMF641 - Sharing an attachment with other interfaces

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Apr 28, 2022 02:52
    @Steve Harrop, can you help clarify the meaning of the href attribute in the Attachment entity?

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    Paul Stanek
    Suntech S.A.
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  • 5.  RE: TMF641 - Sharing an attachment with other interfaces

    TM Forum Member
    Posted Apr 28, 2022 05:23
    Attachment should be a managed resource, distinct from Document. The requirement has been raised for a long time, just hasn't been implemented in the Open API.
    Hopefully eventually it will be done.

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