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TM Forum Applications Framework 3-2

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440 views226 pages

TM Forum Applications Framework 3-2

Uploaded by

ruiquaresma

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You are on page 1/ 226

TM Forum Applications

Framework (TAM)
The BSS/OSS Systems Landscape

Release 3.0
GB929
Version Number 3.2

June, 2008

TM Forum 2008

TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

Notice
No recipient of this document shall in any way interpret this document as representing a
position or agreement of the TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum) or its members. This
document is a draft working document of TM Forum and is provided solely for comments
and evaluation. It is not a Forum Approved Document and is solely circulated for the
purposes of assisting TM Forum in the preparation of a final document in furtherance of
the aims and mission of TM Forum.
Although it is a copyrighted document of TM Forum:
Members of TM Forum are only granted the limited copyright waiver to distribute this
document within their companies and may not make paper or electronic copies for
distribution outside of their companies.
Non-members of the TM Forum are not permitted to make copies (paper or electronic) of
this draft document other than for their internal use for the sole purpose of making
comments thereon directly to TM Forum.
If this document forms part of a supply of information in support of an Industry Group
Liaison relationship, the document may only be used as part of the work identified in the
Liaison and may not be used or further distributed for any other purposes
Any use of this document by the recipient, other than as set forth specifically herein, is at
its own risk, and under no circumstances will TM Forum be liable for direct or indirect
damages or any costs or losses resulting from the use of this document by the recipient.
This document is governed by all of the terms and conditions of the Agreement on
Intellectual Property Rights between TM Forum and its members, and may involve a claim
of patent rights by one or more TM Forum members or by non-members of TM Forum.
Direct inquiries to the TM Forum office:
240 Headquarters Plaza,
East Tower 10th Floor,
Morristown, NJ 07960 USA
Tel No. +1 973 944 5100
Fax No. +1 973 944 5110
TM Forum Web Page: www.tmforum.org

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Telecom Value Chain ........................................................................................................... 17
Figure 2: The Telecom Applications Map ........................................................................................... 18
Figure 3: 3.0 Market/Sales Management ............................................................................................. 20
Figure 4: 03.01 M/S Campaign Management ...................................................................................... 21
Figure 5: 03.02 M/S Sales Aids ............................................................................................................ 25
Figure 6: 03.03 M/S Compensation & Results .................................................................................... 26
Figure 7: 03.04 M/S Channel Sales Management ............................................................................... 27
Figure 8: 03.05 M/S Corporate Sales Management ............................................................................ 36
Figure 9: 03.06 M/S Mass Market Sales Management ....................................................................... 44
Figure 10: 03.07 M/S Sales Portals ...................................................................................................... 48
Figure 11: 04.0 Product Management Domain ................................................................................... 50
Figure 12: 04.01 Product Strategy / Proposition Management ......................................................... 50
Figure 13: 04.02 Product / Service Catalog Management ................................................................. 52
Figure 14: Product Catalog Applications ........................................................................................... 54
Figure 15: 04.03 Product Lifecycle Management ............................................................................... 57
Figure 16: 04.04 Product Performance Management ........................................................................ 58
Figure 17: 05.0 Customer Management Domain ................................................................................ 60
Figure 18: 05.01 Customer Information Management ....................................................................... 61
Figure 19: Transactional Document Production ................................................................................ 62
Figure 20: 05.03 Customer Order Management ................................................................................. 66
Figure 21: 05.04 Customer Self Management .................................................................................... 73
Figure 22: 05.05 Customer Contact Management, Retention & Loyalty .......................................... 80
Figure 23: 05.06 Customer Service Representative Toolbox............................................................ 85
Figure 24: 05.07 Customer Quality of Service & Service Level Agreement
Management .................................................................................................................................. 89
Figure 25: 05.08 Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution ................................................. 91
Figure 26: 05.09 Receivables Management ........................................................................................ 93
Figure 27: 05.10 Billing Inquiry, Dispute & Adjustment Management.............................................. 96
Figure 28: 05.11 Bill Format / Render ................................................................................................. 99
Figure 29: 05.12 Product/Service Rating .......................................................................................... 100
Figure 30: 05.13 Billing Account Management ................................................................................ 102

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Figure 31: 05.14 Collection Management ......................................................................................... 104

Figure 32: 05.15 Bill Calculation ........................................................................................................ 107
Figure 33: 05.16 Online Charging ...................................................................................................... 110
Figure 34: 06.0 Service Management Domain .................................................................................. 114
Figure 35: 06.01 Service Specification Management ....................................................................... 115
Figure 36: 06.02 Service Inventory Management ............................................................................. 116
Figure 37: 06.03 Service Order Management ................................................................................... 118
Figure 38: 06.04 Service Level Agreement Management ................................................................ 128
Figure 39: 06.05 Service Problem Management ............................................................................... 131
Figure 40: 06.06 Service Quality Monitoring & Impact Analysis .................................................... 133
Figure 41: 06.07 Service Performance Management ....................................................................... 135
Figure 42: 07.0 Resource Management Domain .............................................................................. 138
Figure 43: 07.01 Resource Lifecycle Management .......................................................................... 139
Figure 44: Resource Fulfillment Process ......................................................................................... 140
Figure 45: 07.02 Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)..................................... 147
Figure 46: 07.03 Resource Inventory Management ......................................................................... 150
Figure 47: 07.04 Resource Order Management................................................................................ 153
Figure 48: 07.05 Resource Domain Management ............................................................................ 158
Figure 49: Relationship of Resource Domain Management to other TAM application
areas ............................................................................................................................................. 159
Figure 50: 07.06 Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)..................................... 164
Figure 51: Testing Management ........................................................................................................ 166
Figure 52: 07.07 Resource Assurance Management ....................................................................... 168
Figure 53: Status Monitoring Data Flow ........................................................................................... 170
Figure 54: Resource Problem Management ..................................................................................... 175
Figure 55: Resource Performance Management Data Flows.......................................................... 177
Figure 56: 07.08 Voucher Management ............................................................................................ 178
Figure 57: 07.09 Billing Data Mediation ............................................................................................ 179
Figure 58: 07.10 Real-time Billing Mediation .................................................................................... 180
Figure 59: 08.0 Supplier/Partner Domain.......................................................................................... 182
Figure 60: 08.01 Supply Chain Management .................................................................................... 182
Figure 61: 08.02 Partner Management .............................................................................................. 183
Figure 62: 08.03 Wholesale / Interconnect Billing ........................................................................... 185
Figure 63: 09.0 Enterprise Domain .................................................................................................... 187
Figure 65: 09.01 Revenue Assurance Management ........................................................................ 188

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familiar as possible to industry users, thus it uses the familiar layering

concepts of the TMN model, enhanced to cover the management of
resources rather than simply the network. Thus in this context,
resources could be a variety of items such as network elements, subnetworks or servers.
The document is laid out against this layering approach and describes
the principal functions of each layer and each system. For
completeness, the TAM includes infrastructural systems, such as bus
technology and business process management technology that are not
strictly applications.
There are a number of benefits to the industry in using a common
Telecom Applications Map:
Common Application Language
The common language for information exchange within the industry will
result in reduced investment risks and costs through industry
alignment. The procurement process will be made easier by using a
common map and application definition, and component license costs
will be reduced through higher reusability and lower custom
development. As the TAM is adopted by the industry, the market for
suppliers based on operators procuring from the standard applications
model will grow.
Standard Application Requirements
A key deliverable of the TAM is an industry set of standard application
requirements that will enable the development of reusable components
leading to a more modular approach to application development. This reuse
will result in lower costs through economies of scale. Similarly the component
approach will encourage the adoptions and development of standard
interfaces between components which will again reduce development costs.
Enable Automation
The standard, deployable components that result from the adoption of the
TAM will enable a higher degree of automation within the service providers
businesses which will in turn reduce human errors and improve operational
efficiency. With solutions based on a standard application map it will be
easier for organizations to change the way in which they work by adding or
changing components within their support systems. Similarly, mergers and
acquisitions will be easier to manage through the common understanding of
applications delivered by the TAMs common language and the business
integration points easier to identify.
The TAM has been developed using a product deployment and
product implementation point of view to identify typical systems
available in fixed, mobile, and cable operators today and assist the

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various players who specify, procure, design and sell operation and
business support systems to understand each others viewpoints.
Assumptions used in the development of the Telecom Applications
Map were:
An application is a set of one or more software artifacts consisting of welldefined functions, data, business flows, rules and interfaces. These artifacts
include:
Data Model for data used to interface to and within
application
Policies for governing external and internal application
resources
Flow Model for functionality with application
Contract Specifications for (externally visible) interfaces to
functionality with application
Applications are implementable as a deployable package and
procurable in the system market place.
It should be noted that this definition is from a Telecom
Applications Map viewpoint.
The definition for an application from the technology neutral
architecture viewpoint is "An NGOSS Application is a
container artifact which provides an encapsulation of the
requirements, specification and implementations of
designed functionality, from the perspective of Service
Providers, needed to support a specific business goal
within their operating environment."
Additional information regarding NGOSS terminology can be
found in the NGOSS Technology Neutral Architecture
suite of TMF053 documents, and in GB927 NGOSS
Lifecycle Methodology.
In order to be an application, there must be at least two
commercially-off-the-shelf (COTS) products in the market.
This was verified by at least two service providers
OSS/BSS terminology was used in the general text, but was not
used to differentiate functionalities nor separate areas on
the TAM.
If a feature had its own context (could stand alone), and its own
features and contracts, it became a level 2 application
Higher level applications contain core functionality that is shared
with its next level applications or a compound application
of its descendants with an additional functionality.
Leaf applications only contain specific functionality.

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Supported contracts are typical and important, but are not a

complete list. They will serve as requirements input to
the TMF Interface Program.
The eTOM level 1 vertical segments, FAB, OSR and SIP, were
used for the Customer, Service, Resource, and Supplier /
Partner layers only.
The SID domain horizontals excluding the Common Business
Entities (CBE) were used and the team management
was added.
Used eTOM terminology when discussing business functions and
SID terminology when discussing system data.
The following are open issues which will be addressed in the next
release:
Terminology used is not always in alignment with eTOM, SID, or
Lifecycle/TNA
Mapping TAM to eTOM and SID
TAM Application Short descriptions which will be released along
with the TAM 3.0 poster

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The Telecom Applications Map

The Telecom Applications Map has been designed to be of use by the
entire spectrum of players in the telecom software value chain. It may
be used for a variety of functions and allows both the operator and
supplier communities worldwide to have a common frame of reference
in describing both their current and future needs and intentions. For
example, an operator could use the Map to model their current (as-is)
OSS applications in a structured format; as well as developing a (to-be)
future model and deriving a clear gap analysis. By using this common
layout and nomenclature, the current and future landscape would be
much easier for consultants, suppliers or system integrators to
understand the situation and requirement.
Alternatively, a supplier may wish to use the Map to highlight the
systems that they supply and the systems that they partner with other
companies to deliver. It may be used to show both current and future
portfolios. Investors or financial analysts may find the Map useful to
describe the OSS market in terms of its growth, value etc. Others may
find the Map a useful starting point in assembling directories of
suppliers active in each segment of the Map.
Thus the Telecom Applications Map can be used across the entire
telecom value chain as shown in figure 1 below:

Middleware
suppliers:
Platform
suppliers
Mediation
suppliers
Database
suppliers
Software
components
suppliers

Application
/ system
suppliers:
Point systems
Small solution
suites

Solutions
suppliers:

Systems
integrators
Computer
companies
Equipment
suppliers

Service and
network
operators:
Fixed
Mobile
ISP
ASP
MVNO
Etc.

Figure 1: Telecom Value Chain

Wherever possible, TAM uses language already common in the

industry and builds on the process and common information models

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key to the TM Forums NGOSS program especially the eTOM and the
SID. It has been designed to be generic without losing touch with
market reality and to be familiar to industry users, thus it uses the
familiar layering concepts as those specified in the eTOM and SID.
The document is laid out against this layering approach and describes
the principal functions of each layer. The Telecom Applications Map,
shown in figure 2, is segmented by the primary eTOM end-to-end level
1 vertical process areas: Fulfillment, Assurance, & Billing (FAB), and
Operational Support Readiness (OSR) functions along with the
layering SID domains of Market/Sales, Product, Customer, Service,
Resource, Supplier / Partner, and Enterprise. Each box on the map
represents a level 1 TAM category.
The TAM also recognizes managed resources including network
based resources; content servers Intelligent network platforms and
related network control technologies such as element management
systems as well as the OSS infrastructure fabric e.g. bus technology,
business process management engines etc. The term OSS is used to
cover all the systems that are used by a telecom operator, sometimes
referred to as OSS and BSS.

Figure 2: The Telecom Applications Map

The bulk of this document is used to describe the level 1 applications

of each of the layers of the TAM. In some cases, level 1 applications

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are broken down into level 2 applications where additional clarity would
help the reader. Each application includes an overview description, a
functionality description, and supporting contracts.

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03.0 Market/Sales Management

Figure 3: 3.0 Market/Sales Management

Description
The Market/Sales Domain includes data and contract operations that support the sales
and marketing activities needed to gain business from customers and potential customers.
On the Sales side, this includes sales contacts/leads/prospects through to the sales-force
and sales statistics. Market includes market strategy and plans, market segments,
competitors and their products, through to campaign formulation.

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03.01 M/S Campaign Management

Figure 4: 03.01 M/S Campaign Management

Description
To Be Added

Campaign Management
Application Identifier: 03.01
Overview
The Campaign Management applications are responsible for managing the lifecycle of
marketing campaigns, sometimes referred to as "closed loop marketing". Service
Provider marketers need to respond to changing market environments with marketing
initiatives that push highly targeted messages to increasingly focused segments.
Marketers need an adaptable and flexible campaign management application that can
adjust to evolving customer lifecycles with corresponding targeted marketing strategies.
Marketers need to deliver coordinated outbound and inbound campaigns across all points
of interaction- focusing marketing resources where the greatest potential value exists. The
campaign management application needs to:

Leverage a single, consistent view of customer data.

Be highly usable, which increases marketing productivity and effectiveness.

Provide valuable insight into marketing performance through analytics that enable
marketers to continually adjust and improve marketing investments.

Functionality
The campaign management applications have the following capabilities:

Campaign Analytics

Campaign Design

Campaign Execution & Refinement

Performance Tracking

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Supported Contracts

Manage Business Intelligence

Manage Dashboard

Manage Predictive Analytics

Send Recommendation(s)

Consume Recommendation Success

Campaign Analytics
Application Identifier: 03.01.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Campaign Analytics application provides quantitative tools to analyze customers and
prospects to help design the right recommendations. Next generation applications also
provide statistical analysis and modeling to optimize target markets and assist in self
learning and optimization of campaigns based on the empirical analysis of past campaign
execution. Marketers need to utilize a segment designer that allows quick identification of
desired targets, as well as global profile management capabilities that allow new customer
data attributes to be designed on the fly. The resulting profiles can be leveraged
immediately for actions that include segmentation, personalization, and branching logic.

The campaign analytics feature benefits from the automation of essential campaign
processes in the campaign management application and uses all the managed
communications with customers across multiple channels, tracking responses and
consolidates and reports campaign planning & execution performance. The campaign
analytics features should be able to gather and analyze data from past campaign planning
success and performance in a continuous loop and feed this data back into the campaign
planning feature. Marketers need to construct meaningful market segments and base their
campaign investments on valid assumptions and projections. Through Campaign
Analytics, marketers need to build models to predict campaign response likelihood,
determine customer retention risk or predict any user-defined customer behavior.
Marketers can then leverage the model's predictions to determine which
customers/prospects are most likely to display a particular behavior.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Campaign Design
Application Identifier: 03.01.02
Overview

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To Be Added
Functionality
The Campaign Design application provides the necessary tools to design a campaign,
taking into account customer and product information.
In this area, Campaign Design Applications should include the ability to assist:

Marketing and sales managers explore installed base and historical customer data,
and to mine that data for cross-sell and up-sell opportunities.

Users can quickly create campaigns to push opportunities out to pre-defined sales
territories using a coordinated sales methodology.

Templated campaign creation: Many frequently used campaigns, segments, content

templates, and their tracking metrics are pre-defined to step through campaign setup
and execution, and yet customizable.

Pre-defined execution channels and fulfillment include direct mail, email, fax, web,
events, telesales and sales.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Lead Generation
Application Identifier: 03.01.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Lead Generation handles the generation of leads. A lead can be generated from many
different sources and customer interactions including the result of a targeted marketing
campaign. Potential customer information is obtained from external sources or from
internally generated data.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Campaign Execution & Refinement

Application Identifier: 03.01.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality

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Campaign Execution & Refinement provides the necessary tools to execute the campaign,
and based on performance indicators collected, accept refinements to the campaign while
still executing.
Campaign Execution & Refinement Applications should include:

Permission-based controls to ensure that customers are always treated according to

their preferences, no matter which interaction point you use.

Users can quickly execute campaigns in their own terms to push opportunities out to
their territories, along with a coordinated sales methodology. Integration to Sales
Management Applications and Channel Sales Management Applications is needed.

Integrated Workflow notifications ensure that approvals are in place as needed.

Event triggers ensure that campaigns and campaign stages (waves) are executed at
critical points in the customer lifecycle.

Inbound and outbound campaign coordination for marketing control of the interactions
that follow a campaign.

Per statistics gathered via Campaign Performance Tracking, adjustments can be

made to the Campaign while still in execution.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Campaign Performance Tracking

Application Identifier: 03.01.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Campaign Performance Tracking provides the necessary functionality to monitor the
campaign performance in real time. This is done by providing a combination of real-time
reporting and what-if modeling capabilities to continuously optimize campaigns by taking
corrective action-even when campaigns are already underway. Functionality specifically
includes:

Real-time view into customizable segmentation schemes and key metrics.

Dashboard views, alerts, and notifications provide marketing organizations with the
insight and agility needed to protect and optimize marketing investments.

Pre-built Marketing Insight reports.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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03.02 M/S Sales Aids

Sales Aids

Job Aids

Product Support

Figure 5: 03.02 M/S Sales Aids

Description
Please refer to the Sales Aids section under Knowledge Management in the Enterprise
domain.

03.03 M/S Compensation & Results

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Figure 6: 03.03 M/S Compensation & Results

Description
To Be Added

Compensation & Results

Application Identifier: 03.03
Overview
The Compensation & Results application includes all functionality necessary to
compensate a seller, from assignment of accounts, quotas, new sales and billed revenue
to calculation of the compensation plans to results reporting.
Functionality
The sales force receives compensation for sales based on performance against quotas
assigned, billed revenue, numbers of sales, or other events determined by business rules
that change each year. This includes building the annual compensation plan and
managing to it. Compensation & Results handles payment and reporting against
performance, and also includes setting and managing sales quotas. It also handles the
assignment of sales modules (i.e. sets of customers) to the sales staff, which is then rolled
up into a sales hierarchy.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Compensation
Application Identifier: 03.03.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Compensation provides necessary functionality to determine compensation based on
sales results across all sales channels, including internal as well as sales partners.
Compensation is calculated based on results (billed results, sales volumes, etc.), for a
specific customer, and based on Sales Assignment. This mapping of sales people to
customers allows the calculation of compensation for each salesperson. Compensation
calculations and business rules vary across services. These calculations are used by 1)
sales management to track sales and 2) corporate headquarters accounts payable
systems or company payroll systems to produce commission checks.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Results Reporting
Application Identifier: 03.03.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Results Reporting provides sales results versus sales forecast for the various sales teams.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

03.04 M/S Channel Sales

Management

Channel
Sales
Management

Direct Sales
Force

Telesales

Retail Outlets

Dealers

Virtual Network
Operators

Figure 7: 03.04 M/S Channel Sales Management

Description
The Channel Sales Management application provides the necessary functionality to sell to
a number of specific sales channels.
Area contains several level 2 applications, each supporting different channels. This
application contains core functionality shared amongst level 2 applications, and
functionality specific to each channel. This section is organized to reflect Common
Functionality, then addresses the specificities of each channel:

Common Functionality
Although these different channels may require different user interface layers serving the
specific needs for each channel, the core application logic and data store is common to all

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Affiliates

TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

channels to enable the 360 degree view irrespective of the channel being used. The
Common Functionality section describes those core functionalities and supported
contracts.

Channel Sales Management

Application Identifier: 03.04
Overview
The Channel Sales Management application provides the necessary functionality to sell to
a number of specific sales channels.
Area contains several level 2 applications, each supporting different channels. This
application contains core functionality shared amongst level 2 applications, and
functionality specific to each channel. This section is organized to reflect Common
Functionality, then addresses the specificities of each channel:

Direct sales force (also known as field sales) most handling corporate and medium
sized businesses [see section]

Telesales / ordering department selling over the phone to consumers and small
businesses

Retail outlets the Telcos branded retail stores, (mostly common in Wireless
communication provides and mostly serving consumers and small businesses)

Dealers 3rd party retailers that sell the communications service providers services,
mostly to consumers

VNOs Virtual Network Operators, that sell their own branded services over the
communications service providers network

Affiliates

Functionality
This functionality is common and must be provided in each channel depicted below.

Create and promote leads.

Create and promote contacts.

Create and dispatch literature requests to customers.

Lead Management: A lead is a person with an interest in the CSPs service

offering(s). The lead, for example, may have requested information about the CSPs
services. The direct sales application should provide the support and functionality
CSPs need to efficiently move the lead through the relevant stages in the lead
qualification phase of the sales cycle.

Sales quotation

Supported Contracts

Product catalog (catalog browsing, selection of products/services, quoting)

Resource management/Inventory Management (e.g., phone numbers, SIM cards,

equipment)

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Credit check service (check credit history of the customer)

Address validation/completion service

Workforce Management (scheduling and installation)

Fulfillment management (shipping)

Billing/Accounts Receivable (creation of billing profile, payment and deposit handling)

Direct Sales Force

Application Identifier: 03.04.01
Overview
The Direct Sales Force application is used by CSRs, Field Sales, Sales Administrators,
Analysts and Managers to generate/qualify sales opportunities, generate revenue,
maintain and optimize the sales process, territories, quotas, view forecasts.
As a Customer Service Representative (CSR), you have first contact with potential
customers. Incoming telephone calls and emails enable you to capture customer
information and qualify leads according to the guidelines set by your company (cf
Customer Information Management). If the lead satisfies your criteria, you can promote
that lead to the status of a contact, and an opportunity. Sales opportunities are dispatched
to sales representatives in the field to pursue if the size of the sale has the potential to
exceed agreed monetary thresholds. If not, you can respond directly to customer inquiries
by creating and dispatching literature requests and/or sales quotations. Orders are
submitted for processing when you receive acceptance for the contract that has been
negotiated with the customer (cf. Order Management).
A user of the Direct Sales application can have one of the following roles:

Customer Service Representative (CSR). As a CSR or agent, you generate and

qualify sales opportunities and dispatch leads to field sales representatives. Your
primary method of communication with the customer is by phone and email.

Field Sales Representative. As a field sales representative, you create and manage
customer accounts, develop sales opportunities, and generate revenue.

Sales Administrator. As a Sales Administrator, you manage the design and

maintenance of the overall sales process and stages in the sales cycle according to
business requirements.

Sales Analyst. As a Sales Analyst, you manage sales territories and quotas and
generate sales forecasts and pipeline analyses.

Sales Manager. As a Sales Manager, you define sales territories, and manage the
sales process and forecasting.

Functionality
Create and dispatch opportunities to relevant employees/sales personnel.
Create and dispatch sales quotes to legal, finance, sales manager for approval. Campaign
execution: A campaign is a planned marketing effort to promote a single product or range
of products. The direct sales application should enable the capture of details of the

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campaign promotion, such as the duration of it and the products, pricing strategy, and
media channels you want to use.
Forecast Analysis: This feature should enable data analysis of your sales pipeline and
predict the revenue that will result when opportunities are won and deals are finalized.
Forecasts are either Sales forecasts, which one can apply to anticipate the consumer
demand for and consumption of the CSPs product range and the revenue the CSP
expects to result. There are also Order forecasts, which enables CSPs to determine
whether the supply required is available to meet expected consumption levels. This should
integrate to logistics systems for auto-replenishment and order management applications.
Opportunity & Quote Management
Territory Management: A direct sales application can structure sales territories to assist
structuring of the CSPs sales organization. For example, CSPs should be able to
organize territories by geography, industry, named accounts, service lines, or
opportunities. One should also be able to compress many territories into a single territory.
You can assign territory-specific roles to your sales employees as members of a team. A
single employee can perform many roles within a territory, or one or more roles in other
territories. If required, you can structure territories according to a parent-child hierarchy.
Supported Contracts
Typical contracts for a Direct Sales application are to Document Design or electronic
document generation applications, and Enterprise Management applications for legal &
regulatory approval.

Telesales
Application Identifier: 03.04.02
Overview
Some Communication Service Providers use the customer service call center agents as a
sales channel and allow them to sell and order services for customers who are calling in
(reactive sales). Other Communication Service Providers have a dedicated call center for
taking orders that is separate from the customer service call center. The Telesales call
center does both reactive and proactive sales efforts.
An application geared for Telesales should provide the following benefits:

Quick time-to-market for new and advanced services Improved quality of service and
minimum faulty orders

Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty

Reduced churn Benefits from the Telesales agents perspective

Simplified application flow Shorter training time

Shorten calls

Complete visibility to order status at all times

Open, standards-based integration capabilities leverages current investments

Faster response time to business needs

Functionality
An application for telesales agents should provide the following capabilities:

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360 view of the customer, including full customer details, recent interactions, pending
activities, history

Complete order capture, negotiation and activation capabilities (see section 6.2 for
detailed functionality list)

Order tracking capabilities

Ability to create action items when follow up activities are required

Multimedia integration (CTI, Predictive dialer, Email)

Scripting

Cross sell/up sell recommendations

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Retail Outlets
Application Identifier: 03.04.03
Overview
One of the primary sales channels for Wireless Communication Service Providers is the
providers own retail stores. Currently, other communications sectors rely less on this
channel due to the fact that non-Wireless services typically need to be physically installed
on the customers premises, whereas in wireless communications the customer typically
gets services instantly at the retail store/point of sale. Non-wireless services providers may
use retail outlets as a means to complete an order (e.g., for customers that want to pick up
a DSL modem from a retail outlet to complete their order in order to avoid payment of
shipping costs).Retail stores are considered an extension of the call center in the sense
that existing customers may walk in and ask for assistance in customer service issues
(e.g., billing, how to operate their handset, etc.).

In other words, Retail Stores are not only used as Point of Sale but also used as Point of
Service.
Functionality
Retail store agents require an application that exposes most of the functionality used by
call center agents (Telesales and customer service), and also have additional processes
that are unique to the retail environment (for example, handset loans and repairs). A retail
application should therefore include the following functionality:

Complete customer information management capabilities

Customer contact and retention management capabilities

Order capture and negotiation capabilities

Specific to retail stores, order management should be capable of supporting contract

printing, integration with a locally installed cash management/cash register and a retail
inventory system for order completion. Billing management activities

Problem resolution Specific to retail stores, problem resolution should be capable of

handling handset repairs, including reverse logistics and advance exchange.

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In addition, retail stores may also require the following additional clients:

A self service kiosk, located in the store, to allow customers that are in the store to
lookup information about products, services, promotions, etc., access and pay their
bills, or even start configuring a product while waiting in line.

Handheld device used by sales agents in the store, to allow them to help customers
with information about products and services, and to allow them to configure a quote
for the customer. The quote/configured offer can, in turn, be transferred to the agent
behind the counter for completion of the order.

Supported Contracts
Potential interface areas:

Most of the CRM applications

Cash management system

Inventory management system / ERP

Accounts Receivables/Billing

Spares Management / Logistics / Reverse Logistics applications

Dealers
Application Identifier: 03.04.04
Overview
Dealers are 3rd party retailers that sell the services of the Communication Service
Provider and get commission for those sales. Dealers vary in size and can range from a
country wide retail chain to a local retail shop in a rural area. Some dealers sell the
services of multiple Communication Service Providers and some are exclusive to one
Communication Service Provider. Dealers focus on acquiring new customers and
upgrading existing customers. Most dealers are only a Point of Sale and not a Point of
Service (as opposed to the Communication Service Providers owned retail stores). The
dealers main focus is to acquire new customers or upgrade existing customers. The main
need for a dealers online application is to make them self sufficient and avoid the need for
them to call the call center on behalf of a customer to activate their handset.
Functionality
An application for dealers should include the following capabilities:

Customer acquisition (customer creation and new order for products and services for
the newly created customer)Lookup existing customer details by mobile number

Upgrade customers products/services

View dealer commission statements

View products, services and promotions data

View other communications from the Communication Service Provider

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Data fencing - a security feature that will allow dealers to view only the customers
that they sold to (in order to prevent solicitation of other customers to increase
commission)

Supported Contracts
Potential interface areas:

CRM

Commissions management

Knowledge management system

Product catalog

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Virtual Network Operators

Application Identifier: 03.04.05
Overview
Virtual network operators are typically service providers that do not own their own network
but sell communications services under their own brand on top of another service
providers network. Some VNOs also do not own their own Business Support Systems
(BSS) and lease these systems from the network provider that provides their network
services. Such VNOs are the focus of this section. The network provider that leases the
business support systems to the VNO should therefore provide a separate online
application for the VNO agents to be able to manage their customers, and handle
fulfillment, assurance and billing issues for these customers.
Functionality
An online application that will allow VNOs to manage their customers lifecycle should
include the following capabilities:

Customer information management capabilities

Customer contact and retention management capabilities Order capture and

negotiation capabilities

Billing management activities

Receivables and Collection activities

Problem resolution

Data fencing - a security feature that will allow the VNO agents to view only the
VNOs customers. In some cases, the network provider will use the same BSS
environment to serve several VNOs (multi tenancy)

VNO Personalization - in cases where the network provider serves multiple VNOs
under the same BSS environment (multi tenancy) the user interface of each VNO
needs to be personalized to the VNO business (look and feel, business flow, etc.)

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Affiliates
Application Identifier: 03.04.06
Overview
Some service providers have affiliate companies that may feed in orders. An example
could be a Wireless Communication Service Provider that has an affiliate Wireline
Communication Service Provider that wants to bundle its Wireline services with the
affiliates wireless services. When the affiliate sells the bundle, it will need to notify the
wireless service provider of the sale, and the wireless service provider may need to assist
in completing the order.

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Functionality
An application to support the above flow should include the following capabilities:

Mass service/product pre activation

Mass transaction feed of new orders Activation of service/product sold by affiliate

Registration of pre activated service/product

Supported Contracts
Potential interface areas:

Partner Revenue Settlement System

Inventory/warehouse management/supply chain

03.05 M/S Corporate Sales

Management

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Corporate
Sales
Management

Corporate Sales
Workflow
Management

Solution
Management

Contract
Management

Funnel & Lead

Management

Contract Workflow

Design

Contract Generation

Funnel Managem ent

Design/Price/Propose
Workflow

Price

Contract
Im plem entation

Sales Account
Managem ent

Sales Workflow

Price/Cost Optim ization

Contract Storage

Lead Managem ent

Propose

Figure 8: 03.05 M/S Corporate Sales Management

Description
The Corporate Sales Management application provides the necessary functionality to
manage the sale to a medium to large business customer.

Note: Given convergence occurring in the industry in the area of products and customer
classification, along with the need to manage relationships across corporate and mass
market customer segments, it is expected that at some point significant aspects of the
Corporate and Mass Market Sales Management applications will come together into a
single set of applications.

Corporate Sales Management

Application Identifier: 03.05

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Overview
The Corporate Sales Management application provides the necessary functionality to
manage the sale to a medium to large business customer.

Management of sales accounts, including the handling of leads and funnels.

The design, price, propose lifecycle.

This could include responding to RFIs, RFBs, etc., as well as a number of iterations
on the Design/Price/Propose lifecycle.

Negotiation and closure on a formal contract with the customer. The end result could be a
customer contract with zero or more actual orders.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Corporate Sales Workflow Management

Application Identifier: 03.05.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Corporate Sales Workflow provides the workflow between multiple sales systems, and
hands off the control of workflow to other domains / functional areas when Sales Workflow
is complete.

Corporate Sales Workflow provides configurable workflow within and between sales
systems, handing off control to other domains / functional areas (such as order fulfillment,
billing) when the Sales Workflow is complete.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Contract Workflow
Application Identifier: 03.05.01.01
Overview

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To Be Added
Functionality
The Contract Workflow provides the necessary workflow to manage the handling of
contracts. Custom contracts are routed to management and/or legal for approval. After a
customer signs a contract, there is workflow for countersignature, contract capture into a
repository, and contract implementation (in the billing domain).
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Design/Price/Propose Workflow
Application Identifier: 03.05.01.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Design/Price/Propose workflow provides the necessary workflow for the sales design,
pricing and proposal processes to provide solutions that meet the customers needs and
requirements. Workflow in the design step can be technical in nature, such as routing
requirements to a designer so that the design can be created, or routing a design to an
expert to check its validity. It can also be business focused, such as getting approval for
custom pricing or proposal support for an RFP (Request for Proposal).
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Sales Workflow
Application Identifier: 03.05.01.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
While the sales process for a small business can be completed by one person during the
course of one phone call, the sales process for a large deal can involve multiple teams,
steps and approvals. Sales workflow is used to route tasks to the right people for their
attention, and can be used to flag a jeopardy when they are not addressed on time. It can
route a lead or an opportunity to the responsible AE (Account Executive), technical design
work, or pricing/contract approvals.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Functionality
Contract Storage addresses the storage of contract metadata, contract text documents
and signed scanned document images, where appropriate. The data and documents are
stored for historical reference, legal requirements, as well as retrieval and search
capabilities.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Funnel & Lead Management

Application Identifier: 03.05.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Funnel and Lead management provides the necessary functionality to:

manage leads

manage interactions between leads and various campaigns being executed

manage the conversion of leads into opportunities

manage opportunities down the funnel to closure

forecast revenue against those opportunities, measured against quota and territories
as appropriate

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Funnel Management
Application Identifier: 03.05.04.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Funnel Management handles the creation, assignment, tracking and management of leads
and opportunities. Funnel Management consists of activities such as receiving the leads
generated from leads generation, assigning sales personnel to leads, and tracking &
qualifying the leads. It also tracks the quality of leads (as well as the campaigns which
generated them) by noting which leads are converted to actual sales after being worked.
Funnel reports are used to roll up information derived from the funnel process for Lead
management.

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Once a lead is qualified, it is considered an opportunity, which is worked further down the
sales funnel through to either success (sale) or loss/disqualification (no sale). Various
activities are tracked in the course of managing opportunities, such as forecasting
revenues, generating quotes, updating account plans, scheduling sales calls, etc.
Opportunities can also be auto-generated from expiring contracts. Forecasting and Metric
reporting is also included in this function.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Sales Account Management

Application Identifier: 03.05.04.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Sales Account Management allows sales organizations to manage customer accounts in
several ways, including account activity planning, building account plans, stakeholder and
influencer mapping, key buying criteria, territory management, monitoring of projected
versus actual billed revenues throughout the account hierarchy, and managing sales
representatives assigned to the account(s).
Account management can be associated with compensation, to ensure appropriate
revenue recognition, as well as to monitor performance against sales targets (quotas).
Due to the sensitivity of sales information, account management facilitates data fencing,
ensuring sales representatives and management can view & edit information based on
their specific territory, sales team, and organizational profiles.
Supported Contracts
Enterprise PIM (outlook, lotus), mobile email applications, LDAP,

Lead Management
Application Identifier: 03.05.04.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Lead Management assigns leads to the appropriate Sales Account manager as well as
manages relationships between leads and various campaigns.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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03.06 M/S Mass Market Sales

Management

Figure 9: 03.06 M/S Mass Market Sales Management

Description
To Be Added

Mass Market Sales Management

Application Identifier: 03.06
Overview
The Mass Market Sales Management application provides the necessary functionality to
manage the sale to a residential or small business customer.

Collection of data about the customer

Qualification of the customer

Management of personalized offers to the customer

Negotiation of the actual sale

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Sales reporting & tracking

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer/Prospect Data Acquisition

Application Identifier: 03.06.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Customer/Prospect Data Acquisition obtains all necessary information to make a sale.
The prospect could be a new or current customer. Customer/Prospect Data Acquisition
includes information about the service location, billing address, demographic information
about the customer, any existing products and services the customer currently has, as well
as the customer's needs (requirements).
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Qualification
Application Identifier: 03.06.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Customer Qualification provides necessary functionality to consider the customer's credit
as well as product eligibility and product availability at the customer location.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Credit Eligibility

Application Identifier: 03.06.02.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality

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Customer Credit Eligibility looks at the credit of the customer, considering the payment
history with the service provider as well as the credit scores with external credit agencies.
This will likely be implemented via a series of contracts to service provider billing systems
as well as appropriate external credit agencies along with applied business rules.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Product & Service Availability

Application Identifier: 03.06.02.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Product Availability provides necessary functionality to see what products are generally
available in the customer area, as well as what products are being marketed by the service
provider.

As appropriate, Service Availability checks are also done, where based on the customer
service location, service feasibility checks are done to assure the product/service can
actually be provided to the customer. This implies that the customer location is clearly
established.

As appropriate, consideration of the customers current product & service subscription is

considered as part of what can be further provided to him, including bundling, product
eligibility, etc.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Mass Market Sales Workflow Management

Application Identifier: 03.06.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Mass Market Sales Workflow Management application provides necessary
customizable workflow across the entire Mass Market Sales Management suite of
functionality.
Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Offer Management
Application Identifier: 03.06.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Offer Management provides the necessary functionality to provide the customer
personalized offers, taking into account the customer location, needs, current products, as
well as the service provider's products, sales emphasis and targets, etc.
Offer Management might include some additional "discovery" with the customer, and can
occur at any time during an interaction between a customer and the service provider.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Sales Negotiation
Application Identifier: 03.06.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Sales Negotiation provides the necessary functionality to negotiate the sale by providing
multiple quotations as needed, taking into account the customer data, customer
qualification, and offers made. Functionality includes access to products, product pricing,
scheduling of appointments if a dispatch is necessary, etc.

Sales Negotiation generates an order request.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Mass Market Sales Reporting & Tracking

Application Identifier: 03.06.06
Overview
To Be Added

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Functionality
Mass Market Sales Reporting & Tracking monitors sales performance at various levels
from all sales channels. It includes the quotas and results against those quotas from an
individual level up to a company level per service provider organizational composition.
Since the information is highly sensitive, authorization mechanisms shall be in place.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

03.07 M/S Sales Portals

Sales
Portals

Customer Sales
Portals

Internal Sales
Portals

Indirect Sales
Portals

Figure 10: 03.07 M/S Sales Portals

Description
To Be Added

Sales Portals
Application Identifier: 03.07
Overview
Sales Portals provides a single entry place for sellers to access various sales tools.
Functionality
Provides a single entry place for sellers to access various sales tools.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Customer Sales Portals

Application Identifier: 03.07.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Customer Sales Portals provides access to appropriate sales tools for potential or existing
customers.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Internal Sales Portals

Application Identifier: 03.07.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Internal Sales Portals provides appropriate sales tools to sales groups "internal" to the
service provider.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Indirect Sales Portals

Application Identifier: 03.07.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Indirect Sales Portals provides appropriate sales tools to companies selling the service
provider's products (e.g., affiliates, VNOs, dealers)
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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04.0 Product Management Domain

Product Management Domain
Product
Strategy /
Proposition
Management

Product /
Service
Catalog
Management

Product
Lifecycle
Management

Product
Performance
Management

Figure 11: 04.0 Product Management Domain

Description
Product Management is the organizations approach to the process of developing,
managing and marketing its products offerings to the customer. Product Management is
about identifying what products to sell, what they are comprised of, who they are sold to,
how they are sold, supported and serviced, how they perform in the market and how they
are managed through to retirement. Product Management contains four key facets:

Product Strategy / Proposition Management

Product Catalog Management

Product Lifecycle Management

Product Performance Management

04.01 Product Strategy / Proposition

Management

Product
Strategy /
Proposition
Management

Figure 12: 04.01 Product Strategy / Proposition Management

Description

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Product Strategy is an action plan for meeting the objectives of an operating strategy via
the products sold to the marketplace. Product Propositions are ideas on how the strategy
will be realized through products sold within specific target markets. Product Strategy /
Proposition Management is therefore the ability to capture and manage the detail of a
companys strategy and resulting propositions, that then drive what products they will
develop, deliver and sell. This capability allows the management of this information at the
enterprise level, across the different operating groups and market units within which the
enterprise operates. Finally, it provides the ability to link the product propositions to the
actual sellable products in order to track how the product strategy is actually be delivered
into the marketplace.
The ability to hold this information enables downstream performance reporting to validate
or negate a companys product strategy and underlying propositions.

Product Strategy / Proposition Management

Application Identifier: 04.01
Overview
Product Strategy is an action plan for meeting the objectives of an operating strategy via
the products sold to the marketplace. Product Propositions are ideas on how the strategy
will be realized through products sold within specific target markets. Product Strategy /
Proposition Management is therefore the ability to capture and manage the detail of a
companys strategy and resulting propositions, that then drive what products they will
develop, deliver and sell. This capability allows the management of this information at the
enterprise level, across the different operating groups and market units within which the
enterprise operates. Finally, it provides the ability to link the product propositions to the
actual sellable products in order to track how the product strategy is actually be delivered
into the marketplace.
The ability to hold this information enables downstream performance reporting to validate
or negate a companys product strategy and underlying propositions.
Functionality
Key application functions include:

Capture and manage details of the strategy

Organize the propositions by operations (e.g., which operating groups are delivering
which propositions and where are the crossovers)

Link strategy to propositions

Link propositions to products

Project manage the delivery of strategy through propositions through products

Enable performance reporting of the strategy, driven by the performance of the

underlying products

Supported Contracts
To be added

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04.02 Product / Service Catalog

Management

Product /
Service
Catalog
Management

Figure 13: 04.02 Product / Service Catalog Management

Description
The definition of a product is an item that satisfies a markets want or need. Product /
Service Catalog Management is the ability to create and maintain products that can be
sold to customers in the target market. More specifically, it is the ability to explicitly model
the structure of a product, then create and centrally manage the instances (or catalog) of
products based upon that structure. Products are not always discreet, single items. A
product can be a number of components associated together and sold as a single
purchasable entity. Therefore the product may be comprised of multiple components,
tangible or intangible, such as services, features, devices, etc, that are assembled
together to form a single sellable entity. Some of the components within a product will be
enabled by shared / common / reusable services (e.g., location finder). Some of the
components within a product will be enabled by shared / common / reusable resources
(e.g., network exchange). These underlying services and resources may be managed by
different parts of the organization.
The Product Management organization is typically responsible for managing the Product /
Service Catalogue through the assembly and update of products utilizing available
components.

Product / Service Catalog Management

Application Identifier: 04.02
Overview
The definition of a product is an item that satisfies a markets want or need. Product /
Service Catalog Management is the ability to create and maintain products that can be
sold to customers in the target market. More specifically, it is the ability to explicitly model
the structure of a product, then create and centrally manage the instances (or catalog) of
products based upon that structure. Products are not always discreet, single items. A
product can be a number of components associated together and sold as a single
purchasable entity. Therefore the product may be comprised of multiple components,
tangible or intangible, such as services, features, devices, etc, that are assembled
together to form a single sellable entity. Some of the components within a product will be
enabled by shared / common / reusable services (e.g., location finder). Some of the
components within a product will be enabled by shared / common / reusable resources
(e.g., network exchange). These underlying services and resources may be managed by
different parts of the organization.

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The Product Management organization is typically responsible for managing the Product /
Service Catalogue through the assembly and update of products utilizing available
components.
Functionality
Key application functions of Product / Service Catalog Management are thus:

Contain the complete data model for the product structure entities and the
relationships that govern the behavior of a product and its underlying components

Create and maintain product instances based on the common product structure, to
form the centralized product catalog

Create and maintain the different components that can comprise a product

Create and maintain the parent / child / peer relationships between components to
formulate the complete product instance

Reuse components in different product instances

Create and maintain the logical representation of services

Create and maintain the relationships between components and their underlying
services and resources

Provide the complete master view of the product instances to external functions /
applications / etc

End-to-end Product Data Management, which includes the activities and tools to
manage and retain data on all products for a given enterprise. While a data repository
is key to supporting these activities, collaboration workspaces are also generally in
use in this area as well. These tend to be highly configurable information repositories,
and are also generally supported by role based workflow engines. Navigation and
search capabilities are prevalent in this area as well. The functional groupings here
may include (but will not be limited to):
o

Product detailed specifications

Product Bill of Materials (BOM)

Contractual information

Product historical information

Document management

Configuration management

Engineering change management

Interoperability and data integration with Product Catalog

The diagram below illustrates the key data categories that comprise the product model in a
product / service catalog and the relationship that data has to other applications:

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Figure 14: Product Catalog Applications

Typical Product Management applications may contain the following functions:

Products and services offered

Product business hierarchy

Commercial product hierarchy

Rules relating to offers including pre-requisites and embellishment options,

relationships with other offers and parameters

Product/customer profile mapping

Availability Rules

Product / Service validity period

Lifecycle of a product/ offer including its projected replacement date

Service levels available.

The financial catalog typically contains:

Rating attributes

Tariff information

Settlement information

Service level information

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Billing and settlement attributes

Tax rules (not customer specific)

One time charges

Recurring charges

Settlement rules

Discount information

Contractual matters relating to offer (e.g. revenue sharing arrangements, service level
agreements)

Product Cost

The Technical catalogue typically contains: Provisioning Information necessary to

build the workflow to provision the services e.g. sequence in which service should be
provisioned.

The Physical catalogue typically contains: Physical equipment to be provided as part of an

offering
The Product entity catalogue typically defines the relationship of a product / service to
another product / service for the purpose of locating the products across the distributed
databases. E.g. includes parent / child relationship of the hierarchy using a common
reference ID for each of the product catalog locations.
Application services that should be available from the Product / Service Catalog
Management capability of Product Management include the following:
Supported Contracts
(Note: In this context the term Service is being used as an application service (i.e. API)
and not the SID definition of Service as it pertains to telecommunications.)

Get product offering/component effective duration: Retrieves product effective date

information from the catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria for
product offering or product component.

Get product offering/component sales availability duration: Retrieves product sales

availability date information from the catalog based on input unique ID or other search
criteria for product offering or product component.

Get product offering/component characteristics: Retrieves product characteristic

content information from the catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria
for product offering or product component, in addition to criteria to identify a
characteristic.

Get product offering/component characteristic duration: Retrieves product

offering/component characteristic duration information from the catalog based on input
unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or product component, in
addition to criteria to identify a characteristic.

Get product offering/component characteristic version: Retrieves product

offering/component characteristic version information based on input unique ID or
other search criteria for product offering or product component. Can be applied
against prior or future versions of product offering/component characteristics.

Get product offering/component pricing: Retrieves product offering/component pricing

information based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or
product component.

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Get product offering/component costing: Retrieves product offering/component cost

information based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or
product component.

Get product offering/component description: Retrieves product offering/component

descriptive information based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product
offering or product component.

Get product offering/component structure: Retrieves product offering/component

structural information (such as related/child product offering/components) based on
input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or product component.

Get entities where product/component used: Retrieves other entities within the catalog
(i.e. Tariffs, Discounts) based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product
offering or product component.

Get master product offering/component ID: Retrieves product catalog master ID

based on input unique related ID or other search criteria for product offering or
product component. This service is used to maintain product offering/component
synchronization between other systems.

Get campaigns which relate to product offering/component offering: Retrieves

Campaigns within the catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria for
product offering or product component.

Get discounts which relate to product offering/component offering: Retrieves

Discounts within the catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria for
product offering or product component.

Check operational compatibility (between product offering/component): Determines

whether two product offering/components are compatible from an operational
standpoint, based on input of multiple input unique IDs or other search criteria for
product offerings or product components.

Check customer compatibility (between product offerings/components and customer):

Determines whether a customer and a product offering/component are compatible
based on input of input unique ID or other search criteria for product offerings or
product components and customer attributes.

Get product offering/component SLA: Retrieves Service Level Agreement from the
catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or
product component.

Get product offering/component BOM: Retrieves Bill of Materials list from the catalog
based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or product
component.

Get available product offering/component contracts: Retrieves associated Contracts

from the catalog based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering
or product component.

04.03 Product Lifecycle

Management

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Product
Lifecycle
Management

Figure 15: 04.03 Product Lifecycle Management

Description
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is responsible for the managing the entire lifecycle
of the product and its underlying components. This includes all of the processes required
to design, build, deploy, maintain and ultimately retire the product. Product Lifecycle
Management includes those activities and tools used to define new products and updates
to existing products. Generally these activities require a significant degree of
collaboration, often across multiple geographic locations. This could even include the
gathering of customer needs/preferences and mapping those to current and future product
capabilities. There will also be a significant use of project and program management
activities and tools to satisfy these functional areas.

Product Lifecycle Management

Application Identifier: 04.03
Overview
Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is responsible for the managing the entire lifecycle
of the product and its underlying components. This includes all of the processes required
to design, build, deploy, maintain and ultimately retire the product. Product Lifecycle
Management includes those activities and tools used to define new products and updates
to existing products. Generally these activities require a significant degree of
collaboration, often across multiple geographic locations. This could even include the
gathering of customer needs/preferences and mapping those to current and future product
capabilities. There will also be a significant use of project and program management
activities and tools to satisfy these functional areas.
Functionality
A PLM application should support the following major functions:

Solicit product requirements

Model products

Provide detailed product specifications

Introduce new products

Manage existing products

Obsolesce/retire products

Implement marketing & offer strategies

Supported Contracts

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Application services that should be available from the PLM capability of Product
management include the following:
(Note: In this context the term Service is being used as an application service (i.e. API,
Web Service) and not the SID definition of Service as it pertains to telecommunications.)

Get product lifecycle state: Retrieves the current lifecycle state for the product offering
or product component based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product
offering or product component.

Get prior lifecycle state: Retrieves the previous lifecycle state for the product offering
or product component based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product
offering or product component.

Get next lifecycle state: Retrieves the next lifecycle state for the product offering or
product component based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product
offering or product component.

Get lifecycle state owner/group: Retrieves information about the person or group
responsible for the current lifecycle state of the product offering or product component
based on input unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or product
component.

Get lifecycle state expiration: Retrieves the expiration of the current lifecycle state for
the product offering or product component based on input unique ID or other search
criteria for product offering or product component.

Get lifecycle state jeopardy/SLA: Retrieves the jeopardy/timeout information for the
current lifecycle state for the product offering or product component based on input
unique ID or other search criteria for product offering or product component.

04.04 Product Performance

Management

Product
Performance
Management

Figure 16: 04.04 Product Performance Management

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Description
Product Performance Management includes the activities and tools that gather and
analyze data regarding the efficacy of the product strategy, propositions and products
based upon their performance in the marketplace.

Product Performance Management

Application Identifier: 04.04
Overview
Product Performance Management includes the activities and tools that gather and
analyze data regarding the efficacy of the product strategy, propositions and products
based upon their performance in the marketplace.
Functionality
Performance factors typically gathered as part of Product Performance Management
include:

Product campaign tracking

Product revenue reporting

Product cost reporting

Product capacity analysis

Product Cost Management includes the activities and tools used to

Optimize product inventory

Determine product/component sourcing

The information yielded from Product Performance Management will aid the organization
in making Product Lifecycle Management and Product Data Management decisions,
specifically what changes to make to the product definition and / or what to do with the
product in its lifecycle.
Supported Contracts
To be added

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05.0 Customer Management Domain

Figure 17: 05.0 Customer Management Domain

Description
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) processes and functions are defined by the
eTOM (TMF GB 921) as the process grouping that considers the fundamental knowledge
of customers needs and includes all functionalities necessary for the acquisition,
enhancement and retention of a relationship with a customer.

The customer as defined by the e-TOM e-business reference model is responsible for
ordering, using and (usually) paying for service products. The customer may represent an
end-customer, where the product provided by the value network is consumed, or a
wholesale customer that resells the product provided, generally with some added value.
The customer may also be a corporate customer that potentially has many contact people,
departments, sites, services and billing accounts with the service provider.

CRM encompasses the end to end lifecycle of the customer, from customer
initiation/acquisition, sales, ordering and service activation, customer care and support,
proactive campaigns, cross sell/up sell and retention/loyalty. CRM needs to involve all the
touch points and channels to the customer, including contact center, retail stores, dealers,
self service, and field service, as well as via any media (phone, face to face, web, mobile
device, Chat, Email, SMS, mail, the customers bill, etc.).

As an example, the following diagram describes the typical work flow of customer service
representatives (CSRs) of Communication Service Providers (Diagram Figure 7: Typical
work flow of Customer Service Representatives).

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Another significant component of CRM evolves around marketing activities. This includes
retention management, cross-selling, up-selling and direct marketing for the purpose of
selling to customers. CRM also includes the collection of customer information and its
application to personalize, customize and integrate delivery of service to a customer, as
well as to identify opportunities for increasing the value of the customer to the enterprise.

In the Telecom Applications Map, a number of systems and applications provide these
functions. Typically an operator may have the following applications:

05.01 Customer Information

Management

Customer
Information
Management

Figure 18: 05.01 Customer Information Management

Description
Customer Information Management is a core piece of any CRM solution. This is an
application that is used by all users across all channels, to allow creation, update,
lookup/search and view of customer information. Customer Information includes, but is not
limited to, the following:

Customer Information Management

Application Identifier: 05.01
Overview
Customer Information Management is a core piece of any CRM solution. This is an
application that is used by all users across all channels, to allow creation, update,
lookup/search and view of customer information. Customer Information includes, but is not
limited to, the following:
Functionality

Customer name

Contact persons for this customer

Account managers for this customer

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Customer Addresses (residence, billing, etc.)

Customer contact phone numbers (landline, mobile, fax, etc.)

Customer organizational hierarchy (relevant for household, business and corporate

customers)

The customers existing products/services (linked to Customer Order Management)

The customers billing accounts (linked to Billing Account Management). The CRM
application should be capable of linking multiple Billing Accounts that may be
managed by different billing systems (e.g., for different lines of business

The customers current and past orders (linked to Customer Order Management)

The customers current and past trouble tickets (linked to Customer Service / Account
problem resolution)

The customers interactions with the Service Provider via all channels (This is related
to the Customer Contact Management Retention & Loyalty)

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.02 Transactional Document

Production

Figure 19: Transactional Document Production

Description
Transactional Document Production applications can be used in the telecommunications
activities that require bills, invoices, letters and statements to be created for subscribers. It
can be deployed by any organization that provides these services.
Transactional Document Production applications can process numeric, text and image
content into print-ready and web-ready streams that can be reproduced using a predefined
template on a variety of media. For instance, telecommunications companies can process

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data from a billing system into standard industry print streams to produce paper bills.

Transactional Document Production

Application Identifier: 05.02
Overview
Transactional Document Production applications can be used in the telecommunications
activities that require bills, invoices, letters and statements to be created for subscribers. It
can be deployed by any organization that provides these services.
Transactional Document Production applications can process numeric, text and image
content into print-ready and web-ready streams that can be reproduced using a predefined
template on a variety of media. For instance, telecommunications companies can process
data from a billing system into standard industry print streams to produce paper bills.
Functionality
A Transactional Document Production system has the following features:

Transactional Document Formatter used to develop a transactional document such

as a bill or letter by specifying the format template, the data input source specification,
and the associated runtime rules that ties the data input to the format template.

Transactional Document Generator - processes extract files provided by other

modules (typically Billing) to produce an intermediate data format.

Document Archiving used to store compressed transactional document for future

retrieval e.g. by customer care, self care or reprint.

Document Delivery This is the final runtime executable that creates the desired
print, web, PDF, XML or ASCII print files from the document production engine.

Supported Contracts
Consumed Contracts

Billing application

Receivables Management

Customer Information Management

Campaign Management

Order Management

Selling

Collections Management

Exposed Contracts

Document print fulfillment

Electronic Bill Presentment and Payment (EBPP)

CSR

External Electronic Data Processing (EEDP)

Email systems

External offline storage systems

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Transactional Document Formatter

Application Identifier: 05.02.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Transactional Document Formatter is used to:

Develop and maintain the bill or letter template

Develop and maintain business rules for the template usage

Define the data input source specification for run time production

Define the binding rules between the input data and the template format

Define and maintain resources (font, colors, images and language) for the template

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Transactional Document Generator

Application Identifier: 05.02.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Transactional Document Generator function:

Formats document information in the customer selected or default format

Incorporates marketing messages

Displays tax id numbers and other legally mandated information in accordance with
region specific requirements

Aggregates multiple accounts, and generates an appropriate invoice/billing statement

(if a billing statement).

Formats section legends (summary, call detail, etc) based on regulatory requirements.

Sends data to downstream interfaces, such as finance, warehouse, etc.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Document Delivery
Application Identifier: 05.02.03

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Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of Document Delivery is to take the output of Transactional Document
Generator, and make it available via paper, CD-ROM, DVD, EDI, electronic, etc, as
specified by the customer.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Document Archiving
Application Identifier: 05.02.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Document Archiving is used to store compressed transactional documents for future
retrieval e.g. by customer care, self care or reprint. Functionality includes:

Compression and storage of transactional document data

Retrieval mechanisms for external systems. External systems can be customer care,
self care or offline storage systems.

Archive maintenance and administrative functions. Typical documents are stored

online for short periods. Maintenance implies offloading to external storage depending
on retention periods.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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05.03 Customer Order Management

Figure 20: 05.03 Customer Order Management

Description
To Be Added

Customer Order Management

Application Identifier: 05.03
Overview

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Customer Order Management applications manage the end to end lifecycle of a customer
request for products. This includes order establishment (step guiding, data collection and
validation), order publication as well as order orchestration and overall lifecycle
management. A customer request pertain also already purchased product(s). Thus the
Customer Order Management application handles order requests to suspend, resume,
change ownership, amend, add, change and discontinue existing ordered products.
Customer Order Management application should support repackaging of the purchased
offers into alternate product offering (may require sales/contract negotiation). Customer
Order Management applications typically serve all the customer touch points / channels,
including call center, retail, self service, dealers, affiliates, etc. The order may be initiated
by any channel and visible to the other channels if needed.
Functionality
Customer Order Management applications provide the following key functionality:

Customer Order Establishment

Customer Order Publication

Customer Order Orchestration

Customer Order Lifecycle Management

Supported Contracts

Customer Information Management

Product Catalog

Provisioning Request (on Product Orders) and notification tracking

Channels (Self Service, Retail, Dealers, etc.)

Billing / Collection / Receivables

Service Resource Management

Workforce management

Inventory Management / Network Discovery engine

Credit Bureau Service

Address Validation and Completion

Serviceability check request (on Product orders)

Intelligent Network (for prepaid activation)

General Ledger

Document Management (search scanned contracts and product literature)

Customer Order Establishment

Application Identifier: 05.03.01
Overview
To Be Added

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Functionality
The Customer Order Establishment application is responsible for the acquisition of an
order. Orders can be formed interactively stepwise, complete request response or batch.
In interactive stepwise mode, the order establishment application is guiding a front end
channels through the required steps to form a valid order. In a request response mode, the
order establishment is checking the order request and responds accordingly.
Customer Order Establishment includes:

Channel guidance and data capture - guide the channel for the captured information
required and receive the captured information (applies for interactive stepwise mode
only)

Customer and Product data Collection

Product Offering Availability

Customer Order Validation

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Channel Guidance and Data Capture

Application Identifier: 05.03.01.01
Overview
Channel Guidance and Data Capture leads the specific channel front ending application
with the captured information required. For each information element it can provide a list of
valid options to select from (e.g. list of products available for the customer, list of options to
select from a product). Finally it receives the captured information and publishes it.
Functionality
The Channel guidance and data capture functionality includes:

Step guidance guide the channel with the specific information items to be collected
(e.g. customer identification, required product / order and the pertinent data for the
order).

Validation guidance for each information element, may provide set of valid input

Captured information reception receive the captured data from the channel. Take
care of persistence using Customer Order Lifecycle Management.

Customer search - search the existing customer base using various criteria (name,
address, subscriber number, equipment id, billing account number, etc.) and find the
customer record to add the order (using Customer Information Management).

Customer registration register a new customer if this is a new customer (using

Customer Information Management).

Product catalog browsing identify products available for purchase by a given

customer, provide relevant information (e.g. cost, requirements, configurable
attributes) to the customer. This information will be used in the step guidance.

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Ordered product versioning identify product information that were applicable at the
original ordering time.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer and Product Data Collection

Application Identifier: 05.03.01.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer and Product Data Collection Application gathers customer and product data
to aid in verification and issuance of a complete and valid customer order.
This application handles inter product dependency. It identifies product dependency, binds
new order to purchased product or point to the dependent product required.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Product Offering Availability

Application Identifier: 05.03.01.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Product Offering Availability application validates:

Eligibility

Serviceability

Eligibility: Business criteria determining if the offer is valid for this customer. (e.g. credit
class limitations, customer type).
Serviceability: the product or products specified on the customer order request are
available in the customer's area, and optionally at the specified customer location.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Order Validation

Application Identifier: 05.03.01.04

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Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer Order Validation application validates the customer order request based on
contract, catalog, provisioning, and billing rules. It also includes address validation and
due date confirmation.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Order Publication

Application Identifier: 05.03.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer Order Publication application issues valid and complete customer orders,
and stores the order into an appropriate data store. As part of order publication, additional
data might be obtained or derived to support downstream functions that are not provided
by the ordering agent or customer.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Order Orchestration

Application Identifier: 05.03.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer Order Orchestration application provides workflow and orchestration
capability across Customer Order Management. This application will have the ability to
either orchestrate via triggering another application to retrieve the order request from a
common data repository or distribute the customer order and/or order requests. This
application also provides functionality to track and manage the overall customer order.
It also allows for the submission of a retro-active order with a past effective date (e.g.
retroactive price plan change) and the handling of manual intervention requests (for order
fallouts).
Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Customer Order Distribution

Application Identifier: 05.03.03.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer Order Distribution application decomposes the customer order into product
order requests (e.g. bundle decomposition). It may also decompose the product order into
service orders requests and then distributes each request to appropriate Service Order
Management applications.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Order Tracking & Management

Application Identifier: 05.03.03.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Customer Order Tracking & Management application performs the following:

Oversees the transfer of the distributed requests to appropriate internal factories,

affiliates or partners.

Tracks the various distributed orders until completed.

Provides status on overall customer order.

Raises jeopardies as appropriate if specified dates and milestones are not met and
escalates jeopardies to appropriate management levels.

Create and manage customer order worklists. This can include the need to contact
the customer to inform them of a change in the customer order.

Completes the customer order when all distributed orders have been completed.

Sequences distributed order provisioning if required.

Buffers - Submit an order to be processed at a future date

Notifies billing and maintenance when order has been completed.

The above capabilities needs to be provided in both an ability to query in real time as well
as a publish/subscribe mechanism to enable the use of the information wherever required.
The Customer Order Tracking & Management overlooks the orders as a whole and
provides:

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Maintaining order pool requiring manual intervention

Grouping of order actions if appropriate so they can be executed synchronously.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Order Lifecycle Management

Application Identifier: 05.03.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality

Maintain pending orders - Save the order/quote for future processing (in case the
customer is not sure they want to go through with the order at this point)

Maintain order versioning

Tracking & Logging Track changes made to purchased product

Order Change Management Amend pending order resulted from customer change
requests or provisioning system limitation, revalidate the order.

Order Cancelation The application can optionally support Cancel for order
completed by Service Order Management (this capability is dependent on the Service
Order Management systems ability to roll back service provisioning).

Ordering Business rules Centralized business rules for ordering (eligibility,

compatibility).

Ordering Activity Governance Govern the control of the order amongst the ordering
channels. This allows keeping the order data consistency, sharing the order data
among order application channels and alternating the control between them.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.04 Customer Self Management

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Customer Self
Management

Customer Self
Empowered
Fulfillment

Customer Self
Empowered
Assurance

Customer Self
Empowered
Billing

Figure 21: 05.04 Customer Self Management

Description
Customer self empowered applications provide an internet technology driven interface to
the customer to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These
applications interact to provide fully automated service or assisted service over various
customers touch points. Although customer self management applications primarily trigger
functionality defined in the rest of the CRM, Service Management and Resource
Management applications, they should also contain functionality specific to customer self
empowerment. As service providers shift to multidimensional services, new business
realities require self service systems to support the following criteria:

One-and-done fulfillment across service portfolio (cf. Order Management Applications)

Multi-disciplinary customer service (cf. Customer Service / Account Problem

resolution applications)

Sync multi-channel interoperability

Total convergent self directed billing (view/pay/dispute all) (cf. Front Office Customer
Billing Management applications)

Reconciliation interoperability Personalization and usability

Visualization of SLAs across subscribed services (cf. Customer Service / Account

Problem resolution applications)

Portfolio driven guided selling (cf. Product Catalogue, Product Lifecycle Management
applications)

Leveraging the 360 degree customer view (cf. Customer Information Management
Application)

Customer self management applications enable service providers to increase

profitability across the organization by optimizing the customer experience and
maximizing the efficiency of business operations through:

Rapid order-to-activation mechanism across service portfolio

Commodity like enablement for telecom services (rapid introduction; easy

amendment; cross bundling)

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Universal platform supporting multiple users (consumers; business; dealers) and

multiple LOBs (wire line; wireless; IPTV) though single point of contact

Reducing costs through operating efficiencies

These operations expect to gain more customer loyalty, service stickiness and ARPU for
the service provider. A primordial factor for increasing ARPU through self empowered
systems is high usability. High usability requires channel agnostic consistency and
seamless customer experience leveraging functionality that is driven from sporadic
backend systems. For that, self empowered systems should provide integration readiness
through several vehicles:

Pre-integrated self service system including stand-alone web framework or integration

front end with a portal engine

Self services layer exposing atomic Webservices/APIs for reuse by multiple systems
across the architectural environment

Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a

portal engine or web application.

Typically the portal to the customer is via a web-based interface. Customer self care is
increasingly popular with both customers and operators as it usually provides access to
information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and does not have the frustration of waiting for
a free call agent. Customer self-care systems can take a number of forms from a
controlled secure window application into the underlying OSS systems used internally by
the operator for the customer to view and pay his invoices to a complete portal where the
customer can manage his entire relationship with the operator. Customer Self
Management applications need to provide a level of security to protect both the customers
data and the integrity of the underlying systems. They should also be capable of providing
single sign on capabilities to access Business and Operational Support Systems.
In functional terms customer self-management generally provides a comprehensive
collection of self-service functionality supporting all stages of the customer life cycle,
Registration and fulfillment, Assurance and Billing Management activities. As the various
features provided for customer lifecycle management are often portlet type applications
that are integrated to a CSPs overall customer self management portal, the self
management applications can be broken down into 3 major applications:

Customer Self Empowered Fulfillment Applications

Customer Self Empowered Assurance Applications

Customer Self Empowered Billing Applications

These will be discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Customer Self Management

Application Identifier: 05.04
Overview
Customer self empowered applications provide an internet technology driven interface to
the customer to undertake a variety of business functions directly for themselves. These
applications interact to provide fully automated service or assisted service over various
customers touch points. Although customer self management applications primarily trigger
functionality defined in the rest of the CRM, Service Management and Resource
Management applications, they should also contain functionality specific to customer self
empowerment. As service providers shift to multidimensional services, new business
realities require self service systems to support the following criteria:

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One-and-done fulfillment across service portfolio (cf. Order Management Applications)

Multi-disciplinary customer service (cf. Customer Service / Account Problem

resolution applications)

Sync multi-channel interoperability

Total convergent self directed billing (view/pay/dispute all) (cf. Front Office Customer
Billing Management applications)

Reconciliation interoperability

Personalization and usability

Visualization of SLAs across subscribed services (cf. Customer Service / Account

Problem resolution applications)

Portfolio driven guided selling (cf. Product Catalogue, Product Lifecycle Management
applications)

Leveraging the 360 degree customer view (cf. Customer Information Management
Application)

Customer self management applications enable service providers to increase profitability

across the organization by optimizing the customer experience and maximizing the
efficiency of business operations through:

Rapid order-to-activation mechanism across service portfolio

Commodity like enablement for telecom services (rapid introduction; easy

amendment; cross bundling)

Universal platform supporting multiple users (consumers; business; dealers) and

multiple LOBs (wire line; wireless; IPTV) though single point of contact

Reducing costs through operating efficiencies

Pre-integrated self service system including stand-alone web framework or integration

front end with a portal engine

Self services layer exposing atomic Webservices/APIs for reuse by multiple systems
across the architectural environment

Portlets driven connectivity exposing data and services interoperability through a

portal engine or web application.

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Functionality
In functional terms customer self-management generally provides a comprehensive
collection of self-service functionality supporting all stages of the customer life cycle,
Registration and fulfillment, Assurance and Billing Management activities. As the various
features provided for customer lifecycle management are often portlet type applications
that are integrated to a CSPs overall customer self management portal, the self
management applications can be broken down into 3 major applications:

Customer Self Empowered Fulfillment Applications

Customer Self Empowered Assurance Applications

Customer Self Empowered Billing Applications

These will be discussed in more detail in the following sections.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Customer Self Empowered Fulfillment

Application Identifier: 05.04.01
Overview
Customer self empowered fulfillment applications provide an internet technology driven
interface to the customer to undertake a variety of fulfillment functions directly for
themselves. These applications interact to provide fully automated service or assisted
service over all customer self management touch points. These applications tend enable
rapid order-to-activation while reducing operating costs through improved efficiency and
integrated flow-through-fulfillment. Todays communications products and services carry
commodity oriented attributes requiring easy activation, amendment and consumption,
rapid and comprehensive introduction to customers while bringing together customer
consumption interests and service providers business interests in a seamless and
consistent manner.
It is assumed that the user is not as savvy as the employee at the call center. The
customer experience should support a simple flow that capitalizes from the advanced
application flows defined by the order management applications (cf. Order Management
Applications).
Functionality
In functional terms customer self-empowered fulfillment generally provides a
comprehensive collection of self-service functionality supporting all stages of the customer
facing fulfillment cycle, including

Product Catalogue and Offerings browsing (versioning driven)

Guided selling driven view for offer eligibility

Shopping cart driven order management:

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Check Compatibility

Quote Price

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Order Status

Payment capture

Installation preferences capture

SLA preferences capture

Account creation for anonymous user

Assigned products maintenance

Rate plans amendment

Alerts and notifications setting

Access to Knowledge Management database & solutions to common problems

Access to Call center agents

Reports on fulfillment and SLA aspects

Corporate customers should benefit from additional features as required for their daily
tasks:

Bulk ordering

Customer hierarchy driven ordering

Mass changes (activation; configuration)

Eligibility management for the business customer admin

Organizational approval process

Equipment management (allocation; activation)

Supported Contracts

Order Management

Billing Management

Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution

Service Problem Resolution for Order exception handling

Customer Information Management

Knowledge Management

SLA Dashboard

Activation and Provisioning

Resource Management

Customer Self Empowered Assurance

Application Identifier: 05.04.02
Overview
Customer self empowered assurance applications provide an internet technology driven
interface to the customer to undertake a variety of assurance functions directly for
themselves. These applications interact to provide fully automated service or assisted
service over customers touch points. These applications create enablement for customers

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to assure the service level that they benefit from their service provider.
Functionality
Self empowered assurance applications include the following features:

Account management (such as contact attributes)

Self registration to online services

Service requests management:

Service request submission

Service request amendment

Service request closure

Users management

Alerts and notifications setting

Address book management

Access to Knowledge Management database & solutions to common problems

Access to call center agents

Reports on service requests and SLA across services

Corporate customers should benefit from additional features as required for their daily
tasks:

Users and roles management

Mass changes

Contacts management

Customer hierarchy driven service requests

Organizational approval flow

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Supported Contracts

Order Management

Billing Management

Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution

Service Problem Resolution for trouble ticket handling

Customer Information Management

Knowledge Management

SLA Dashboard (for incident and entitlement tracking)

Activation and Provisioning

Resource Management

Customer Self Empowered Billing

Application Identifier: 05.04.03
Overview
Customer self empowered billing applications provide an internet technology driven
interface to the customer to undertake a variety of billing functions directly for themselves.
These applications interact to provide fully automated service or assisted service over
customers touch points. Customer self empowered billing applications enable the service
providers cost reduction through the following operational efficiencies:

Replacing paper bills with paperless bills

Converging the multi- disciplinary billing operations

Deflecting bill queries calls from the contact center to the web

Automating the dispute resolution process

Reducing days sales outstanding (DSO)

Reducing requests for bill prints

Reduction in professional personnel providing analytics for business customers

Reduction in interest loss due to delayed payments

Functionality
Self empowered billing applications include the following web based features:

Bill view

Unbilled charges view

Usage view

Payment capture

Dispute capture and resolution

Usage and charges comparison

Penalties view

Address book driven usage view

Split statement for demarcation between calls

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Calls assignment for classification of usage

Reports on usage and charges

Corporate customers should benefit from additional features as required for their daily
tasks:

Cost center analysis

Customer hierarchies driven billing operations

Organizational reports on usage and charges

Organizational approval process (such as for payments and disputes)

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.05 Customer Contact

Management, Retention & Loyalty

Figure 22: 05.05 Customer Contact Management, Retention & Loyalty

Description
Customer contact management, retention and loyalty applications are a varied group of
functions that are generally sold as part of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
suite of applications. These applications allow an operator create, update and view the
customers information (names, addresses, phone numbers, organizational hierarchy),
record and view all customer interactions across different communication channels and
department, so that whoever is speaking to a customer can see the history of issues that
have concerned that customer, be they order issues, billing enquiries or service problems.
More sophisticated systems allow capabilities to highlight customers as risk of switching to
an alternative carrier (churn indicator) and provide comparisons with other operators
service packages to allow customer care agents to try to persuade a customer that their
current operator can provide the best value for money. These indicators can be provided
via integration to business intelligence platforms.

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Customer Contact Management, Retention & Loyalty

Application Identifier: 05.05
Overview
Customer contact management, retention and loyalty applications are a varied group of
functions that are generally sold as part of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
suite of applications. These applications allow an operator create, update and view the
customers information (names, addresses, phone numbers, organizational hierarchy),
record and view all customer interactions across different communication channels and
department, so that whoever is speaking to a customer can see the history of issues that
have concerned that customer, be they order issues, billing enquiries or service problems.
More sophisticated systems allow capabilities to highlight customers as risk of switching to
an alternative carrier (churn indicator) and provide comparisons with other operators
service packages to allow customer care agents to try to persuade a customer that their
current operator can provide the best value for money. These indicators can be provided
via integration to business intelligence platforms.
Functionality
In general, the functions provided by this application suite are:

Verify Customer Relationship. The purpose of this function is to verify that the
customer is who they claim they are. The application verifies the identity of the
customer and issues a unique Identifier and Authentication information. This function
may also be used to 'clean-up' duplicates of customer identifying information that may
exist within the organization.

Interaction Management - Provide single point of user access to end to end business
processes for Customer Acquisition and Management, Order Capture, Customer
Service, Customer and Account Management, Trouble ticketing, Billing and
Collections, Billing, Disputes, rate plan analysis. This function is used by customers
directly (via self service) or by people dealing with customers (assisted service)

Build Customer Insight - The purpose of this function is to ensure that Service
Provider and the customer feel confident that the relationship is founded on up-todate, accurate and legally compliant information. The Service Provider will incorporate
into the customer profile, all relevant information gathered through all contacts with
the customer (usage pattern, demographics, life stage, household, community of
interest, business direction). Customer and market information from other sources
may be gathered, which will build a better understanding of the customer. Customer
Information must be made available to any process that needs to access it. This
customer information will be used to continually refine the means and style of
interaction, and the solution sets and customer experience offered. This functionality
can usually be offered via script management tools.

Analyze and Manage Customer Risk - The purpose of this function is to ensure that
Risk analysis is based on information collected from all processes and that consistent
risk assessment is used across the Enterprise. Its purpose is also to track and
improve Operations, target and win the right customers, improves Sales Conversion
rate. It determines the credit risk, fraud risk, influence risk, and churn risk. It identifies
treatments to manage these risks and focuses on using customer information. This
function is usually best served through integration with Business Intelligence
platforms, with feeds provided by Charging, Collections, Accounts Receivable, and
Prepaid Balance Management applications.

Personalize Customer Profile for Retention & Loyalty - The purpose of this function is
to provide the personalization opportunities for customers that will encourage them
not to switch to another Service Provider. Personalization allows delivery of services
that more closely match the customer's need. Collection of Personalization

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Information also discourages switching since the customer would have to build up the
same personalized experience with the next Service Provider. Typical Personalization
would be enforcing customer communications through the customer preferred
communication channel, provide cross-selling and up-selling recommendations based
on customer interests and leveraging the information gathered to help the operator
build a more intimate relationship with the customer.

Validate Customer Satisfaction - The purpose of this function is to validate that

predicted/expected value is delivered by the product/service and that the after-sales
processes (billing and assurance) are initialized. It validates that the customer is
capable of realizing maximum value from the operation or use of the solution and that
intense Provider involvement is no longer needed to manage the product/service. This
process ensures that the customer is satisfied and that the product/service that was
actually delivered meets original or updated expectations and agreements and that
the product/service is operable by the customer.

Supported Contracts

Application should support integration to Media Management: Voice (CTI), Email,

Chat, Collaboration Tools

Application should support integration to Knowledge Management

Application should support integration to Quality Monitoring (ensure that the customer
experience is being met)

Application should support integration to Workforce Management & Scheduling

Verify Customer Relationship

Application Identifier: 05.05.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Analyze and Manage Customer Risk

Application Identifier: 05.05.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Interaction Management
Application Identifier: 05.05.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Personalize Customer Profile

Application Identifier: 05.05.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Build Customer Insight

Application Identifier: 05.05.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Validate Customer Satisfaction

Application Identifier: 05.05.06
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.06 Customer Service

Representative Toolbox

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Figure 23: 05.06 Customer Service Representative Toolbox

Description
Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) play critical roles in shaping the customer
experience. CSRs are increasingly expected to drive not just service and satisfaction, but
revenue opportunities through customer interactions, as well as handle interactions across
multiple channels email, web chat or phone. CSRs need the right information at the right
time, every time, to handle interactions quickly and effectively. CSRs must be empowered
with the tools necessary to efficiently and effectively handle every interaction the right way,
in a personalized manner.
The CSR toolbox addresses this need for rich interactions with the customer, comprising
of applications from the Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing domains. The CSR toolbox
provides additional functionality in a common look and feel across the applications and is
not simply a convoluted assembly of applications and processes across siloed systems.
The CSR toolbox is optimized to the CSRs needs; the user interface and controls provide
easy access to key customer information whenever needed. It integrates all of the
disparate, siloed applications the CSR needs to work with. It delivers real time, always-incontext guidance to the CSR during an interaction, as well as navigates the CSR through
business processes as they move field by field across different systems and interaction

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steps.

Customer Service Representative Toolbox

Application Identifier: 05.06
Overview
Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) play critical roles in shaping the customer
experience. CSRs are increasingly expected to drive not just service and satisfaction, but
revenue opportunities through customer interactions, as well as handle interactions across
multiple channels email, web chat or phone. CSRs need the right information at the right
time, every time, to handle interactions quickly and effectively. CSRs must be empowered
with the tools necessary to efficiently and effectively handle every interaction the right way,
in a personalized manner.
The CSR toolbox addresses this need for rich interactions with the customer, comprising
of applications from the Fulfillment, Assurance and Billing domains. The CSR toolbox
provides additional functionality in a common look and feel across the applications and is
not simply a convoluted assembly of applications and processes across siloed systems.
The CSR toolbox is optimized to the CSRs needs; the user interface and controls provide
easy access to key customer information whenever needed. It integrates all of the
disparate, siloed applications the CSR needs to work with. It delivers real time, always-incontext guidance to the CSR during an interaction, as well as navigates the CSR through
business processes as they move field by field across different systems and interaction
steps.
Functionality

Single sign-on Provides single sign-on across applications in the toolbox.

Centralized data entry Updates information in one system and automatically

populates it to all other systems (if there is a need to overcome data duplication).

Customer information dashboard Displays relevant customer information, such as

name, account and lifetime value on a persistent customer dashboard.

In-Context, configurable, workflow-driven navigation Through means such as

configurable business processes, automatically drives the CSR workflow and screen
navigation according to the context of the customer interaction and other customer
profile information across all applications used.

CSR guidance Complementary to in-context, configurable navigation, CSR

guidance intelligently guides the CSR through the interaction. Guidance can span any
subjectcross-sell, up-sell, retention, service and support, quality or training

Note that any mixture of the above two functions can coexist.

Embedded actions Embedding desktop controls with APIs or service calls to other
systems as a means to process activities such as invoice generation, device
activation, and other back-office activities.

Launch in-context Common Actions Configurable, short-cut buttons that launch key
applications and functions for streamlining actions a CSR commonly performs. (e.g.
create a case, prepare an order, update an address)

Conversational scripting Displays recommended text and scripting to guide agents

in specific conversations/dialogue tailored to each customer interaction. Also provides
branching based on customer answers.

Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

CSR fulfillment
Application Identifier: 05.06.01
Overview
A CSR fulfillment application provides front end support for the application flows defined by
the order management applications (cf. Order Management Applications).
Note: Since CSRs are required to perform sales activities, it is expected that in a future
TAM version this application will encompass front end applications from the sales domain
as well.
Functionality
CSR fulfillment functionality includes taking care of a single order, assisting orders initiated
in other channels, handling pool of orders globally, and exception handling, reporting and
analyzing the ordering activities. This includes:

Product Catalogue and Offerings browsing (versioning driven)

Order Capture and Negotiation

Order take-over & relinquish the ability to take over governance on orders handles
in other channels (e.g. self service) amend and relinquish while preserving all the
captured data.

Assigned products maintenance

Manage monitor and track specific order CSR access to a specific order

Error resolution View pool of orders resulted in error / stuck orders and enable the
CSR to act accordingly (e.g. resend the request, notify the user with recommended
action)

Jeopardy notifications View jeopardy notifications queue and enable the CSR to act
accordingly (e.g. notify customer on due date delay)

Orders administration View all outstanding orders, progress and history displays

Business / Financial / Operational reporting

Supported Contracts

Order Management

Product Catalogue

CSR assurance
Application Identifier: 05.06.02
Overview
It is expected that future versions of TAM will encompass the front end of the assurance
applications: Customer QoS/SLA Management and Customer Service/Account Problem
Resolution.
Functionality

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To be added.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

CSR billing
Application Identifier: 05.06.03
Overview
A CSR billing application provides front end functionality for the CSR in their day to day
billing related activities.
Functionality
CSR billing functionalities includes:

Billing Inquiry Dispute & Adjustment Management

Payment

Collection

Note: It is expected that future TAM version will incorporate the Billing Account
Management into the same framework.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Collection
Application Identifier: 05.06.03.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of collection application is to support the customer service representative
(CSR) in collection activities. Most of the collection activities are executed automatically
through Collection Management. The functionality includes:

Collection inquiries query treatment path and collection history

Perform manual collection activities (e.g. make call)

Payment arrangement settlement with the customer

Issue write-offs

Manual intervention in collection treatment

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Change collection policy

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Pause / Resume collection treatment

Collection agent reassignment Change the agent responsible for a specific

collection activity.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Payment
Application Identifier: 05.06.03.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of payment application is to accept customer payment via the customer
service representative (CSR). Payments are handled by Receivable Management. The
functionality includes:

Immediate payment of balance / specific invoice using existing or new pay means

Prepaid recharge using vouchers / other pay means

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.07 Customer Quality of Service &

Service Level Agreement
Management

Customer Quality of Service &

Service Level Agreement
Management

Figure 24: 05.07 Customer Quality of Service & Service Level Agreement Management

Description
Customer Quality of Service (QoS) and / Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Management(Contract and SLA Management) is a set of functions, possibly residing in

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more than one application, that assist operators in ensuring that their customers get the
level of service for which they are paying. This area is specifically implemented to enable
the operator to see the service through the eyes of the customer, i.e. customer perceived
quality. This is not to be confused with the related set of functions and applications that
exist at the service management and resource management layers to help operational
managers understand the performance of services and network resources respectively.
Customer QOS functions aim to measure the customer perceived quality of service. An
example of this is the approach taken to measure voice or video service quality as
perceived by a human being. This is known as Mean Opinion Scoring and makes an
objective measure of customer perceived quality using technologies that simulate the
human ear and human perception. Such measures may be required by legislators or be
published in league tables. Certainly operators who believe that good quality services
enable them to retain and delight customers take this area of QOS management seriously.
QOS measurements may be applied either on a per customer basis; against a group of
customers (e.g. a corporate account) or across an entire service. It may be applied where
one operator is retailing another operators wholesale service (e.g. Mobile Virtual Network
Operators)If QOS applications measure the actual level of service being offered, SLA
management applications (Contract Management) provide the ability to compare actual
QOS with the pre-agreed level of service promised and flag any jeopardizes encountered.
This is particularly important where service level guarantees (SLGs) have been
contractually offered - the primary purpose of the SLA management application(s) is to
ensure that the operator knows at any time which services to which customers may
potentially or actually be in breach of a service level guarantee.

Customer Quality of Service & Service Level Agreement Management

Application Identifier: 05.08
Overview
Customer Quality of Service (QoS) and / Service Level Agreement (SLA)
Management(Contract and SLA Management) is a set of functions, possibly residing in
more than one application, that assist operators in ensuring that their customers get the
level of service for which they are paying. This area is specifically implemented to enable
the operator to see the service through the eyes of the customer, i.e. customer perceived
quality. This is not to be confused with the related set of functions and applications that
exist at the service management and resource management layers to help operational
managers understand the performance of services and network resources respectively.
Customer QOS functions aim to measure the customer perceived quality of service. An
example of this is the approach taken to measure voice or video service quality as
perceived by a human being. This is known as Mean Opinion Scoring and makes an
objective measure of customer perceived quality using technologies that simulate the
human ear and human perception. Such measures may be required by legislators or be
published in league tables. Certainly operators who believe that good quality services
enable them to retain and delight customers take this area of QOS management seriously.
QOS measurements may be applied either on a per customer basis; against a group of
customers (e.g. a corporate account) or across an entire service. It may be applied where
one operator is retailing another operators wholesale service (e.g. Mobile Virtual Network
Operators)If QOS applications measure the actual level of service being offered, SLA
management applications (Contract Management) provide the ability to compare actual
QOS with the pre-agreed level of service promised and flag any jeopardizes encountered.
This is particularly important where service level guarantees (SLGs) have been
contractually offered - the primary purpose of the SLA management application(s) is to
ensure that the operator knows at any time which services to which customers may
potentially or actually be in breach of a service level guarantee.
Functionality

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Specific functions of this application area are:

Document Contractual SLA obligations - the purpose of this function is to document

contracts and contract terms (entitlements) signed with the customer and provide
automated monitoring of the potential or actual breaches to the terms of the SLA.
Escalation hierarchy should be defined for automatic notifications of the potential or
actual breaches

Measure perceived QoS - the purpose of this function is to measure or estimate the
actual quality of service being received by the customer against pre-set thresholds.

Manage QoS/SLA Violation - the purpose of this function is to ensure that the
customer and the relevant internal processes are informed of service quality
degradations and violations and that action is undertaken to resolve the degradation
or violation. Analyzes all the information related to a QoS/SLA degradation or violation
and takes the appropriate actions when a soft threshold is crossed or the agreed QoS
is violated. Follows up the actions to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the
resolution of the problem. Ensures that the customer is informed of any planned
maintenance or other scheduled events likely to impact delivery of the customer's
service.

Manage Reporting - the purpose of this function is to report on the customer's QoS
performance, to manage the production and presentation of reports to the customer
on service levels in the form and at the times agreed with the customer, to prepare
reports for internal processes and respond to specific inquiries on the performance of
the customer service.

Supported Contracts

E.g., Network Performance Management

05.08 Customer Service / Account

Problem Resolution

Customer Service /
Account Problem
Resolution

Figure 25: 05.08 Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution

Description
Customer Problem Resolution applications (trouble ticketing) handle the processes of
dealing with customers affected by a service related or billing related problem. These
functions are closely related to Service Problem Resolution, Customer Billing
Management, and Resource Problem Resolution. These can be seen as a distributed set
of related applications, ideally built around common data and functions. Each layer has a

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different perspective and takes a different view of the same data using the same
information model (see TMF GB922 - the Shared Information and Data Model). Customer
Problem Resolution applications are mainly concerned with how the problem would affect
the operators relationship with the customer with the goal of minimizing any adverse effect
on this relationship.
The current trend is to integrate trouble ticketing with both service level and network level
problem-reporting systems. Trouble ticketing applications would act as an initiation source
for Service Problem Resolution applications or Resource Problem Resolution applications
based on specific business rules.

Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution

Application Identifier: 05.08
Overview
Customer Problem Resolution applications (trouble ticketing) handle the processes of
dealing with customers affected by a service related or billing related problem. These
functions are closely related to Service Problem Resolution, Customer Billing
Management, and Resource Problem Resolution. These can be seen as a distributed set
of related applications, ideally built around common data and functions. Each layer has a
different perspective and takes a different view of the same data using the same
information model (see TMF GB922 - the Shared Information and Data Model). Customer
Problem Resolution applications are mainly concerned with how the problem would affect
the operators relationship with the customer with the goal of minimizing any adverse effect
on this relationship.
The current trend is to integrate trouble ticketing with both service level and network level
problem-reporting systems. Trouble ticketing applications would act as an initiation source
for Service Problem Resolution applications or Resource Problem Resolution applications
based on specific business rules.
Functionality
Typical application functions supported are

Verify Customer Relationship - verify that the customer is who they claim they are and
they own the products that they are reporting the problem with.

Problem Reception - receive and acknowledge the problem report. Accurately

timestamp the problem. Raise appropriate Trouble Ticket and record problem
symptoms.

Specifically for billing problems (e.g., dispute of a charge on a bill), the application
needs to also capture the details of the bill (e.g., bill id, charge code, amount in
dispute, etc.). This context of the complaint will be carried with the trouble ticket
through its resolution, thereby relieving the second tier support from looking up that
information. Also, once the second tier support approves the dispute, the application
should automate the billing notification.

Verify the customers SLAs for support (support hours, maintenance agreements,
frequency, for example). Activate any incident related SLAs.

Evaluate & Qualify Problem - determine the nature of a problem that has been
reported by a customer and whether the customer is using the service properly. There
will be testing to fit or translate customer information into service information for
diagnosis. If there is a problem notification, a resource problem notification or a
service-affecting event report (alarms, etc.) the Evaluate & Quality Problem functions
may analyze this information and translate these problems into their impact on

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customers. These processes will make the necessary reports to inform the Problem
Handling processes about the estimated time to restore service. Also the Customer
QoS/SLA Management applications will be informed about the problems impact on
the service performance.

Plan & Assign Resolution - identify the necessary steps in order to activate the
different units that will be involved to fix the problem.

Track & Manage Resolution - ensure that the whole resolution is completed according
to the established plan. Automated notifications and escalation procedures are
established to effectively monitor any deviation to the resolution plan.

Close & Report - certify the recovery of the normal service performance. These
processes will perform the necessary testing to achieve this purpose and make the
necessary reports about the problem that occurred, the root cause and the activities
carried out for restoration. It also will issue the trouble clearance report to inform other
CRM applications.

Updating Billing systems if appropriate- reimburse the affected customer for the
service problems they have endured.

Advising other OSS systems if appropriate.

Supported Contracts

Service Problem Resolution Applications

Correlation & Root Cause Analysis

Resource Problem Management

Service Performance Management

Service Quality monitoring

Resource performance management

Billing

05.09 Receivables Management

Figure 26: 05.09 Receivables Management

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Description
The purpose of this application is to automate and manage the processing of financial
transactions affecting the customer's financial account. Furthermore this process is meant
to match these transactions with the services/invoices delivered to this customer. This is a
legal requirement in some countries e.g. as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the
USA.

Receivables Management
Application Identifier: 05.09
Overview
The purpose of this application is to automate and manage the processing of financial
transactions affecting the customer's financial account. Furthermore this process is meant
to match these transactions with the services/invoices delivered to this customer. This is a
legal requirement in some countries e.g. as required by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in the
USA.
Functionality
Receivables Management functionality includes the following:

A/R Management

Journalization

Financial Reporting

Supported Contracts

Billing

Customer Information Management

Order Management

External Credit Bureau Databases

Accounts Receivable

Collections

External General Ledger

External Accounts Payable

A/R Management
Application Identifier: 05.09.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of A/R Management is to maintain the outstanding balance or receivable,
including consideration of the age of the outstanding balance (e.g. 30, 60, 90, ... days).

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A/R Management interacts with billing on bill cycle run. A/R management also manages
payment and financial activities. It includes:

Invoice charges from Billing - manages the connection between Accounts Receivable
and Billing. This process posts invoice charges in Accounts Receivable based on
billed charges. It can be invoked by any billing system. Invoice charges accepts
information on new charges and credits billed to customers, and updates their account
balance accordingly.

Payment management - Payment Management receives customer payments and

applies them to customer accounts. Payment Management accepts payments from
various sources. It posts them to customer accounts and applies the funds to unpaid
invoices It also performs payment-related activities, such as:
o

Payment / Deposits

Back-outs of payments

Transfers of funds between accounts

Financial Account Management Financial Account Management supports the financial

activities that relate to customer accounts. These activities includes:
o

Refunds

Disputes

Adjustments / Credits

Write-offs.

Bill preparation - AR calculates and sends to the Bill Calculation application the required
information for accounts that are going to be processed. This information includes:
o
o

Financial activity information to be presented on the customer bill.

Credits and fees, such as Late Payment Fees (LPF), dishonored checks for
which invoicing should bill the customer.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Journalization
Application Identifier: 05.09.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Journalization Application is responsible for analyzing and translating financial
activities into journal records. Specifically, Journalization assigns financial codes to the
transactions received from billing, online adjustment, remittance, refund, and collection
processes. This application accumulates journal entries and maps them to the GL
transaction based on appropriate geographical accounting principles for sending
downstream to the corporate general ledger.
Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Financial Reporting
Application Identifier: 05.09.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Financial Reporting comprises a set of reports presenting summaries of the financial
activities of customer accounts. It includes a set of debt aging reports and proof & balance
reports. Furthermore, this application provides tax information to Corporate Tax in support
of tax compliance. Financial Reporting also prepares account revenue details to be
gathered into data warehouse to facilitate decision support. Some of the data includes
account number, dollar amount, product / service, adjustment amount and payment
amount as well as all of the revenue and charges to be journalized.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.10 Billing Inquiry, Dispute &

Adjustment Management

Figure 27: 05.10 Billing Inquiry, Dispute & Adjustment Management

Description

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This is a front end application for managing billing inquiries and billing disputes. Billing
inquiries are provided by Invoicing. Open dispute cases can be handled by Case
Management system or internally. The financial activities are performed by Receivables
Management.

Billing Inquiry, Dispute & Adjustment Management

Application Identifier: 05.10
Overview
This is a front end application for managing billing inquiries and billing disputes. Billing
inquiries are provided by Invoicing. Open dispute cases can be handled by Case
Management system or internally. The financial activities are performed by Receivables
Management.
Functionality
Application functionality includes:

Handling of billing inquiries, including the ability to view billing account and financial
information.

Handling of disputed charges, including the opening, managing, tracking, and

resolution of the dispute, which may include an adjustment.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Bill Inquiry
Application Identifier: 05.10.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of Bill Inquiry is to provide the capabilities to view customer billing account
and financial information to answer a query on a bill. Query types may include the
following:

Balance, statement

List all invoices

View exact bill image

List all charges per invoice

View unbilled charges

Generate bill on demand

View usage summary and details (billed and non-billed)

Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Dispute Management
Application Identifier: 05.10.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
When a customer questions a charge, account representatives work with the customer to
resolve the disputed charge. Open disputes are entered into the dispute management
system where an audit process keeps track of its progress until its closed. An agreedupon adjustment with notations is entered pending research and approval.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Adjustments
Application Identifier: 05.10.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The purpose of Adjustments is to adjust customer's account balance based on the result of
a detailed assessment or dispute. Possible adjustments may include tax adjustments,
account/invoice/charge level adjustment, good will adjustment as well as refund or credits.

All adjustments are made based on schedule of authorization polices. The customer
service representative (CSR) can also consider the history and nature of previous dispute
& adjustment requests made by the customer.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

05.11 Bill Format / Render

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Bill Format /
Render

Figure 28: 05.11 Bill Format / Render

Description
Bill Format / Render formats the invoice and/or statement based on specified options, and
then makes it available in appropriate media types. Example outputs can include paper,
electronic, DVD, etc.
See Transactional Document Production for more information.

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05.12 Product/Service Rating

Product/Service
Rating

Figure 29: 05.12 Product/Service Rating

Description
The Product/Service Rating application calculates the customer specific charges
(recurring, one time, usage), discounts, and optionally taxes (when required on charge
level, otherwise tax calculation is performed as part of Bill Calculation).
The rating application accepts either:

Events / records that have been collected, translated, correlated, assembled, and
guided to customer, product and to customer account for usage / content consumption
calculation

Customer and Order/Product information for recurring and onetime charges.

Rating applications should be able to process events in a real time or batch mode and
must support pre-paid, post-paid and pay-it-now payment options.
The rating application must consider various factors such as customer information, product
information, price plan and event (e.g. call record, order information, content consumption)
details.

Product/Service Rating
Application Identifier: 05.12
Overview
The Product/Service Rating application calculates the customer specific charges
(recurring, one time, usage), discounts, and optionally taxes (when required on charge
level, otherwise tax calculation is performed as part of Bill Calculation).
The rating application accepts either:

Events / records that have been collected, translated, correlated, assembled, and
guided to customer, product and to customer account for usage / content consumption
calculation

Customer and Order/Product information for recurring and onetime charges.

Rating applications should be able to process events in a real time or batch mode and
must support pre-paid, post-paid and pay-it-now payment options.

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The rating application must consider various factors such as customer information, product
information, price plan and event (e.g. call record, order information, content consumption)
details.

Functionality
The main functions of rating applications are:

Charge calculation of one time and recurring charges

Rating of usage events

Apply charge level discounts and optionally taxes

Support of price plans composed of arbitrary mathematical computation of any

Customer / Product / Order and event details

Pro rating of recurring charges

Rerating - Recalculation of charges based on information received later (e.g. from the
Service Level Agreement function, delayed CDR file arrival)

Keep flexible accumulators of usage data (e.g. used allowance)

Fire notifications upon accumulators reaching a configured threshold (e.g. spending

limit support)

Advice of charge

Provide estimated charge for a usage request (e.g. content)

Provide estimated unit of consumption (e.g. time or volume) for given monetary
amount (e.g. voice call minutes for $1 balance)

Advice of rate Provide the rate in effect for a usage request (e.g. 0.3Euro per minute
for a voice call)

Non functional requirements:

Throughput Rating application must support high transaction volume

Accuracy Precision level shall be maintained for small charges

Fast new price plan deployment Quick introduction of new price plan based on new
business requirement

Additional requirements by online charging application:

High availability Online-Charging application requires high availability of 99.999%

application up-time from the rating function

Low latency - Responses to requests should be given in very low latency to satisfy
Online Charging application

The online non functional requirements are normally associated with high deployment
costs. Hence typical installations of convergent billing applications would include distinct
deployments of rating applications for online and offline charging.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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05.13 Billing Account Management

Billing
Account
Billing Account
Associations
Management

Billing Account
Configuration
Management

Figure 30: 05.13 Billing Account Management

Description
The purpose of Billing Account Management is to provide all functionality necessary to
manage a customer's billing account.

Billing Account Management

Application Identifier: 05.13
Overview
The purpose of Billing Account Management is to provide all functionality necessary to
manage a customer's billing account.
Functionality
Billing Account Management functionality includes management of the following:

Billing Account Configuration Management

Billing Account Association Management

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Billing Account Associations Management

Application Identifier: 05.13.01

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Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Billing Account Associations Management provides the ability to relate a customers
billing account to other entities in a billing system. Billing Account Associations creation
can also be automated through other application posting. Those associations are used in
usage guiding, usage rating, periodic bill calculation and production.
Those associations would enable:
Price plan determination associate a charge record with the appropriate price plan.

Shared allowances community link a charge record to shared allowance if exists

Charge distribution to pay means identify the related prepaid or postpaid billing
account for a given charge (recurring, one time, usage)

Replenishment relation support automatic replenishment of prepaid billing account

from postpaid billing account

Billing statement association identify what charges are to be included in the

statement.

Charge association to billing account associate incurred charge to the billing

account liable for its payment

Reporting grouping charges/statement/accounts for the purpose of creating a report

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Billing Account Configuration Management

Application Identifier: 05.13.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Billing Account Configuration Management provides the ability to create and modify billing
accounts based on various account constructs. Account creation can also be automated
with orders received. This application also provides the ability to update specific billing
account information such as customer bill periods, bill media options, etc.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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05.14 Collection Management

Figure 31: 05.14 Collection Management

Description
To Be Added

Collection Management
Application Identifier: 05.14
Overview
The Collections Management application provides necessary functionality to manage
customer accounts where there is an outstanding balance. It allows handling of each
account individually, based on customer value and financial history using configurable
policies. The collection management application supports the collection lifecycle activities
including: collection decision making, selection of collection policy, collection execution automating the collection treatment flow, monitoring the collection process and collection
settlement negotiation. The collection application keeps track of collection status and
history.

The collections treatment flow can perform a number of activities including issuance of
treatment notices and collection letters.
Functionality
Collections Management functionality includes:

Collection policy definition and configuration for overdue accounts

Collection policy execution and monitoring for overdue accounts

Collection settlement negotiation

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Full visibility to the customers collection status and history

Supported Contracts

Billing

Customer Information Management

Order Management

Issue Service Management / Activation / Provisioning requests via customer

management

External Credit Bureau Databases

Accounts Receivable

Predictive Dialers

Collection Agencies

Collectors

Collection Policy Definition and Configuration

Application Identifier: 05.14.01
Overview
Collection Policy defines a path of collection activities to be executed in escalated order. A
set of rules classify customer accounts and associates them to the appropriate collection
policy.
Functionality
Functionality includes the following:

Assembly of collection steps into collection flows

Collection rules definition

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Collection Policy Execution and Monitoring

Application Identifier: 05.14.02
Overview
Collection Policy Execution and Monitoring starts with the decision if a collection process
shall be initiated for an account. Once a collection decision has been taken, the
appropriate collection policy is selected. There are many events that may change the
collection activities For example customer paid, customer back out from a payment
arrangement, customer status has been changed or a manual intervention in the collection
process. All these require constant monitoring and process execution modifications.
Functionality
Functionality includes the following:

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Collection Decision Engine - Evaluates each arriving account, decides whether the
account needs collection treatment, and assigns the relevant collection treatment
policy to each account.

Collection Treatment Management - Defines and initiates the collection treatment

activities according to the appropriate collection policy (using a business process
automation engine). A collection treatment can belong to one of the following
categories: Financial, Service restriction, Customer communication, CSR interaction
and Outside Collection Agency treatment including:

Issue notice (e.g. Collection Letter, e-mail or SMS)

CSR assignment Assign a CSR or a CSR group to manually handle the collection.

Issue Restrict/Restore/Disconnects request - Includes anything from restricting to

suspensions, as well as the restoration when payment is received.

OCA Referrals - Passing the collection process on to an Outside Collection Agency.

Initiate Write-off requests

Collection Execution Monitoring Monitors events that may change the collection
execution. Such events includes: customer paid, customer status has been changed,
payment back-outs. As a result stop, resume or reselect the collection policy.

Manual Intervention - Provides the CSR with many options to override the automated
flow such as pause and continue the collection treatment, force an account into
collection, change the selected collection policy and stop manually the collection
treatment.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Collection Settlement
Application Identifier: 05.14.03
Overview
The application provides the mechanism that allows the CSR to negotiate with customers
and offer them acceptable plans to pay their debts. These plans might be based on
multiple installments over a defined period of time, including the milestones at which the
customer is re-evaluated for fulfilling the arrangement.
Functionality
Functionality includes the following:

Build payment plan Based on system recommendation or CSR decision to build a

payment plan.

Payment plan monitoring Monitor the payment plan execution and trigger events for
the collection monitoring process.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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05.15 Bill Calculation

Figure 32: 05.15 Bill Calculation

Description
To Be Added

Bill Calculation
Application Identifier: 05.15
Overview
The purpose of this application is to calculate a convergent bill for next-generation voice,
data, content, and commerce services - Including prepaid and postpaid services in a single
convergent bill.
Functionality
Application functions include:

Performing charge and event distribution to support a split bill

Support flexible bill cycle definition

Discounts and promotions

Taxes based on jurisdictional tax requirements and exemptions, as well as surcharges

& regulatory fees.

Commitment tracking based on the customer contract

Incorporate payments, adjustments, and other financial activity.

Supported Contracts
Exposed Contracts

Billing Inquiry

Quotations

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Consumed Contracts

TAX calculation

Customer Bill Charge Calculation

Application Identifier: 05.15.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Customer Bill Charge Calculation aggregates charges from different sources. By using the
Product/Service Rating application it determines charges, including:

recurring,

one time

usage

for purchased products and services in a given bill run based on the customer price plan
set at time of order/contract negotiation.
Functionality also includes currency conversion and partial period (prorating) handling.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Discounts Calculation
Application Identifier: 05.15.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Discounts Calculation applies discounts based on pricing plan or promotions enrollment. It
also supports discount allocation on any level of customer structure and monitors charges
that can contribute and/or are eligible for a discount. Realizes caps on contributing/eligible
amounts at various hierarchy points.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Tax Applying
Application Identifier: 05.15.03
Overview

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Application of taxes, including surcharges and fees where applicable can occur within the
Invoicing application or managed through the use of an external Tax module.
Functionality
The Tax Applying application examines tax applicability to charges based on the type of
customer, jurisdiction and/or regional taxation rules. It also observes any
customer/location/service tax exemptions. Finally, it applies the taxes accordingly.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Commitment Tracking
Application Identifier: 05.15.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Monitors terms and minimum revenue commitment agreements for applying penalties.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Manage Bill Cycle Run

Application Identifier: 05.15.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Manages the bill cycle run, including the incorporation of new charges and where
applicable: payments, adjustments, late payment fees, and other financial activities. This
also includes appropriate handling of consolidated billing.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Quotation Engine
Application Identifier: 05.15.06
Overview

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The quotation engine supports the order management process by interfacing between the
Order Management and Billing applications.
Functionality
The quotation calculation of the recurring and one-time charges that are associated with
orders for services and equipment (S&E) is based on the following features:

Order components services and equipment and the relevant associated parameters

Customer information Customers agreements with the CSP, and customer

parameters

CSPs policy and Product Catalog Maintaining the CSPs rating schemas

General market rating rules (such as tax)

Supported Contracts

Order Management

Customer Information Management

05.16 Online Charging

Online
Charging

Figure 33: 05.16 Online Charging

Description
Online charging is a charging mechanism, where charging information can affect, in realtime, the service rendered. The charging request as well as the response is handled in
real-time through the use of real-time guiding to (finding of) customer and price plan, realtime rating and real-time balance-management of monetary and non-monetary (e.g. freeunits) balances and/or allowances
A request is sent by the network service-controller to the online-charging application in
real-time (usually through an IP-socket) and a response is returned. The service-controller
can decide, based on the response, whether to render the service and usually control the
service characteristics (quality, etc.) prior to providing it or during the session.
Note: The relation of online and offline is subject for further study in future TAM version.

Online Charging
Application Identifier: 05.16
Overview

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Online charging is a charging mechanism, where charging information can affect, in realtime, the service rendered. The charging request as well as the response is handled in
real-time through the use of real-time guiding to (finding of) customer and price plan, realtime rating and real-time balance-management of monetary and non-monetary (e.g. freeunits) balances and/or allowances
A request is sent by the network service-controller to the online-charging application in
real-time (usually through an IP-socket) and a response is returned. The service-controller
can decide, based on the response, whether to render the service and usually control the
service characteristics (quality, etc.) prior to providing it or during the session.
Note: The relation of online and offline is subject for further study in future TAM version.
Functionality
The Online Charging Application is responsible for:

Real-time Rating: perform real-time rating of the charge request based on all
parameters of the request (type, quantity, etc.), all parameter of the
customer/subscriber (price plans, accumulated usage, etc.) and other parameters
(time-of-day, etc.). The same request may be rated differently for different subscribers
based on their purchased offers. (Refer to the Product/Service Rating application)

Service-consumption reservation and authorization authorizes the request coming

from the service-controller based on the customer and subscriber eligibility for the
service (e.g. based on customer-hierarchy and purchased offers) and on the current
balance available.

Use of customer billing hierarchy: each subscriber can be part of a customerhierarchy tree of unlimited depth and size. Subscribers in the hierarchy may share
balances, price plans and discounts. Customer hierarchies are commonly used for
corporate customers who share allowances and balances

Advice of Charge/Advice of Rate: provide, in real-time, an advice of the expected

charge for a specific usage request. The advice is based on all parameters of the
request (type, quantity, etc.), all parameter of the customer/subscriber (price plan,
accumulated usage, etc.) and other parameters (time-of-day, etc.). The advice is
usually based upon performing a full Rating process for the request.

Balance Management: hold, calculate, apply policies and provide functionality /

interfaces for the account balances of a customer and/or a subscriber.

Balance containers: hold and maintain the different balances that a customer
and/or a subscriber may have. These include, but not limited to:

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Monetary balances

Prepaid balances

Postpaid balances (in conjunction with an Account-Receivables (AR)

application)

Non-monetary balances and allowances (e.g. free minutes, WAP-only quota,

etc.)

Shared balances: Monetary or Non-monetary (e.g. between subscribers in a

hierarchy)

Balance management policies: allow the definition of policy per balance or balancetype. Policies include:

Minimum Allowable Balance limit (e.g. balance must remain above zero)

Balance expiration dates

Balance thresholds actions and notifications

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Roll-over and cyclic policies

Balance-management operations: allow different operations to be performed on the

managed balance. Operations include:

Reserve amounts: reserve amount from any balance for any session.
Unused reservations are credited back into the balance when the session is
released

Charge amounts: charges that are persisted into the balance

Credit/Debit operations

Balance Query

Note: Balance management for offline charging is also need to be addressed in the offline
charging context.

Real-time Charging: apply charges (rated requests) and taxes in real-time using the
balance-management functionality. Charging can be done by units or by amount

Non-functional aspects of the Online-Charging application include:

Multi-session support: Online charging applications must be able to support multiple

simultaneous sessions for the same subscriber and/or for the same customer. The
simultaneous sessions are able to use the same balances while adhering to the
balance-limit policy defined (achieved using reservations)

Prepaid-Postpaid Convergence: allow for prepaid subscribers and postpaid

subscribers to be served by the same Charging application, and use shared balances
and price plans.

Allow replenishment (top-up, recharge) of prepaid balances from postpaid

accounts

Allow spending-limits and credit-control to be enforced on postpaid accounts

Split charging: allow splitting usage-charges between prepaid and postpaid

balances based on any parameter For example: a subscription where voice
calls are postpaid by a corporate and content is consumed from the
employee prepaid balance.

High Availability: Online-Charging application should provide Carrier grade

availability with 99.999% application up-time

Low Latency: responses to requests should be given in very low latency, usually
below 25ms from request to response

High Throughput: The Online-Charging application must support the maximum

request and events throughput required during the busiest hour of the year without
throttling or rejecting any request.

Supported Contracts
Exposed Contracts

Service Control Point (SCP)

SCP-like Network-Elements (NE)

Intelligent Network (IN)

Replenishment manager

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) for Balance queries and similar activities

Customer Management and Account-Receivables for Balance adjustments

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IVR (Interactive Voice Response) for Balance queries and similar activities

Customer management for Create/Maintain/Delete customers, accounts and price

plans

Invoicing

Account Receivables

Data Warehouse

Consumed Contracts

Product Catalog

Provisioning

Notifications and messaging

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06.0 Service Management Domain

Figure 34: 06.0 Service Management Domain

Description
This group of applications supports and enables the processes that focus on the
knowledge of services (e.g. voice; data, content services, etc.) and includes all
functionality necessary for the management and operations of communications and
information services required by or proposed to customers. The focus is on service
delivery and management as opposed to the management of the underlying network and
information technology. Some of the functions involve short-term service capacity
planning; the application of a service design to specific customers or managing service
improvement initiatives. These functions are closely connected with the day-to-day
customer experience.

These processes are accountable to meet, at a minimum, targets set for service quality,
including process performance and customer satisfaction at a service level, as well as
service cost. The applications that an operator may have in the Service Management and
Operations area are:

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06.01 Service Specification

Management

Service
Specification
Management

Figure 35: 06.01 Service Specification Management

Description
This application involves the storage and retrieval of service specifications. The service
specifications represent the common and invariant aspects of various types of services.
These specifications are used in the creation of new service instances.

Service Specification Management

Application Identifier: 06.01
Overview
This application involves the storage and retrieval of service specifications. The service
specifications represent the common and invariant aspects of various types of services.
These specifications are used in the creation of new service instances.
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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06.02 Service Inventory

Management

Service
Inventory
Management
Figure 36: 06.02 Service Inventory Management

Description
To be added

Service Inventory Management

Application Identifier: 06.02
Overview
The Service Inventory holds the following types of information
1.

The mapping of Product Specifications to Service Specifications and of Product

Instances to Service Instances.

The mapping of service to service components. The components being either pure
Service Layer features, or the resource features and the resource domain managers
used to implement these features.

The domain level service implementation in the resource. This is the service, the
domain manager that delivers the service and the inter-domain Access Point to
Access Point relationships. Note that if the domain manager design decision is based
on the network inventory model, then this aspect of the inventory is in the service &
resource layer.

Functionality
Service Inventory Retrieval
This feature allows for client OSS to retrieve part or all of the service inventory known to
the target OSS.
This feature may allow the following selection criteria:

retrieval based on attribute matching

retrieval of only the object instances that have been modified after a provided
date and time.

For the selected objects, this feature may allow the client OSS to specify what specific
attributes and relationships shall be returned.

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Service Inventory Update Notifications

This feature entails the generation of inventory update notifications based on changes to
the inventory known to a given OSS. The notifications concerning object creation, object
deletion and attribute value changes.
Single Entity Notifications in this variation of the feature, each notification pertains to only
one entity, e.g., an IP VPN service instance
Multi-entity Notifications in this variation of the feature, a single notification may report on
inventory changes for multiple entities.
Service Inventory Update
This feature entails an OSS requesting that another OSS (referred to as the target OSS)
update its inventory based on a provided collection of updates. The expectation is that the
target OS update its inventory as requested, but no other side-effects are expected (e.g.,
creating a service in the network). This is a key point concerning this capability. The
inventory update request can involve addition (new object), modification (change to an
existing object) or deletion (removal of an object).
Service Inventory Reconciliation
This feature entails an OSS reconciling its own inventory with inventory discovered from
another source. When new service inventory information is discovered, the OSS will try to
match the newly discovered information with an entity or entities already known to the
OSS.
If no match is found, the OSS will typically assume that a new entity has been discovered
and add this to its inventory. Alternately, as decided by the service provider as part of their
procedures, the OSS may record this event as an exception. For example, this may
happen if the service provider always expects to have the planned service inventory in
their inventory OSS before the actual services are activated.
If a match is found and there are no unexpected discrepancies, the OSS will update its
inventory as needed.
If a match is found and there are unexpected discrepancies, the OSS will typically raise an
exception so that service provider personnel can correct the problem.
Service Inventory Information Model
This feature is the information model for the services to be managed. Typically, the service
provider would need to add a lot of detail concerning the services to be managed. The
suggested approach for the service provider is to start with the TM Forum SID service
model and then specialize the model for the specific services to be managed. The service
model should indicate or point to the supporting resources for each services (the SID
model, in fact, does do this).
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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06.03 Service Order Management

Figure 37: 06.03 Service Order Management

Description
Service Order Management applications manage the end to end lifecycle of a service
request. This includes validating service availability as well as the service order request.
Other functionality includes service order issuance, service and or product order
decomposition, and service order tracking along with orchestrating the activation and the
test and turn up processes. Notifications will be issued to the Customer Order
Management during the service order orchestration process (especially upon completion).
Such notification can trigger other steps in the Customer Order Management (e.g. service
order completion concludes these steps with Customer Order Management).
In addition, Service Order Management also provides service design and assignment
functionality.

Service Order Management

Application Identifier: 06.03
Overview
Service Order Management applications manage the end to end lifecycle of a service
request. This includes validating service availability as well as the service order request.

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Other functionality includes service order issuance, service and or product order
decomposition, and service order tracking along with orchestrating the activation and the
test and turn up processes. Notifications will be issued to the Customer Order
Management during the service order orchestration process (especially upon completion).
Such notification can trigger other steps in the Customer Order Management (e.g. service
order completion concludes these steps with Customer Order Management).
In addition, Service Order Management also provides service design and assignment
functionality.
Functionality
Service Order Management functionality includes:

Service Data Collection,

Service Order Validation,

Service Order Publication,

Service Availability,

Service Design/Assign,

Service Configuration Management

Service Activation Management,

Service Order Orchestration

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Data Collection

Application Identifier: 06.03.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Data Collection application gathers any needed service data to aid in the
verification and issuance of a complete and valid service order as well as data necessary
to address dependencies between service and/or resource orders.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Order Orchestration

Application Identifier: 06.03.02
Overview
To Be Added

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Functionality
The Service Order Orchestration application provides workflow and orchestration
capability across Service Order Management. This application will have the ability to
either orchestrate via triggering another application to retrieve the order request from a
common data repository or distribute the service order and/or order requests. This
application also provides functionality to track and manage the overall service order, make
project team assignments, as well as to track the overall order.
Service Order Orchestration will also orchestrate and manage dependencies between
related Service Orders.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Product/Service Order Decomposition

Application Identifier: 06.03.02.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Product/Service Order Decomposition application decomposes product orders (which
is a portion of the customer order) into a service order, and the service order into resource
order requests, and then distributes each request to perform the work.
This application also translates planned design changes into implementation jobs (which
could include service ordering and/or delivery). That may span multiple resource facing
services and technology domains. This might require additional data gathered via Service
Data Collection.

Note: If an order repository or common order data services (common model) layer is
being used and shared across layers (Customer, Service, and Resource layers), this
decomposition can simplified
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Order Tracking & Management

Application Identifier: 06.03.02.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Order Tracking & Management application performs the following:

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Oversees the transfer of Service Order Requests to appropriate resource providers.

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Tracks the various resource orders until completed.

Raises jeopardies as appropriate if specified dates and milestones are not met, and
escalates jeopardies to appropriate management levels.

Completes the service order when all resource orders have been completed.

Sequences resource order provisioning if required.

Provides status on the overall service order.

Service Order Validation

Application Identifier: 06.03.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Order Validation application validates the service order request based on
contract, catalog, and provisioning rules.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Design/Assign
Application Identifier: 06.03.04
Overview
The Service Order Design/Assign application performs end to end engineering design of
service.
Functionality
The Service Design & Assign application leverages the corporate supply chain and asset
inventory to assemble end to end design records. This design will be used by Service
Order Decomposition for issuing work order or activation requests as appropriate to
Resource Order Management.
The Service Design/Assign application functionality includes the design of the end to end
solution as well as the assignment/procurement of network resources and customer
premise equipment.

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Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Design Solution
Application Identifier: 06.03.04.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Design Solution application determines the end to end service design. It applies
engineering rules to determine required network facilities, equipment configurations and
the method and access path to the customer site or location of service termination.

This application also establishes and manages the detailed design tasks required to issue
the work orders.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Assign/Procure Network Resources

Application Identifier: 06.03.04.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Assign/Procure Resources application determines facility and equipment availability.
It selects/assigns appropriate network facility route(s) and configures facility equipment per
engineering rules as well as obtains new assets from network plan and build (capacity
management) if required.

As part of considering network alternatives and associated costs, technology and service
options might also be presented back to the customer if the assignment impacts customer
cost and/or time to procure.

This application does not manage the capacity at the resource level.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Procure Access
Application Identifier: 06.03.04.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Procure Access application obtains access paths to the customer or service location
through supply chain (internal or external) which is managed or delegated in the form of a
resource order or a resource facing service order.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Procure CPE
Application Identifier: 06.03.04.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Procure CPE application determines customer premise equipment needs and
availability as well as assigns assets or orders CPE via supply chain processes as
appropriate.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Availability
Application Identifier: 06.03.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Availability application validates that the service or services specified on the
service order are available at the specified customer/service location and feasible from a
network point of view. This includes the following:

service address validation,

service availability validation,

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service feasibility validation

establishment of service termination points,

determination of access provider, and

determination of delivery interval.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Service Address Validation

Application Identifier: 06.03.05.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Address Validation application validates the service address against
appropriate address databases for both installation and emergency service purposes.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Availability Validation

Application Identifier: 06.03.05.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Availability Validation application validates that the service is available at the
requested location and can support the requested service parameters at that location.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Termination Points Determination

Application Identifier: 06.03.05.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Service Termination Points Determination application determines the appropriate
service provider entry point to support the Customer's service request.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Determine Access Provider

Application Identifier: 06.03.05.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Determine Access Provider application identifies available access providers or access
technology at the given location and selects an access provider based on business rules.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Determine Delivery Interval

Application Identifier: 06.03.05.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Determine Delivery Interval application calculates the service delivery due date using
network capacity, access provider selection and work center intelligence (including
workload and capacity). It also needs to take into account dependencies between Service
Orders as set during the decomposition process (mainly relevant when decomposing a
product order into service orders).
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Configuration Management

Application Identifier: 06.03.06
Overview
The Service Configuration Management application is similar to the service design/ assign
functions outlined elsewhere in this publication, but supports aggregate customer facing
services. To explain this area in general, it is necessary to see a clear difference between
services and networks /resources. Services can be viewed as being comprised of a
number of building blocks - e.g. bandwidth, security, maintenance packages, SLAs, QoS,
specific features e.g. voicemail.. Service Configuration management might be either the
set up of network / resource components for a customer, or a class of customers of a
generic service build. Service configuration can be derived from order details in addition to
inherent business rules from service specifications and the service view in the Service
Inventory Management application.

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Functionality
The Service Configuration Management application generates a service plan to configure
a customer service to fulfill a service order; this includes the following:

Allocating the right service parameters to fulfill service orders

Reserve the right service parameters based on service specification and service
inventory

Update information in the service inventory as to configuration of specific services

Compose a service configuration plan according to the required service actions and
sent to Service Order Orchestration and/or Service Activation Management

Configure the specific service and its parameters as appropriate

Appropriately consider cross service dependencies as part of the above configuration

activities.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Activation Management

Application Identifier: 06.03.07
Overview
This application is responsible for activation of specific services based on the specific
service configuration.
Functionality
The Service Activation Management application includes the following:

Access, plan and gather additional information for service activation

Implement and activate the specific service configuration against the service
configuration plan (including activation of CPE if part of the service offering)

Provide notifications on successful activation; in cases of exceptions send fallouts to

Service Order Orchestration and manage rollbacks activities (if applicable)

Update information in service inventory as to configuration of specific services and

turn status to active upon successful service activation

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Service Order Publication

Application Identifier: 06.03.08
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality

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The Service Order Publication application issues valid and complete service orders, and
stores the order into an appropriate data store.
As part of order publication, additional data might be obtained or derived to support
downstream functions that are not provided in the service order request.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

06.04 Service Level Agreement

Management

Service
Level
Agreement
Management

Figure 38: 06.04 Service Level Agreement Management

Description
Successful SLA management is a growing factor in maintaining customer satisfaction and
winning new business. These can be applied to both business and consumer customers.
Satisfied customers are less likely to churn to competitors. SLA Management applications
use the output of the SQM applications to provide a comprehensive view of the level of
service provided to customers compared to pre-agreed, often contractually binding,
agreements. Typically SLA agreements will be agreed between operator and customer to
measure a variety of service oriented issues and impacts. These may be either stated in
terms of service characteristics, or in terms of the business impacts on the customer. An
example of service oriented characteristics could include:

Availability

Security

Latency

Transmission speed

Time to respond to the initial fault report

The escalation process

The time to repair

Spares holding

The algorithm for calculating rebates

Contact details

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Time to deliver from order confirmation

Additional services

Capacity

Increasingly, business customers are demanding SLAs measured in terms of business

impacts. For example, Qantas, the Australian state airline measures its communications
service levels in terms of impact of any disruptions on flights. SLAs are also becoming an
important characteristic between various players in the communications value chain.
Service Level Agreements between network suppliers and service operators (for example
a mobile virtual network operator MVNO) are common and are likely to grow between
service providers and content suppliers

Service Level Agreement Management

Application Identifier: 06.04
Overview
Successful SLA management is a growing factor in maintaining customer satisfaction and
winning new business. These can be applied to both business and consumer customers.
Satisfied customers are less likely to churn to competitors. SLA Management applications
use the output of the SQM applications to provide a comprehensive view of the level of
service provided to customers compared to pre-agreed, often contractually binding,
agreements. Typically SLA agreements will be agreed between operator and customer to
measure a variety of service oriented issues and impacts. These may be either stated in
terms of service characteristics, or in terms of the business impacts on the customer. An
example of service oriented characteristics could include:

Availability

Security

Latency

Transmission speed

Time to respond to the initial fault report

The escalation process

The time to repair

Spares holding

The algorithm for calculating rebates

Contact details

Time to deliver from order confirmation

Additional services

Capacity

Increasingly, business customers are demanding SLAs measured in terms of business

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Functionality

Collection of Service KPIs and Key Quality Indicators (KQIs) from:

Element management systems,

Directly from certain resource elements

Other OSS and applications

Apply appropriate algorithms to calculate the SLA metrics

Compare the calculated metric to the agreed SLA / Operational Level Agreements
(OLA) metric

Raise SLA alarms and pass to alarm management system

Collate historical SLA information

Analyze that information

Publish the information in the form of reports etc.

Notification of charge / settlement adjustment information to other architecture

functions (including Product Interface Management, Billing & Settlement, Business
Intelligence, Legal)

Update Data warehouse with SLA statistics.

Key Data

SLA created in SLA Management system from SLA contract

KPIs & KQIs from the network and other sources

Business rules for comparing

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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06.05 Service Problem Management

Service
Problem
Management

Figure 39: 06.05 Service Problem Management

Description
Service problem Management applications act as the bridge between resource problems
(e.g. network problems) and customer affecting issues. Customer problem resolution,
service problem resolution and resource problem resolution can be seen as one
distributed set of related applications, ideally built around common data and functions.
Each takes a different view of the same data. Thus related applications and functions are:

Customer Problem Resolution

Correlation & Root Cause Analysis

Resource Problem Ticketing

Service Performance Management

Service Quality monitoring

Resource performance management

Service Problem Management

Application Identifier: 06.05
Overview
Service problem Management applications act as the bridge between resource problems
(e.g. network problems) and customer affecting issues. Customer problem resolution,
service problem resolution and resource problem resolution can be seen as one
distributed set of related applications, ideally built around common data and functions.
Each takes a different view of the same data. Thus related applications and functions are:

Customer Problem Resolution

Correlation & Root Cause Analysis

Resource Problem Ticketing

Service Performance Management

Service Quality monitoring

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Resource performance management

Functionality
Typical application functions supported are:

Problem Reception

Trouble Ticketing

Problem Consolidation

Closure

Reporting

Allocating priority

Advising the Customer Resource Management systems (CRM)

Advising the Network Operations Center

Allocating the tasks to the appropriate people / roles

Tracking progress

Confirming when impact has been removed

Updating Configuration Management systems

Updating Inventory Management systems

Tracking progress

Confirming when fix has been completed

Updating Billing systems

Advising any other OSS/ systems as needed

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

06.06 Service Quality Monitoring &

Impact Analysis

Service Quality
Monitoring &
Impact
Analysis

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Figure 40: 06.06 Service Quality Monitoring & Impact Analysis

Description
Service Quality Monitoring (SQM) and impact analysis applications are designed to allow
operators to determine what levels of service they are delivering to their customers. Ideally
these take a customer centric view, i.e. the quality of service perceived by customers but
may measure additional service metrics to allow the operator to be aware of approaching
problems or degradations to service. Impact analysis applications extend this capability to
predict the likely impact of service degradations or network problems on specific
customers.SQM applications generally support the 4 sub-processes defined by eTOM:

Monitor Service Quality

Analyze Service Quality

Improve Service

Identify & Report Service Constraints

Service Quality Monitoring & Impact Analysis

Application Identifier: 06.06
Overview
Service Quality Monitoring (SQM) and impact analysis applications are designed to allow
operators to determine what levels of service they are delivering to their customers. Ideally
these take a customer centric view, i.e. the quality of service perceived by customers but
may measure additional service metrics to allow the operator to be aware of approaching
problems or degradations to service. Impact analysis applications extend this capability to
predict the likely impact of service degradations or network problems on specific
customers.SQM applications generally support the 4 sub-processes defined by eTOM:
Functionality
SQM applications are a major feed to service level agreement management applications.
Key features are:

Monitor Service Quality

Extracts service related key performance indicators (KPIs) from various

management systems.

Receives alarm information

Receives test information

Analyze Service Quality

Improve Service

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Collates the KPIs and converts to Key Quality Indicators (KQIs) against which the
service quality can be measured.

Recommends improvements as a result of the Service Quality Analysis

Identify & Report Service Constraints

Identifies areas within the network where service deterioration is being caused by
constraints such as demand surges

Reports these to the resource layer

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Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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06.07 Service Performance

Management

Service
Performance
Management

Figure 41: 06.07 Service Performance Management

Description
To Be Added

Service Performance Management

Application Identifier: 06.07
Overview
Service Performance Management Applications help monitor the end-end services,
including the customer's experience. This can include a real-time, end-to-end view to
ensure that each service is functioning correctly and a historical view.
These applications build on the Resource Performance data and active end-end service
performance test data to provide a view of a service.
These applications provide a key input to determine the Quality of Service.
Functionality
The main functions of the Service Performance Management Applications are:

Collection of Resource Performance Data from the Resource Management

Applications (or directly in the absence of Resource Performance Management
application)

Collection of Service Performance data through end-end tests done internally through
the application or external Service Test applications.

Map the Performance data to Service Topology

Calculate Service related KPIs, KQIs

Long-term performance archive

Short-term performance repository

Input to Service planning and forecasting applications

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Identification of Service related problems

Historical trending

Service triage / testing

Service Performance dashboard

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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07.0 Resource Management Domain

Figure 42: 07.0 Resource Management Domain

Description
This horizontal functional process grouping maintains knowledge of resources (application,
computing and network infrastructures) and is responsible for managing all these
resources (e.g. networks, IT systems, servers, routers, etc.) utilized to deliver and support
services required by or proposed to customers. It also includes all functionalities
responsible for the direct management of all such resources (network elements,
computers, servers, etc.) utilized within the enterprise. These processes are responsible
for ensuring that the network and information technologies infrastructure supports the endto-end delivery of the required services. The purpose of these processes is to ensure that
infrastructure runs smoothly, is accessible to services and employees, is maintained and is
responsive to the needs, whether directly or indirectly, of services, customers and
employees. RM&O also has the basic function to assemble information about the
resources (e.g. from network elements and/or element management systems), and then
integrate, correlate, and in many cases, summarize that data to pass on the relevant
information to Service Management systems, or to take action in the appropriate resource.

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In an ebusiness world, application and computing management are as important as

management of the network resources. Moreover, network, computing and applications
resources must increasingly be managed in a joint and integrated fashion. To cope with
these needs, the eTOM framework includes the Resource Management & Operations
process grouping (together with the corresponding Resource Development & Management
grouping within SIP), to provide integrated management across these three sets of
resources: applications, computing and network. These areas also encompass processes
involved with traditional Network Element Management, since these processes are
actually critical components of any resource management process, as opposed to a
separate process layer.

The RM&O processes thus manage the complete service provider network and subnetwork and information technology infrastructures.

The eTOM framework differentiates day-to-day operations and support from planning and
development, and other strategy and lifecycle processes. This better depicts the structure
of an enterprise, especially in an ebusiness era.

07.01 Resource Lifecycle

Management

Figure 43: 07.01 Resource Lifecycle Management

Description
To Be Added

Resource Lifecycle Management

Application Identifier: 07.01
Overview
Resource Lifecycle Management (IT, APPS & Network)

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Lifecycle management is fundamentally responsible for adding, churning and removing

network and IT capacity. Where capacity is added, it is made available to subsequent
Utilization, Quality and Accounting management.

Lifecycle management provides support for both Operational and Strategy, Infrastructure
and Product wings of eTOM

Five specialist resource development and management applications are proposed here.

Strategic Planning

Planning Design Automation

Tactical Planning

Implementation Planning

Job Control and Delivery Management

These represent distinct, real world planning functions and may consist of sub-functions.
They apply to all network engineering for fixed, mobile and cable and IT applications. The
term networked resource is used for the totality of applications and network used to
deliver the applications to consumers over any form of network media.

Resource
Planning &
Optimization

Resource
Inventory
Management

Resource
Provisioning &
Configuration
Resource
Activation
Resource
Design &
Assign

Resource Logistics

Figure 44: Resource Fulfillment Process

The Resource Lifecycle Management is responsible for managing the end-end lifecycle of
the resource.

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Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Commissioning & Configuration Management

Application Identifier: 07.01.01
Overview
These applications are responsible for managing and tracking the configuration of the
resource (AKA CMDB). These applications typically work in a federated environment,
where they rely on other applications for the data
Functionality
The functionality provided by these systems includes:

Manage the commissioning process of a resource and ensuring that operational

status are configured

Database and manage the configuration of the individual resources

Record the history of configuration changes

Work with other applications like discovery Application to ensure that the resource
configuration matches the designed configuration

Work with the Inventory Management applications to ensure that the topology
reflected in its database is in sync with that in the Inventory Management Systems

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Implementation Planning
Application Identifier: 07.01.02
Overview
Implementation Planning is based on graphics rather than inventory data and is used for
the local implementation of Tactical Plans at street level and within buildings.
Functionality
Implementation Planning applications are typically CAD/GIS based and are used to
implement tactical plans locally at individual CSP sites and at street level. In addition they
provide levels of implementation details that tactical planning does not need to specify,
such as duct routes and the frame appearances of device ports. Implementation Planning
will also identify shortfalls in infrastructure, such as building capacity, which may not be
visible to central tactical planning users.
This requires large amounts of data, potentially leading to a very expensive system
solution. However, such systems are used locally for construction projects, so the system

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does not require a live view of the complete network. It is only necessary to administer a
physical planning solution centrally to ensure data consistency; the data itself may be
distributed to individual locations.
A specialist application covered by Implementation Planning is Radio Planning for cell site
coverage and quality and for cell-to-cell coverage.
Supported Contracts
To be determined by the NGOSS Contract Implementation Program

Tactical Planning
Application Identifier: 07.01.03
Overview
Tactical Planning predominately supports the Operations Support and Readiness area of
eTOM.
Functionality
Tactical Planning is responsible for the detailed design of resource against the existing
networked resource at all technology layers, ensuring that the designed resource is
actually deployed and for accurately recording the resultant inventory. At the physical
layer, this will involve deploying devices and connections between devices. Further TAM
applications are also required in order to test the resource on installation and to project
manages the supply chain in order to deploy the planned resource.
At higher technology layers, Tactical Planning is responsible for detailed logical network
design and implementation at the technology layers using input from Strategic Planning. It
is also responsible for traffic engineering the capacity of the logical network, taking input
from Performance Management. The output of Tactical Planning at the higher technology
layers is often to network provisioning systems, which are used to implement the required
logical connections into the bearer network.
Data Center and server farms are planned and deployed and capacity managed using the
same Tactical Planning functions as used for resource.
Tactical planning is responsible for purchasing network equipment, usually through
purchasing control systems and into the Enterprise Resource Management systems of
suppliers. This is ideally achieved through Business-to-business (B2B) portals, both for
operational efficiency and data integrity. Supply Chain Management controls this
interaction. Standards such as from RosettaNet Telecommunications Industry Council are
being developed to support electronic purchasing of telecoms equipment. RosettaNet are
partnered with the TMF for this purpose.
A major role for Tactical Planning is to implement Strategic Plans, deploying specific
devices and device connections at and between strategic locations. Tactical Planning also
supports reactive planning, which involves the deployment of network capacity in response
to immediate demands. It includes the following planning activities.

Reactive to Strategic Planning by implementing strategic plans at all technology

layers. This is the major internal planning role.

Network rearrangement to support planned engineering works. This is an additional,

significant internal planning role.

Tactical enhancement or relocation of network capacity in response to unpredicted

shortfalls / over-capacity. This is a necessary internal planning function, but could be
regarded as a cost of failure of Strategic Planning.

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Detailed design and implementation of interconnect with other operators

Reactive to Fulfillment by deploying capacity required for individual services to

customers, building access network on demand as

Reactive to Fault Management to support network repair

Reactive to Performance Management to traffic engineer the higher technology layers

These functions are primarily supported in inventory based capacity management

systems where decisions are made and device specific designs are captured against
an inventory of the existing, deployed and utilized network. Such systems are typically
large scale as they are operated by planners across the entire geography of the
network and ideally by planners responsible for all network and IT technologies, so a
single, common inventory of the network is created.

Tactical Planning requires an accurate inventory of the network as a whole and detailed
device modeling. It results in a master reference inventory of the planned networked
resource against the inventory of deployed networked resource.
However, it is entirely expected that such systems may be federated along lines such as
geography, technology and network vendor. This will ease the inventory management
problem and enable the conflict-free, long-term transactions required by planning
applications. Federation in this way must also support interworking and dependencies
between the resulting management domains.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Capability Specification Management

Application Identifier: 07.01.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Planning Design Automation

Application Identifier: 07.01.05
Overview
The planning functions; Network Design Automation, Strategic, Tactical and
Implementation Planning require change management that connects the activities into a
set of planning processes. Strategic Planning needs to interwork with suppliers using
Partner Management and Tactical Planning needs to connect out through the authorization
and purchasing process to vendor ERPs as part of the supply chain. Network engineering
generally relies on manual functions which need to be change managed through Job

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Control. . These various forms of orchestration are brought together in the Job Control and
Delivery Management application.
Functionality
Job Control provides the orchestration between planning duties, and also to manual
network engineering activities required to develop and implement plans. Job Control must
also link out to financial control in order to authorize the expenditure required to purchase
the required resources. Delivery Management provides the link out to vendors ERP, via
B2B portals and to network engineering for in-station and street activities, which also
require Job Control functions. The build projects require project management to coordinate
the various activities with the suppliers and to provide jeopardy management and other
functions such as collaborative project management across business boundaries, which
combine to implement the overall change management process. This means that Job
Control and Delivery Management is a sophisticated and highly integrated orchestration
application.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Spares & Warehouse Inventory Management

Application Identifier: 07.01.06
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
Key Functions:

Database of all spares (Capacity Management and optionally interface to Asset

Tracking)

Barcode/RFID tracking of all spares resources

Record location of spares

Record commercial information such as guarantees and date of purchase and

interface to commercial asset management

Support retrieval, update, update notifications and reconciliation.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Logistics
Application Identifier: 07.01.07
Overview
Resource logistics applications coordinate the availability and deployment of resources to
their in-service locations. These often have a close-coupling with supply chain
applications but serve complementary roles. Whereas supply chain applications identify

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vendors and alternate sources, and manage order fulfillment while seeking to minimize
stocking levels; resource logistics applications identify and distribute resource stock where
needed as quickly as possible.
Functionality
Key functions of resource logistics applications are:

resource or kit distribution

people + part + event coordination
stock balancing or distribution in reaction to special events or disasters
warehouse stock level projections
Engineering Work Order Management
Engineering Project Management
Network Asset Deployment Workflow
Resource Supply Chain Management
Resource logistics applications take input from several functions to determine the
need for resource distribution including
resource planning (capacity)
workforce management (preventative maintenance, change management)
resource problem management (fault management)
resource logistics applications output to supply chain management applications to
identify resource needs and order placement.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Specification Management

Application Identifier: 07.01.08
Overview
This application involves the storage and retrieval of resource specifications. The resource
specifications represent the common and invariant aspects of various types of resources.
These specifications are used in the creation of new resource instances.
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Strategic Planning
Application Identifier: 07.01.09
Overview
The focus of this application is the general network architecture and capacity, together with
the strategy for the deployment of network and IT technology within the architecture. It

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predominately supports processes in Strategy, Infrastructure and Product wing of eTOM.

Functionality
Such systems are used to analyze demand forecasts and utilization trends to determine
optimum network deployments, such as tier structuring and resilient topologies. They are
used to make strategic decisions as to which locations and which links to grow or shrink
across the network and which locations are to become strategic sites. The result can be
inventoried in either strategic or tactical planning system, but data will need to exist in both
to support interworking.
Strategic planning is also used to bring new technologies into the network and to
determine which vendors are to be used, which vendor devices are to be purchased and
the configurations of those devices that will be deployed. It will also determine where
different technologies should be deployed. For example, this will determine the balance of
data and transmission networks and the location of data centers within the network. Such
decisions are fed directly to tactical planning for implementation.
Part of the functionality is to specify the resource device and technologies in sufficient
detail to enable Tactical Planning to create device and technology instances.
Radio spectrum allocation is a specialist area within Strategic Planning.
Determining interconnect sites and capacity to other CSPs is also a Strategic Planning
activity.
Data Centre locations, sizing, interconnectivity and resilience is also a Strategic Planning
area, together with the selection of application server vendors and infrastructure
applications, such as those found in IMS.
Partner Management is a consequence of this type of Strategic Management. It is used to
ensure that network vendors are aware of the changes in demand that a change in CSP
strategy will make on them. When this is managed successfully it will result in vendors
enhancing or reducing their production capacity to meet the anticipated medium and long
term demand. Many strategic technology decisions come under pressure in their execution
because vendors have not been forewarned about the demand and have not been able to
expand production capacity in time. This function greatly improves the effectiveness of the
supply chain.
Supported Contracts
To be determined by the NGOSS Contract Implementation Program.

07.02 Resource Process

Management (Workflow/Integration)

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Resource Process
Management
(Workflow/Integration)

Resource
Testing
Management

Resource
Change
Management

Workforce
Management

Jeopardy
Management

Figure 45: 07.02 Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)

Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)

Application Identifier: 07.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Testing Management

Application Identifier: 07.02.01
Overview
Resource testing applications are focused on ensuring that the various resources are
working properly. The resource testing applications are part of both the fulfillment and the
assurance process. In the fulfillment process, the resource testing is responsible for
ensuring that the assigned service works as designed, while on the assurance side the
resource testing applications are responsible for fault isolation and correction. As part of
the testing process, these applications also interface with the trouble process, which can
trigger an automatic test.
Following is an example application flow:

Figure 15: Testing Management

Functionality

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Following are some of the capabilities of the testing process:

Test Work flow and Rules Engine

Auto and Manual Test Initiation
Test Life Cycle Management
Test Head Management
Manage Test Head Resources Capacity
Manage Test Head Availability
Element and Test Head Command and Control
Test Results Management
Interpret Test Results

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Change Management

Application Identifier: 07.02.02
Overview
Resource Change Management applications are responsible for managing the process in
which a change is applied to the resource. These applications interface with Infrastructure
lifecycle management applications to implement the actual change on the resource
Functionality
These applications are responsible for managing the Change Management Process and
also ensure that the different stakeholders are notified throughout the change process.
Some of the functionality provided by these applications is:

Record the Request For Change

Determine the impact of the Change against other events

Notify the appropriate Stakeholders

Manage the Change Approval Process

Manage the Actual Change Implementation

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Workforce Management
Application Identifier: 07.02.03
Overview
Workforce Management applications manage field forces to make optimum use of
manpower and other resources such as vehicles. They are used to schedule resources,
provide a map of field skill sets and provide forecasting and load balancing capabilities.
Workforce Management can be used to manage both internal and external (customer)

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resources in both service assurance and provisioning areas.

Functionality
Typical functions include:
Scheduling: Applications are usually designed to build schedules for groups and
individuals taking into account shift patterns, daily duties, multiple skill sets, resource
availability, schedule preferences and fluctuating nature of the workload.
Forecasting: Application usually calculate optimal staffing requirements with input of
historic statistics, service level goals, call centre costs, change parameters and expected
workload. They may include resources that are required by date, time, queue, resource
pool etc.
Dynamic management: provides for immediate and unexpected changes in resource
status, such as sick leave, or unforeseen changes in the workload dictate that conditions
be constantly monitored, and spontaneous adjustments made
Operational Support: This function typically tracks and reports Work Force Management
data such as actuals to forecasts and gathering individual and group statistics
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Jeopardy Management
Application Identifier: 07.02.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.03 Resource Inventory

Management

Resource
Inventory
Management

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Figure 46: 07.03 Resource Inventory Management

Description
Resource Inventory applications manage information of all resources used to implement
services and products. This application area is typically linked to various element
management systems (i.e. building inventory for actual network and resource assets) and
resource inventory database systems which may or may not be combined with Service
Inventory Application(s) or database(s). In addition, Resource management applications
have a major role to play managing spare parts; dumb resources such as cable pairs and
external plant and customer premises equipment.

In addition, Resource Inventory applications are used to discover and manage

underutilized or stranded resources.

Resource Inventory Management

Application Identifier: 07.03
Overview
Resource Inventory applications manage information of all resources used to implement
services and products. This application area is typically linked to various element
management systems (i.e. building inventory for actual network and resource assets) and
resource inventory database systems which may or may not be combined with Service
Inventory Application(s) or database(s). In addition, Resource management applications
have a major role to play managing spare parts; dumb resources such as cable pairs and
external plant and customer premises equipment.

In addition, Resource Inventory applications are used to discover and manage

underutilized or stranded resources.
Functionality
Resource Inventory Information Model the assumption is that this feature implements
the standardized information model for the resources to be managed. Typically, the
service provider would need to add a lot of detail concerning the resource attributes that
are to be managed. The specific details will depend on the particular resources (e.g.,
particular types of managed elements and equipment) and associated technologies (e.g.,
SONET/SDH, ATM and Ethernet) to be managed. The suggested approach for the service
provider is to start with the TM Forum SID model and then define or make use of an
existing model that specializes the SID model for the specific technologies that need to be
managed.
Key Functions:
Accurately describes the state of resources (network elements and their components, IT
systems and applications, resources defined within systems etc.)
Track status all resources
Database of all spares (Capacity Management and optionally interface to Asset Tracking)
Barcode/RFID tracking of all resources including spares
Resource Site Information

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Resource History tracking for all problems and returns

Interacts with Resource Activation and Resource Provisioning

Manages under-utilized or stranded assets

Resource Inventory Retrieval this feature allows for client operations support (service
assurance and billing systems) to retrieve part or all of the resource inventory known to the
target OSS.
This feature may allow the following selection criteria:

retrieval of a specified set of one or more sub-trees

exclusion or inclusion of specified object types from the selected sub-tree

further filtering based on attribute matching

retrieval of only the object instances that have been modified after a provided date
and time

For the selected objects, this feature may allow the client operations support (service
assurance and billing systems) to specify what specific attributes and relationships
shall be returned. This (the attributes and relationships to be returned) would be the
same for all objects of the same type.

Resource Inventory Update Notifications this feature entails the generation of

inventory update notifications based on changes to the inventory known to a given OSS.
The notifications concerning object creation, object deletion and attribute value changes to
other systems.

Single Entity Notifications in this variation of the feature, each notification pertains to
only one entity, e.g., an equipment instance

Multi-entity Notifications in this variation of the feature, a single notification may

report on inventory changes for multiple entities.

Notification Suppression in this variation of the feature, each notification pertains to

only one entity. However, in cases where a container object is created (e.g., a
managed element) that has many contained objects, the sending OSS may only
report on the container object creation. The expectation is that the receiving OSS will
use a retrieval operation to obtain the contained object. This concept is explained
further in TM Forum document SD2-1, MTOSI Implementation Statement (see Section
2.5.1, Publisher Notification Suppression).

Resource Inventory Update this feature entails an OSS requesting that another OSS
(referred to as the target OSS) update its inventory based on a provided collection of
updates. The expectation is that the target OS update its inventory as requested, but no
other side-effects are expected (e.g., creating an SNC in the network). This is a key point
concerning this capability. The inventory update request can involve addition (new object),
modification (change to an existing object) or deletion (removal of an object).
Resource Inventory Reconciliation this feature entails an OSS reconciling its own
inventory with inventory discovered from another source (typically, the network). When
new inventory information is discovered, the OSS will try to match the newly discovered
information with an entity or entities already known to the OSS

If no match is found, the OSS will typically assume that a new entity has been
discovered and add this to its inventory. Alternately, as decided by the service
provider as part of their procedures, the OSS may record this event as an exception.
For example, this may happen if the service provider always expects to have the
planned inventory in their inventory OSS before actual resources are installed.

If a match is found and there are no unexpected discrepancies, the OSS will update
its inventory as needed.

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If a match is found and there are unexpected discrepancies, the OSS will typically
raise an exception so that service provider personnel can correct the problem.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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07.04 Resource Order Management

Figure 47: 07.04 Resource Order Management

Description
To Be Added

Resource Order Management

Application Identifier: 07.04
Overview
Resource Order Management applications manage the end to end lifecycle of a resource
order request. This includes validating resource availability as well as the resource order
request.

Other functionality includes resource order issuance, resource and or service order
decomposition, and resource order tracking along with orchestrating the activation and the
test and turn up processes.

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Notifications will be issued to the Service Order Management during the resource order
orchestration process (especially upon completion). Such notification can trigger other
steps in the Service Order Management (e.g. resource order completion concludes these
steps with Service Order Management).

In addition, Resource Order Management also provides network design and assignment
functionality.
Functionality
Resource Order Management functionality includes:

Resource Order Validation,

Resource Order Publication,

Resource Asset Design/Assign,

Network Resource Activation ,

Resource Order Orchestration

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Order Orchestration

Application Identifier: 07.04.01
Overview
This application component is responsible for managing and tracking the resource order. It
will typically communicate with Service Order Management on the North side and the
Resource Domain Manager or Resource directly on the South Side
Functionality
The Resource Order Orchestration application provides workflow and orchestration
capability across Resource Order Management. This application will have the ability to
either orchestrate via triggering another application to retrieve the order request from a
common data repository or distribute the service order and/or order requests. This
application also provides functionality to track and manage the overall resource order as
well as to track the overall order.

Resource Order Orchestration will also orchestrate and manage dependencies between
related resource orders.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Order Tracking & Management

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Application Identifier: 07.04.01.01

Overview
This application component manages the Resource Order and tracks its jeopardy.
Functionality
The Resource Order Tracking & Management application performs the following:

Tracks the various resource orders until completed,

Raises jeopardies as appropriate if specified dates and milestones are not met, and
escalates jeopardies to appropriate management levels,

Completes the resource order when all activities have been completed,

Manages dependencies across resource orders as needed, and

Provides status on the resource order.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Service Order Validation

Application Identifier: 07.04.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Resource Order Validation application validates the resource order request based on
contract, catalog, and provisioning rules.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Order Data Collection

Application Identifier: 07.04.02.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Resource Data Collection application gathers any needed resource data to aid in the
verification and issuance of a complete and valid resource order as well as data necessary
to address dependencies between resource and/or work orders.
Supported Contracts

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To Be Added

Resource Design / Assign

Application Identifier: 07.04.03
Overview
The Resource Design/Assign application addresses both the design of new resources to
be included in a network as well as the design of resource configurations which are
needed to support new service activations. Assignment is the function which conveys the
new designs to those systems which initiate and support the implementation.
Functionality
The Resource Design / Assign application functions include:

Physical, logical, and software design of resources including definition of configuration

variables and initial parameters.

Graphical presentation and visualization of resources, interconnections, or topology

End-to-end resource design and architecture to support service deployments

Architecture modifications to include resources or changes.

New technology and new resource designs

What-if configurations and modeling

Real world modeling

Controls manual installation tasks via Workforce Management process or applications

Interface with Configuration or Inventory applications

Multi-layer modeling and design (physical, data, transport, ...)

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Availability
Application Identifier: 07.04.03.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Resource Availability application validates that the resource or resources specified on
the resource order request are available at the specified location.
The Resource Availability application validates that the resource or resources specified on
the resource order are available at the specified customer/service location and feasible
from a network point of view. This includes the following:

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resource address validation,

resource availability validation,

resource feasibility validation

establishment of service termination points, and

determination of delivery interval.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Order Configuration Management

Application Identifier: 07.04.03.02
Overview
The Resource Configuration Management application is similar to the service design/
assign functions outlined elsewhere in this publication, but supports aggregate customer
facing services. To explain this area in general, it is necessary to see a clear difference
between services and networks /resources. Services can be viewed as being comprised of
a number of building blocks - e.g. bandwidth, security, maintenance packages, SLAs,
QoS, specific features e.g. voicemail.. Service Configuration management might be either
the set up of network / resource components for a customer, or a class of customers of a
generic service build. Service configuration can be derived from order details in addition to
inherent business rules from service specifications and the service view in the Service
Inventory Management application.
Functionality
The Resource Configuration Management application generates a resource plan to fulfill a
resource order. This includes the following:

Allocating the right resource parameters to fulfill resource orders

Reserve the right resource parameters based on resource specification and resource
inventory

Update information in the resource inventory as to configuration of specific resources

Compose a resource configuration plan according to the required resource actions

and sent to Resource Order Orchestration and/or Network Resource Activation

Configure the specific resource and its parameters as appropriate

Appropriately consider cross resource dependencies as part of the above

configuration activities.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Order Publication

Application Identifier: 07.04.04
Overview

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To Be Added
Functionality
The Resource Order Publication application issues valid and complete resource orders,
and stores the order into an appropriate data store.

As part of order publication, additional data might be obtained or derived to support

downstream functions that are not provided in the resource order request.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.05 Resource Domain

Management

Figure 48: 07.05 Resource Domain Management

Description
Resource Domain Management is the application area that provides the exposed resource
services that are available to all other application areas, including those others in the
Resource Management layer.
Domain Managements role in Next Generation Network re-engineering is to hide the
idiosyncrasies and shortcomings of the Network, IT Computing, and IT applications
equipment from the rest of the OSS estate, freeing it to be agile.
This is particularly important as operators install lots of new, untried equipment with early
release Element Management software.
Resource Domain Managers should be expert activators, alarm handlers, and billing
mediators for their domain, but should not operate in any cross-domain capacity. It is the
responsibility of the other Resource Management layer applications to perform any cross-

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domain functions such as forecasting, capacity planning and design, and or for cocoordinating activation, root cause analysis and performance monitoring.
The basic model is shown below and is related to the examples shown in section 4.2 TMF
516.

Resource
Resource
planning/
planning/
optimisation
optimisation

Resource
provisioning /
configuration

Resource
Resource
activation
activation

Resource Domain Manager

Domain Type Examples:
Manage Access
Manage Edge Nodes
ManageMSAN
ManageEthernetEdges
ManageVoice Edges
ManageCore
ManageCoreRouters
ManageInfraEthernet
ManageTransmission
ManageBRAS
ManageRadius
ManageServerApps
ManageCallServers
ManageMediaServers
ManageGateways
ManageMediaGateway
ManageRouteReflectors

Resource
Resource
inventory
inventory
management
management

Service
Service
problem
problem
management
management

Element
Manager
Element
Manager
Auto Discovery

Auto Discovery
Billing
Billing
data
data
mediation
mediation

Billing
Correlation
Correlation
&&root
root
cause
cause
analysis
analysis

Network
Element

Alarms

Resource
Resource
data
data
mediation
mediation

Billing

Alarms

Exposed Domain Management Services Boundary

Figure 49: Relationship of Resource Domain Management to other TAM application areas

Why Domain Management?

Domains are defined as a set of entities, in this case resources, which have a common set of
policies applied to them by a manager (M. Sloman, "Policy Driven Management for Distributed
Systems," J. Net. Sys. Mgmt., vol. 2, no. 4, 1994, pp. 33360). Note that the general concept of a
Domain allows for overlapping Domains, provided there are no policy conflicts. However it is likely
that the TAM will need to mandate non-overlapping Resource Domains.
The resources that need to be managed include: IT computing, IT application, and networks.
Historically Networks have been managed as a service technology specific stove pipe such as SDH
and ATM i.e. the service providers have commonly imposed a policy that all SDH services will be
managed by one management systems stack. In next generation networks there is a need to move
away from stovepipe E2E service management stacks towards a shared resource infrastructure
model for services.

TMF 516 SoIP Resource Management Business Agreement suggests that NGN will need to
introduce a set of patterns for managing resources. It identified in section 2.6 three dimensions for

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ITComputing,
Computing, &&Application,
Application,
IT
Network
Level
0-3
Network Level 0-3

Service
Management
Functions

Other
Resource
Management
Functions
(examples)

TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

patterns namely, Protocol, Functional and Network and covered the general requirements for IT
computing, IT application, networks resources.
A specific example in TMF516 for Networks was the proposal to use Resource Management
Domains that separately manage the logical and physical aspects of:
Access Networks
Access Nodes
Intelligence Nodes
Core Network
Gateway Nodes
Applications and Content Servers

Resource Domain Management

Application Identifier: 07.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The basic concept is to define resource domains that expose consistent services (NGOSS
Implementation Contracts) to other TAM applications. Because Domains are based on the
operators policies the scope of the resource information model that they expose is based on the
SPs individual policy decisions. However the basic services exposed are those necessary to
support, at least, but not limited to, the other Resource Management Application Areas.
The Resource Domain Management applications are responsible for providing a completely
encapsulated interface to network technology domains by:

hiding vendor specific idiosyncrasies e.g. for network s through the use of
mTOP/MTNM/MTOSI template mechanisms.

presenting a standards based interfaces e.g. for networks mTOP/MTOSI/MTNM specifications

using a standard data model.

providing in-domain activation.

providing in-domain alarm collection, filtering (and non data based correlation) to supplement
that done by Correlation & Root Cause Analysis.

providing in-domain QoS activation .

providing in-domain inventory discovery to supplement that done by Resource Inventory

Management.

containing limited distributed copies of logical network inventory sufficient to support atomic
operation rollback, element manager selection and network auto-discovery. Domain Managers
are not the masters of this data. Where keys need to be assigned (e.g. IP addresses, VLAN
IDs, PortIDs, telephone numbers) this will be undertaken by other applications in the Resource
Management Layer.

The Resource Domain Management applications are NOT responsible for:

cross-domain anything (activation, fault correlation and RCA, QoS, testing, orchestration
all done in Resource Configuration / Provisioning, Correlation & Root Cause
analysis, Resource Performance Monitoring, Resource Testing Management).

planning (done in Resource Planning/Optimization)

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design (done in Resource Design/Assign)

assignment/ allocation of anything (e.g. ports, IP addresses) (done in Resource

Design/Assign)

managing the engineering work for physical network equipment (outside plant), fiber or
copper (done in Resource Logistics and Workforce Management).

providing in-domain performance monitoring this is generally conducted by specialist

tools and probes in Resource Testing Management.

being the database of record (Network inventory database of record is in Resource

Inventory Management)

naming network resources (done in Resource Planning/Optimization and Resource

Design/Assign)

workflow (done in Resource Configuration / Provisioning,)

B2B ordering (done in the Partner/Supplier Management Applications)

Replication of Resource Domains

Resource Domain Management may be replicated by Service Providers to cover any specific
policies that they have for organizing resource domains e.g. e2E technologies such as SDH and
ATM, Legacy PDH networks, narrow band voice networks, Application Servers containing IT
Application and Content - IPTV, and Next Generation Networks where domains need to be
formed based on network roles.
Domains may also be replicated to cover different vendors and different equipment types at the
choice of the Service Provider.
Impact on Element Management
With Next Generation Networks there will be an evolution away from complex and expensive
Element Management Systems towards Resource Domain Managers that have common features
that directly connect to the network or Application Server elements themselves. This evolution is
also needed to compress the number of systems in any stack to reduce complexity, increase
agility and improve end to end process performance.
The use of a Resource Domain Manager means that this can happen whilst shielding all the other
TAM applications areas from these detailed implementation changes.
Relationship to mTOP/ MTNM/MTOSI
In this analysis it is assumed that that the services exposed by the Domain Managers for Networks
will be based on the MTOSI Specifications. This is shown as a red vertical bar in the figure. This
sets a critical SP expectation on the position of the procurement boundary for basic Resources
Management Functionality (Service interfaces).
It also shows a clear relationship between the TAM as an Application Architecture and actual
conformance testable interfaces that have been developed by the TMF.
Note that MTOSI is not limited to just this boundary and may be used by other application areas in
the Resource Management and Service Management layers.
Resource Domain Management for IT computing and applications will be defined in a future
version.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Discovery

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Application Identifier: 07.05.01

Overview
The resource Discovery applications are responsible for automatically discovering the
resources and their details through an management channel. These applications may
either directly communicate with the Network resources or communicate through a
Resource Domain Manager.
Functionality
The resource discovery applications are one of the core applications of Resource
Management and provide a feedback loop from the resource. In many cases where the
accurate topology is not available in OS systems, they provide the only source of topology
for management.
These applications will either communicate directly or through a Domain Manager to
retrieve the resource information details. The applications should be able to support either
retrieving the overall resource information or the detailed resource information which can
include sub-components.
There are a number of users for the discovered information. For example, the Resource
Inventory system will use the discovered information to reconcile its data against as-is
information while a Resource Root Cause Analysis application will use the discovered
topology to enrich the event and pinpoint the true root cause.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Activation
Application Identifier: 07.05.02
Overview
Resource activation applications interpret the needs of a fulfillment request into specific
control commands for a network or sub-network often handling proprietary messaging with
individual resource elements.
Functionality
Typical functions include:

Update the resource instance to perform the activation or deactivation.

Update the resource to activate Billing data collection
Notify Resource Provision / Control of the activation status
Update Resource Inventory with the resource status information
Queued / scheduled activation requests
Configuration validation and rollback
Manage dependencies within, and across network elements through rules
Multi-vendor and multi-technology activation
Multiple NE activation coordination
Confirm / identify available resources

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Resource Fault & Performance Data Mediation

Application Identifier: 07.05.03
Overview
Resource Data Mediation applications provide integration to network and IT resources for
all Resource Management functions.
These applications take the output from the various resources and re-format the data into
a form usable by an application such as a status monitoring application. Mediation
capabilities have historically been built for almost every OSS system that faces a variety of
network elements or element management systems and the development and
maintenance of these functions is a significant overhead since many interfaces often need
to be changed when the element being monitored changes.
In recent years, specialist mediation tools, toolkits and applications have become
commercially available along with libraries of interfaces to popular network level resources.
As network resources deploy standardized interfaces, mediation becomes less of a
requirement but for the foreseeable future, this capability is likely to be required.
Functionality
Resource Data Mediation represents the applications that enable the OSS and the
networked resource to exchange data and command and control. Typically the data is
northbound from the networked resource, including network and service discovery and
fault, performance and billing events. Command and control is typically southbound from
the OSS to the networked resourced, including service activation, configuration and
protocol, alarm and billing settings. Southbound data includes pre-building data on
Element Management Systems.

Typical functions include:

Parsing of data from one format to another

Correlation
Pattern recognition
Tools to set up and maintain parsing rules

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

OSS Inventory/Data Synchronization Management

Application Identifier: 07.05.04
Overview
OSS Inventory/Data Synchronization application provide a common inventory view across
the applications in Resource Management. This may be a virtual common inventory
produced by synchronization of federated inventories, a single inventory system, or some
combination of the two.
Functionality
OSS Inventory/Data Synchronization Management represents the applications that ensure
OSS Inventory data generated in each application is available to other applications as

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required. OSS Inventory will contain at least resource capacity and service utilization
modeling. The synchronization may not be as a result of executing other business
processes, but can be dedicated synchronization processes, for example a regular resynchronization scheduled for off-peak periods. For example, it enables Utilization
Management to be updated with new capacity, and for Lifecycle Management to be
updated with capacity utilization.
Note that this does not predetermine any implementation solution. It is entirely allowable
within TAM to have, in this example Lifecycle Management and Utilization Management
share a common OSS Inventory. The OSS Inventory/Data Synchronization Management
application would represent the common inventory in this situation. Note also that TAM
does not restrict any implementation solution to only one instance of each application, so
the need for different common inventories and separate synchronization applications is
fully accepted.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.06 Resource Process

Management (Workflow/Integration)

Figure 50: 07.06 Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)

Description
To Be Added

Resource Process Management (Workflow/Integration)

Application Identifier: 07.06

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Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Testing Management

Application Identifier: 07.06.01
Overview
Resource testing applications are focused on ensuring that the various resources are
working properly. The resource testing applications are part of both the fulfillment and the
assurance process. In the fulfillment process, the resource testing is responsible for
ensuring that the assigned service works as designed, while on the assurance side the
resource testing applications are responsible for fault isolation and correction. As part of
the testing process, these applications also interface with the trouble process, which can
trigger an automatic test.
Following is an example application flow:

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Figure 51: Testing Management

Functionality
Following are some of the capabilities of the testing process:

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Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Change Management

Application Identifier: 07.06.02
Overview
Resource Change Management applications are responsible for managing the process in
which a change is applied to the resource. These applications interface with Infrastructure
lifecycle management applications to implement the actual change on the resource
Functionality
These applications are responsible for managing the Change Management Process and
also ensure that the different stakeholders are notified throughout the change process.
Some of the functionality provided by these applications is:

Record the Request For Change

Determine the impact of the Change against other events

Notify the appropriate Stakeholders

Manage the Change Approval Process

Manage the Actual Change Implementation

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Workforce Management
Application Identifier: 07.06.03
Overview
Workforce Management applications manage field forces to make optimum use of
manpower and other resources such as vehicles. They are used to schedule resources,
provide a map of field skill sets and provide forecasting and load balancing capabilities.
Workforce Management can be used to manage both internal and external (customer)
resources in both service assurance and provisioning areas.

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Dynamic management: provides for immediate and unexpected changes in resource

status, such as sick leave, or unforeseen changes in the workload dictate that conditions
be constantly monitored, and spontaneous adjustments made
Operational Support: This function typically tracks and reports Work Force Management
data such as actuals to forecasts and gathering individual and group statistics
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Jeopardy Management
Application Identifier: 07.06.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.07 Resource Assurance

Management

Figure 52: 07.07 Resource Assurance Management

Description
These are the group of Applications which are responsible for the resource assurance
function

Resource Assurance Management

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Application Identifier: 07.07

Overview
These are the group of Applications which are responsible for the resource assurance
function
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Assurance Process Orchestration

Application Identifier: 07.07.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Fault Status Monitoring

Application Identifier: 07.07.02
Overview
These applications are responsible for monitoring the administration and operation status
of the resource. These applications ensure that the operational personnel always have the
correct and latest operational status of the resource.

These applications also ensure that any changes to the network topology (configuration),
is reflected into the dependent systems performance management, service management
etc. Also changes in load on resources are reflected. This means that the setting of
relevant thresholds and observing the passing of these is within the capabilities supported
by such applications.
Functionality
Application principles in this area are typically:
Responsible for displaying the operational status of the resource in either a tabular or
graphical representation or both. The applications either directly communicate directly with
the resources or through the resource domain management. The applications are
responsible for collecting the status messages and correlating them to resource topology.

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Distributed meta model of the configurable resources

Meta-data capability to consolidate multiple databases

Rules for access control and validation

New and legacy information

Distributed meta model of expected resource load

Meta-data capability to consolidate threshold modeling

Rules for access control and validation

New and legacy information

Process-driven workflow coordination

Assigned tasking

Process templates define work-flow

Mediation layer to support interaction of diverse applications

Point to point and publish / subscribe modes

Application Map to support load balancing, resilience

Directory-based profiles

Users

Data entities

Applications

Workflow
Templ ates

Change
Managem ent

Status
Change

Data Model

Policy
Directory

Workflow
Engine

3
Mediation

Change
Activation

4
Data Managem ent

Figure 53: Status Monitoring Data Flow

The flow is:

1.
2.

A change in topology or operational status is received from a manual or automatic source

The policy directory (could be a person) decides on the appropriate action
a. User Profiles
b. Data Profiles
c. Application Profiles
The action is then passed to the workforce control (system or person)

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a. Process Templates
b. Workflow Tracking
c. Historical Archive
d. Fast Invocation / Results
The change is then activated
a. Automated decomposition of change impact
b. Automated activation via the network element / network managers
The change is then updated into the management system data model
a. Meta-data schema
b. Configurable network and server model
c. Concurrent lifecycle views
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Status Monitoring

Application Identifier: 07.07.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The envisaged functionalities are:

Network topology monitoring

Network topology modeling

Protection/rerouting policy

Resource load monitoring

CPU load

Memory utilization

Storage (disc) utilization

Bandwidth utilization

Application keep-alive monitoring

Threshold policy modeling

Automatic workforce control

Resource status alarm handling

Resource status alarm logging

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Correlation & Root Cause Analysis

Application Identifier: 07.07.04

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Overview
Correlation is the ability to collect various events in the network and through a
transformation process reduce the number of raw events to a manageable amount to
enable a user to move into the area of Root Cause Analysis (RCA), RCA enables the end
user to quickly determine the root cause of a problem in the network. Correlation & Root
Cause applications are often part of an overall resource problem management solution,
but have a unique role in mediating network alarms with topology and configuration data.
Functionality
Capabilities of these applications can be divided into several areas:
Alarm Correlation:
Ability of the application to collect all relevant network events (alarms, performance
measures, customer information, events, test results, etc.). The application will have the
capability to collect, parse and normalize disparate alarm streams from various sources,
including, but not limited to NMS, EMS, NEs, etc.
Reduction of alarms either presented to the user or for use by additional correlations. The
more correlation methodologies the application is capable of delivering, the greater the
overall reduction of alarms that should be accomplished.
There are several alarm correlation mechanisms which could be employed by the
application:
Alarm de-duplication first level of alarm reduction based on pre-defined user criteria.
Alarm de-duplication is designed to eliminate repeated events to reduce the amount of
noise from the network. The application should provide end user with capability to define
rules for de-duplication.
Alarm auto-clearing ability of the application to correlate a previous alarm with a clearalarm received from the source (NE, NMS, and EMS). The application should deliver
out-of-the-box auto-clearing capabilities for each device type/EMS/NMS supported, as
well as capabilities for end users to define their own auto-clearing rules.
Alarm thresholding ability of the application to handle various thresholding scenarios
such as alarm flapping and integration with performance management systems to receive
threshold crossing alarms, as well as generate synthetic threshold alarms based on predefined user conditions. The application should provide end user the ability to maintain
out-of-the box rules, as well as develop their own rules for threshold management.
Correlating alarms with supporting data (topology, configuration).
Rules-based correlation (intra- or like-element driven)
The application should have the ability to perform topology-based correlation:

intra-element

inter-element (including up/down the various network layers)

service-based; In order for the application to do topology based correlation, the

application must be topology aware. Topology awareness can be achieved through
autodiscovery or integration with an inventory management application. Inter-element
and service based correlation can only be achieved if the inventory data is valid and is
available for integration with the correlation application.

Alarm enrichment (external database connectivity)

Ability to associate services to the physical aspects of the network.

Filter, summarize, and reduce displayed alarms

Consolidation of alarms

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Consolidating alarms across technology

Consolidating alarms across elements

Present to alarm console

Graphical display of fault / topology overlay

Root Cause Analysis (RCA) ability to pinpoint the root cause of the problem or in
some instances probable cause of the problem. The application should have the
ability to:
Root Cause isolation based on correlation analysis described above.
Customer impact analysis accurate customer impact analysis depends on service
correlation as well as the ability of the application to integrate inventory management and
CRM databases to identify impacted customers.
Fault isolation
Network Element / network layer attribution
Alarm consolidation / substitution as well as alarm suppression of the sympathetic alarms.
Problem identification / initiation (ticket creation). Once Root Cause/Probable cause is
determined, the application should have the ability to integrate with trouble management
application for manual/automated ticket creation.
Resolution initiation (testing, solution identification/ownership, knowledge base index). The
application should have capability to integrate with various testing applications. Integration
with testing should be rules bases.
Knowledge of topology
Present to alarm console
Drill down from root cause into details
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

SLA Metric Management

Application Identifier: 07.07.05
Overview
These applications are responsible for managing how the metrics are managed. They are
responsible for defining the templates for the metrics. The individual SLA/Performance
Management applications will use these templates to monitor the performance of the
Network.

Functionality
These applications will define the actual counters which will be measured by the network
and also define how these individual counters are tied together to define an individual
Service Level Objective (SLO). These applications will also be defining the normal
operating parameters for these counters.
The Performance Management Application will use the counter definition to determine
which counters which it needs to monitor and what are the normal acceptable values for

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each counter. When the counter value falls outside this range, it can generate an
exception. The SLO definitions are also used as a guide on how to aggregate the counters
to provide SLA Management.
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Protocol Management
Application Identifier: 07.07.06
Overview
These applications monitor the protocol (signaling) links to provide a real time view of the
network. Please note that in this context these applications are not actually provide the
actual signaling but are monitoring the protocol for aid in Service Assurance. Even though
these applications have been around for a long time (SS7 Monitoring Applications) they
have gotten more popular in the recent years with the introduction of many new signaling
protocols.
Functionality
These applications monitor the protocol links to aid in determining the Resource and
Service performance. These applications are typically probe based and use the probes to
effectively monitor the vast amount of signaling traffic which is generated by the network.
The applications will typically correlate this data to produce Service/Resource level
statistics which can then be consumed by Performance/Service Quality Management
Systems to provide a real time view of a Service/Resource.
These applications can also use the protocol information to segment the service traffic
data into various uses (e.g. HTTP, FTP, etc. on an IP Service) to provide the Service
Provider an view on how each of the protocols are functioning
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Traffic Management
Application Identifier: 07.07.07
Overview
These applications utilize various inputs from other applications like Inventory,
Performance, Protocol Management, etc. to effectively manage how the various services
are routed through the network.

Functionality
These applications will utilize the inputs from various data sources to identify potential
congestion in traffic over the network. These applications utilize the congestion information
to highlight which of the Services will be affected.

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In addition to identifying congestion, these applications will also suggest a corrective

action, typically rerouting of the traffic, to ease the congestion on the network
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Problem Management

Application Identifier: 07.07.08
Overview
Problem or trouble ticketing applications provide comprehensive capabilities for recording
problems, providing escalation of the problem based on a number of criteria. Systems are
able to associate the effects of problems to root causes (based on root cause analysis
systems or human deduction).

Figure 54: Resource Problem Management

Functionality
Typical functions include:

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Event Management
Trouble ticket creation

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Auto and manual ticket initiation

Outage classification and prioritization
Problem tracking / history
Ticket Workflow and notification
Problem workflow
Personnel utilization and interface to Work Force Management
Knowledge Management
Resolution identification, tracking and confirmation
MTTR and Uptime measurements
Problem trending and identification of design flaws or hot spots
Feedback to customer: service status, trouble status, network bulletins
Business Rules Management
o

Managing Methods and Procedures

Manage Interfaces to external functions

Consolidating trouble tickets across technology & elements

Change control

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Resource Performance Management

Application Identifier: 07.07.09
Overview
Applications in this area of the Applications Map can be sub-divided into four main
functions.
Resource Performance management
Resource Data Mediation
The data flow is illustrated and each application area described below:

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Capacity and Forecasting Apps

Monitor & review

service quality

- Capacity / load
- Utilization
- Service
- Historical trending

- Dashboard
- Reports
- Threshold
- Aggregation to indicate quality

Reports

Report
usage

Monitor
statistics

- Report
- Trend
- Correlate
- Aggregate

- Dashboard
- Capacity / load
- Threshold

Transform
Rules

Review
statistics

Performance alarms
Status / Topology changes

Short-term
Repository

Business Rules, KPIs, KQIs, thresholds

Collect usage
statistics
- capacity

- resource use

Collect element
statistics
- online monitoring

- survey

Elements (including probes)

Figure 55: Resource Performance Management Data Flows

Traditionally, the management of network resources has been geared to managing the
technology that supports the network - monitoring events. With multi-service networks it

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Fault / Trouble Management Apps

Long-term
Archive

TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

will be managed according to the services being delivered across the network - monitored
on service levels.
As the services and the network infrastructure that supports them become more complex,
automation of the data analysis is required.

Functionality
Applications that support Performance Management will have one or more of the following
capabilities:

Resource Performance data collection

Resource Topology Status data collection
Business rules / formulae / KPIs, KQIs
Cross NE and Layer data mediation
o Intra- and inter-NE rules
o Intra- and inter-layer rules
Long-term performance archive
Short-term performance repository
Input to capacity planning and forecasting applications
Input to resource problem management applications
Historical trending
Problem identification: Capacity, Configuration problem identification
Problem triage / testing
Utilization trending
Capacity/load management
Performance dashboard

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.08 Voucher Management

Voucher
Management

Figure 56: 07.08 Voucher Management

Description
Voucher management application handles all aspects of prepaid recharge vouchers.
Generally, a voucher has a unique serial number and a PIN code by which it is identified.
The PIN code is covered, and the cover must be scratched off in order to use the voucher.
Scratch-vouchers can be purchased from vending machines, at kiosks and other points of
sale.

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Customers can use vouchers to recharge their balances via an IVR system or by
contacting the call center and providing the CSR with the voucher.

Voucher Management
Application Identifier: 07.08
Overview
Voucher management application handles all aspects of prepaid recharge vouchers.
Generally, a voucher has a unique serial number and a PIN code by which it is identified.
The PIN code is covered, and the cover must be scratched off in order to use the voucher.
Scratch-vouchers can be purchased from vending machines, at kiosks and other points of
sale.
Customers can use vouchers to recharge their balances via an IVR system or by
contacting the call center and providing the CSR with the voucher.

Functionality
Voucher Management Applications generally provide the following functionality:

Voucher Ordering

Definition and creation of packages and tentative vouchers

PIN generation and encryption

Pairing of serial numbers with PINs

Sending of the order file to the manufacturer

Voucher Distribution to dealers

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.09 Billing Data Mediation

Billing
Data
Mediation

Figure 57: 07.09 Billing Data Mediation

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Description
These applications are very similar in function to resource mediation but especially
concerned with billing functions (for voice, data, or content). Typically they are optimized to
handle very large volumes of data but do not need to be as flexible as general purpose
mediation as they typically parse call detail records (CDRs).

Billing Data Mediation

Application Identifier: 07.09
Overview
These applications are very similar in function to resource mediation but especially
concerned with billing functions (for voice, data, or content). Typically they are optimized to
handle very large volumes of data but do not need to be as flexible as general purpose
mediation as they typically parse call detail records (CDRs).

Functionality
Typical functions include:

CDR Formatting, mediation & correlation

IP & IPCDR formatting / mediation/ correlation

Wholesale Partner Gateways

CDR/IPCDR pre-processing / rating

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

07.10 Real-time Billing Mediation

Figure 58: 07.10 Real-time Billing Mediation

Description
Real time billing mediation applications are significantly different from post paid mediation
systems. The source of data is usually different (post paid billing systems usually collect
call detail records after the call event), pre-paid systems take usage information from

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signaling networks and monitor in-call usage. Services like Advice of charge, even for
post paid usage, require real time mediation systems.

Real-time Billing Mediation

Application Identifier: 07.10
Overview
Real time billing mediation applications are significantly different from post paid mediation
systems. The source of data is usually different (post paid billing systems usually collect
call detail records after the call event), pre-paid systems take usage information from
signaling networks and monitor in-call usage. Services like Advice of charge, even for
post paid usage, require real time mediation systems.

Functionality
Capabilities required for real time mediation include:

Acquisition and validation of events received from Network element.

Formatting the event into a common-formatted event record.
Identifying and routing the customer/customer population group associated with
an event and routes the event to the relevant rating function
Communication with the session control device
Communication with the rating engine

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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08.0 Supplier/Partner Domain

Figure 59: 08.0 Supplier/Partner Domain

Description
The SupplierPartner Domain includes all SupplierPartner-oriented data and contract
operations associated with a SupplierPartner. Its scope encompasses, planning of
strategies vs. SupplierPartners, handling of all types of contact with the SupplierPartner,
the management of the relationship, and the administration of SupplierPartner data. The
SupplierPartner Domain also includes data and contract operations related to the
SupplierPartner Bills, disputes and inquiries.

08.01 Supply Chain Management

Supply
Chain
Management

Figure 60: 08.01 Supply Chain Management

Description
To Be Added

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Supply Chain Management

Application Identifier: 08.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

08.02 Partner Management

Partner
Management

Figure 61: 08.02 Partner Management

Description
In the next generation telecom scenario, collaboration is the key to successful delivery of
value added services and retention of customers. The telecom operators form horizontal
and vertical revenue sharing relationships with players like other telecom operators,
content providers, and regulatory bodies.
Most of the service providers now bring in a lot of products from partners to add to their
service portfolio, so that customers can choose from a wide array to their preference and
benefit. The service providers can also form channel partners through which they can
offer their products to other markets where they dont have any direct access. As the
market is getting polarized to service providers and customer owners, partnerships are
going to be the key. Virtual world is opening up with increasing operations of players like
MVNOs, extending services or products from other parties to their customers leveraging
their brand power and customer access. Hence horizontal and vertical value chain
integration is going to be a vital part of the consolidation and convergence strategy of any
service provider. In the online content and commerce world, the length of value chain
could go on to include content providers, brokers, intermediaries, network operators,
payment processing entities, banks and so on. Revenue from the end customer needs to
be shared among these value chain entities based on pre-defined agreements. Sometimes
the revenue settlement process has to be done in real-time so that final transaction can be
validated and output delivered to the end customer.

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Partner Management
Application Identifier: 08.02
Overview
In the next generation telecom scenario, collaboration is the key to successful delivery of
value added services and retention of customers. The telecom operators form horizontal
and vertical revenue sharing relationships with players like other telecom operators,
content providers, and regulatory bodies.
Most of the service providers now bring in a lot of products from partners to add to their
service portfolio, so that customers can choose from a wide array to their preference and
benefit. The service providers can also form channel partners through which they can
offer their products to other markets where they dont have any direct access. As the
market is getting polarized to service providers and customer owners, partnerships are
going to be the key. Virtual world is opening up with increasing operations of players like
MVNOs, extending services or products from other parties to their customers leveraging
their brand power and customer access. Hence horizontal and vertical value chain
integration is going to be a vital part of the consolidation and convergence strategy of any
service provider. In the online content and commerce world, the length of value chain
could go on to include content providers, brokers, intermediaries, network operators,
payment processing entities, banks and so on. Revenue from the end customer needs to
be shared among these value chain entities based on pre-defined agreements. Sometimes
the revenue settlement process has to be done in real-time so that final transaction can be
validated and output delivered to the end customer.

Functionality
A partner management application mainly does functions like

Partner definition and hierarchy management

Pre-defined revenue sharing agreements and variation rules

Agreement definition for each service, product, channel or location

Direct and indirect settlement

Real-time settlement

Drill down reconciliation at summary and detailed levels

Partner event processing and revenue share accounting

Partner payment handling

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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08.03 Wholesale / Interconnect

Billing

Figure 62: 08.03 Wholesale / Interconnect Billing

Description
Wholesale billing applications include a variety of capabilities. Traditionally this area
included inter-carrier settlements capabilities and this was later extended to interconnect
billing applications. In todays competitive markets and complex value chains, it has
expanded further to include among others Roaming, wholesale operators, resellers, Mobile
Virtual Network Operators, Content Providers and E-Commerce. There is now an array of
applications in the area providing charging, billing, and settlement capabilities on a raw
data basis, individual transaction basis and bulk basis across a variety of services and
platforms. These applications work across a variety of platforms and support a wide range
of services, preferably in one single system. Wholesale applications need to adhere to
international standards such as TAP and RAP files, which are processed in Roaming
solutions.

Wholesale / Interconnect Billing

Application Identifier: 08.03
Overview
Wholesale billing applications include a variety of capabilities. Traditionally this area
included inter-carrier settlements capabilities and this was later extended to interconnect
billing applications. In todays competitive markets and complex value chains, it has
expanded further to include among others Roaming, wholesale operators, resellers, Mobile
Virtual Network Operators, Content Providers and E-Commerce. There is now an array of
applications in the area providing charging, billing, and settlement capabilities on a raw
data basis, individual transaction basis and bulk basis across a variety of services and
platforms. These applications work across a variety of platforms and support a wide range
of services, preferably in one single system. Wholesale applications need to adhere to
international standards such as TAP and RAP files, which are processed in Roaming
solutions.

Functionality

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Definition of products and services, pricing schemes, partner entities and contracts
into the system. Easy uploading of reference data from external sources such as XML
files.

Partners accounting activities (Partner event processing)

Processing the events generated by the partners business activities for invoicing and
payment purposes.

Error Management

Automatic and manual handling of records found in error, mass correction and rerating of events.

Partner Invoice management

Accurate, flexible bi-directional invoicing for various settlement periods.

Settlement management

Oversee the Partners accounting activities. Provide monitoring tools.

Handling of payments

Logging and tracking of full or partial payments.

Disputes management

Automated tools to ease and expedite dispute management.

Supported Contracts

Interface with other financial management systems such as the general ledger.

Report and Statements

Tools for the analysis of the information available within the system such as
accumulated charges, rated usage, etc.

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09.0 Enterprise Domain

Figure 63: 09.0 Enterprise Domain

Description
Introduction
Enterprises need to manage themselves and the TAM has identified the following
application areas:

Revenue Assurance Management

HR Management

Financial Management

Asset Management

Security management

Knowledge Management

Fraud Management
Mostly these functions are quite generic across many industry sectors and are not peculiar
to the Communication industry.
Within Knowledge Management the communications industry has some very specific
needs around the general title of Enterprise Information Applications or Business
intelligence.

09.01 Revenue Assurance

Management

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Revenue
Assurance
Management

Figure 64: 09.01 Revenue Assurance Management

Description
Revenue Assurance is the collection of data quality and process improvement methods
that reduce leakages, improve profits, revenues and cash flows without influencing
demand
Applications to solve this problem vary considerably and they relate to almost any area of
the OSS/BSS applications. The revenue assurance applications area is thus shown at this
part of the TMF Applications Map for convenience.
Although, as its name suggest, Revenue Assurance is mainly about revenues and profits,
revenue assurance activities in the Telco organization has significant implications on
operational and strategic aspects of the service provider.

Revenue Assurance Management

Application Identifier: 09.01
Overview
Revenue Assurance is the collection of data quality and process improvement methods
that reduce leakages, improve profits, revenues and cash flows without influencing
demand
Applications to solve this problem vary considerably and they relate to almost any area of
the OSS/BSS applications. The revenue assurance applications area is thus shown at this
part of the TMF Applications Map for convenience.
Although, as its name suggest, Revenue Assurance is mainly about revenues and profits,
revenue assurance activities in the Telco organization has significant implications on
operational and strategic aspects of the service provider.

Functionality
The main revenue assurance application areas are:

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Detection of data discrepancies between systems and data repositories that might
affect the ability to generate revenues or increase costs, including,

Configuration data - e.g. between CRM, inventory and network)

Events data - e.g., between SS7, Switch, Mediation, and billing)

Interconnect/partners billing

Detection of data integrity and correctness problems, e.g., a switch that rounds
incorrectly the durations of the call.

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Verification of the correctness of the application of the rating and billing rules e.g., is
the customer billed according to the correct plan, and is he billed correctly according
to the correspondent plan

Investigation of revenue leakages, finding and correcting their root cause to prevent
the recurrence of similar leakages

Grouping and classification of leakages

Proactively test equipment and systems and processes to verify that they provide
accurate information- e.g., using test call generation

Generation and tracking of Revenue Assurance Trouble Reports and Alarms

Automation of revenue assurance controls and data collection

Automation of leakages correction

Generation of revenue leakage reports and documentation both for internal needs as
well as a support to regulatory compliance activities.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

09.02 HR Management

HR
Management

Figure 65: 09.02 HR Management

Description
To Be Added

HR Management
Application Identifier: 09.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added

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Supported Contracts
To Be Added

09.03 Financial Management

Financial
Management

Figure 66: 09.03 Financial Management

Description
To Be Added

Financial Management
Application Identifier: 09.03
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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09.04 Asset Management

Asset
Management

Figure 67: 09.04 Asset Management

Description
To Be Added

Asset Management
Application Identifier: 09.04
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

09.05 Security Management

Security
Management

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Figure 68: 09.05 Security Management

Description
To Be Added

Security Management
Application Identifier: 09.05
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

09.06 Knowledge Management

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Figure 69: 09.06 Knowledge Management

Description
To Be Added

Knowledge Management
Application Identifier: 09.06
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Enterprise Information
Application Identifier: 09.06.01
Overview
These applications are usually associated with Data Warehousing technologies and
provide the enterprise with a range of filtered information and events to present to
enterprise managers, often through a dashboard, to allow them recognize, respond and
manage business events.

Functionality
The Enterprise Information Application is responsible for:

The acquisition and management of data for use within Business Intelligence
functions. This includes both internal corporate data, but also external data used to
augment and enhance the organizations understanding of its customers and services.

The transformation and remodeling of data to an agreed model for each managed
business domain within the enterprise e.g. Retail, Wholesale.

The cleansing and management of data quality to ensure an appropriate level of

integrity and quality is maintained within the information. This also includes reporting
to identify and initiate resolution of root cause issues pertaining to the data quality.

Data Integration services to manage the distribution and synchronization of

information to other platforms.

The creation and management of an Enterprise Wide Data Warehouse for

centralization and rationalization of business information containing all publishable
quality data of a permanent nature for the enterprise. This information will be stored
along the lines of common dimensions and over time to be used for analysis and
prediction purposes.

The creation of a business intelligence application layer to utilize the information

within the warehouse. This will take the form of the following basic capabilities:

Dashboarding

Query and Reporting

User Guided Knowledge Discovery

Predictive Analytics / Data Modeling

The generation of business data-driven event triggers for delivery to decision making
platforms to assist in business intelligence

The support infrastructure for Marketing functions (Batch and Real Time), and
Campaign Management.

The creation and management of an end to end Meta Data Repository for enhanced
data identification and process understanding to further assist in Business
Intelligence.

The Enterprise Information platform is NOT responsible for:

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The applications provided to customers, employees or agents of the

enterprise which manage the customer relationship and capture of customer
related data. These are proper to the Supplier Partner and Customer
Relationship Management Applications described earlier.

The management of in-flight event status updates relating to complex order

processing.

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The Enterprise Information application platform SHARES responsibility for:

Business Intelligence reporting. This function is supplied directly from tools

that sit within the Enterprise Information Application and thorough a
Business Intelligence layer from within the Customer Relationship
Management application. This ensures that ALL relevant business
communities have access and correct use of the information required for
business intelligence. This also supports niche areas that require specific
tools/techniques for prediction and data mining analysis.

Marketing and Campaign Management. A combination of Enterprise

Information application and Customer Relationship Management
Applications will be used to support Campaign Management.

Supported Contracts

Manage Dashboard

Manage Data Cleanse

Manage Data Profiling

Manage Data Synchronization

Manage Event Enhancement

Manage Extract

Manage Party

Manage Place

Manage Predictive Analytics

Manage Query & Reporting

Manage User Defined Knowledge Discovery

Sales Aids
Application Identifier: 09.06.02
Overview
The Sales Aids Application provides access to methods and procedures as well as product
information that can be used to assist in making a sale.

Functionality
The Sales Aids Application includes the following functionality:

Access to various job aids as well as Methods and Procedures.

Access to product information

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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Job Aids
Application Identifier: 09.06.02.01
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Job Aids Application provides access to needed job aids, methods and procedures to
assist in performing various sales related tasks while conforming to organizational
standards. Aids can be passive, such as in the case of a searchable price book, or active,
in the case of context-aware scripting to aid lead qualification as an example.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

Product Support
Application Identifier: 09.06.02.02
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
The Product Support application provides access to product information on the various
products being sold by the service provider. This can include information such as product
descriptions, configuration constraints, eligibility rules, and possibly pricing information.

Supported Contracts
To Be Added

09.07 Fraud Management

Fraud
Management

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Figure 70: 09.07 Fraud Management

Description
To Be Added

Fraud Management
Application Identifier: 09.07
Overview
To Be Added
Functionality
To Be Added
Supported Contracts
To Be Added

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10.0 Application Integration Infrastructure

Integration infrastructure:
bus technology/ middleware / business process management

Figure 71: Application Integration Infrastructure

10.1 Introduction
As described in section 12 - NGOSS and the TAM, the Telecom
Applications Map is an integral part of NGOSS. Integrating applications
into a cohesive, automated and flexible infrastructure to enable lean
operations is as important as the applications functionality itself. The
full NGOSS recommendations for integration are available in the
NGOSS Technology Neutral Architecture GB053. Thus this section of
the Telecom Applications Map is designed as an overview for
companies either building or deploying applications. Key to the
success of a highly integrated lean operator is that such an approach
should enhance, not diminish the business flexibility that the enterprise
can achieve. Previous approaches of tightly coupling applications with
specific functional interfaces ( i.e. hard-wired integration) are not only
expensive to build and maintain such one-one interfaces, they are
extremely inflexible because they reflect the needs of the enterprise
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and its business processes at the time of development. Today, the

telecom industry is very dynamic and such hard-wired approaches
badly serve the business.
It is critical to separate business process control from the
individual OSS applications.
The key is for the individual OSS applications to offer open
interfaces that allow for business process control.
TM Forums approach to integration is based on 3 key principles:
the use of a common communications bus,
the use of business process management (process workflow);
the use of contract interfaces between applications and a
common information model shared between the applications.
Clearly the applications described in this document need not adhere to
these core principles but unless applications migrate in this direction,
the level of process automation achieved will be low, the amount of
business flexibility will be low and the level of customer service will be
low.
Achieving lean and agile business processes places a very significant
reliance on integration between applications that deliver the various
work functions of an operators main processes. Full flow-through
integration of applications at an enterprise level is a very significant
task and one that many industry sectors have been trying to perfect
over many years. In the telecom industry, some degree of application
integration has been achieved over the past decade, but this typically
has consisted on system-system point integration to achieve a specific,
high volume flow-through result. The reality of this approach is that it
can work but it is very expensive and very inflexible, requiring
programmatic changes every time a minor process change is needed.
The enterprise integration framework described in this document seeks
to provide an effective, generic and flexible approach to such
integration where changes can be made by operations people rather
than software engineers.
It is critical to the success of any lean operator program that
integration between processes, data and applications can be achieved
progressively, accommodating both legacy applications as well as new
systems sourced from commercial suppliers or built in-house. Some
approaches to integration are really only applicable to clean-build
situations and for most operators with legacy systems, it is most
unlikely that they can deploy anything other than step-by-step
progressive integration approach. This progressive approach assumes
that an increasing number of steps in a lean operators processes will
be automated via applications, either by replacement of current manual
process steps, replacement of existing applications with ones offering
greater functionality or upgrades to existing systems. Thus the task of

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providing end-to-end, flexible process automation is essentially one of

providing integration between islands of automation.
There are 3 primary building blocks to achieving a generic and flexible
approach to integration such process and application islands. These
are:
A common communications infrastructure between each
application. Several leading middleware products are now
well established to provide a common communications
vehicle. The most common of these is currently enterprise
application integration (EAI) bus technology that supports
numerous interface types to cater for a variety of legacy
operating systems, databases, data formats, standards
etc. EAI is concerned foremost with application-toapplication exchange of data, not user activity or
interaction. Other common communications vehicles such
as web based approaches can also be used.
A business process management (BPM) environment. BPM is an
emerging class of technologies that work hand-inhand
with EAI technology to provide a range of facilities to
manage process and information flows between
applications. The real value of BPM is the ability to define
and execute business processes independent of
applications and infrastructure. While EAI and integration
capabilities offer an important resource to BPM
environments, EAI software alone typically lacks the
ability to address the user-facing side of business
processes.
Contract-defined interfaces between applications. In NGOSS
parlance, these are defined as contract interfaces.
NGOSS Contracts define the interfaces to Services made
available by the OSS application. The data and metadata
in Contract specifications use information defined in the
Shared Information and Data model (SID).

10.2 Common Communications - Enterprise Application Integration

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a business computing term
for the plans, methods, and tools aimed at modernizing, consolidating,
and coordinating the applications in an enterprise. EAI technology
allows this integration to be done using techniques that leverage the
architecture. Using these concepts, applications send or receive
events / messages to or from other components or send or receive
notifications. Such architecture provides greater degrees of freedom.
For example, components can be replaced by new ones more easily

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as they have the same interface. It is also easier to plug-in a new

component that will use the services already available. EAI includes:
transport of data between applications
data format translations
implementation, at EAI level, of enhanced enterprise level objects
In the following sections, we start with a description of the analysis
methodology and guidelines that are used in this section for the EA
Integration of the focused applications. Use of this analysis
methodology should reduce making inappropriate decisions based on
expected capabilities associated with such architectures.
It must also be noted that Enterprise Integration is generally
implemented in a number of successive phases. This is particularly
true when few existing applications are already efficiently integrated
together. It is recommended that the first phases usually consist in the
integration of new features and new applications and that in further
phases it can be envisaged to enhance the integration of the existing
applications.

10.3 Business Process Management & Workflow

Business Process Management (BPM) is the evolution of earlier
concepts called workflow management (also know as Process Flow
Management). As operators understand the need to introduce much
greater flexibility and day-day change into their business processes,
BPM and workflow management techniques, pioneered in
manufacturing industry, are becoming more and more visible in the
telecommunications industry.
Business flexibility is crucial for an operator as well as high levels of
automation of its processes, not just of basic process flows but of
complex and exception handling areas. One of the cardinal principles
of NGOSS is to allow this by abstraction of business processes from
application logic. The emergence of N-tier computing and componentoriented environments (such as COM and J2EE) allow for this principle
in the same manner that the emergence of SQL and the two-tier
client/server architecture enabled the abstraction of data management
from application code. By separating business process management
as an independent function, applications can be designed around
existing processes, and thus to take advantage of shared business
logic rather than reinventing and recoding it for each application.
There are considerable benefits to an operator in adopting this type of
approach and would include:
Reduced costs
Staff savings
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Cash flow improvement

Better customer perception
Faster and more flexible response to implement new processes or
amend existing ones to accommodate new products /
services
To understand how BPM fits with an operator and its infrastructure, it is
helpful to examine the individual components of BPM. While
commercial implementations vary in their specific definitions and
software composition, most fit within the basic framework described
below. Note that although some systems offer the ability to automate
activities and define business rules, those that lack the fundamental
components below cannot realistically be used as a BPM system.
A BPM system is defined by the components of:
Execution Engine
Process Designer,
Process Definitions
Activity Monitor
User interface which may be a combination of a Windows client
application, HTML based Work Portal, or an exposed API
or Web service

Conceptual model of BPM

2003 Delphi Group

Figure 72: Conceptual model of Business Process Management

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The majority of BPM systems on the market today are componentoriented and allow each of the individual pieces listed above to be
deployed independently on individual servers. Individual business
processes are defined by the process owner in a Process Definition,
(increasingly expressed in a standard language such as UML or some
variation of XML). Each Process Definition may be composed of both
manual activities and automated activities. Once defined and validated
within the Process Designer, processes are instantiated by an
Execution Engine. The Activity Monitor provides access to status and
performance metrics on the execution of processes.
End-to-end process orchestration
It is unlikely that the implementation of an NGOSS based lean
migration program will be a big bang type of approach implementing
all new systems. Therefore, the Enterprise Integration Framework will
need to integrate end-to-end processes across various islands of
automation ranging from existing legacy systems to new commercialoff-the-shelf technology. This approach is sometimes called
orchestration in process. An orchestration-based approach offers the
ability to manage processes of greater complexity, (such as complex
business service provisioning etc.) with far more efficiency than is
otherwise possible with alternative approaches. The key to this is a
modular approach to managing business rules, relationships, and
activities.
Within a simple workflow automation paradigm, processes are defined
end-to-end with all possible paths (or more commonly a single path)
pre-determined. Thus Step 5 always follows Step 4 and precedes
Step 6 even if different instances of an otherwise standard process
may require a different sequence.
Orchestration allows for the sequencing of steps to be determined
during the run-time instance of a process, with paths determined by
evolving context resulting from each new step. Thus the potential
number of paths and outcomes may otherwise be too complex to
define in terms of pre-determined If-Then-Else rules, but may be
easily resolved through human interaction and decision-making. This
highlights the key architectural difference between automation and
orchestration. Given the inherent complexity and constant changes
within an operators business environment, effectively managing
processes requires the agility to shift with changes in context, rather
than always being bound to the same scripted flow. This requires the
unique ability to define processes as a set of atomic, goal-based
activities with the enforcement of basic parameters (e.g., time limits,
data variables), while separating the execution logic activities from the
higher-level process definition. Process orchestration is not limited to
invoking software, but rather represents a shift from task-based to
goal-oriented process definition. Web services and other forms of
software automation are utilized through process orchestration, yet not
to the exclusion of manual, human-driven activities.

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10.4 Contract defined interfaces

Contract defined interfaces are a key concept within the NGOSS
architecture. This approach allows applications to locate each other
and discover what services they offer through a repository of contracts.
A contract is a well-formed interface by which the functionality of a
component is made available to a client. Components advertise their
contract instances by their class and the values of their service
attributes, via a trading service. The remainder of the contract
comprises the operations by which it provides the system services for
which it was designed.
Contracts comprise a technology-neutral portion and a technologyspecific portion. The technology neutral portion is independent of the
protocols used between components, whereas this needs to be
specified in the technology-specific portion that will be used at the
systems level. Thus the interface specification is independent of the
communications infrastructure.
It is possible that the technology-specific portion will not be completed
until runtime. The reason for this is that the introduction of a new
component can trigger the reconfiguration of the NGOSS adapters of
existing components and consequently alter the communications
between components. This enables a new component to enhance an
existing business process dynamically.
NGOSS has defined a number of areas of contract interfaces and this
work is continuing. For example, there has been much discussion
about whether the technology-neutral portion of contracts should
contain pre- and post-conditions and what the implications would be.

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Index
0

05.15 Bill Calculation.......................................107

03.0 Market/Sales Management ....................... 20

05.16 Online Charging Applications ................ 110

03.01 M/S Campaign Management .................. 21

06.0 Service Management Domain .................114

03.02 M/S Sales Aids ........................................ 25

06.01 Service Specification Management ....... 115

03.03 M/S Compensation & Results ................. 25

06.02 Service Inventory Management.............116

03.04 M/S Channel Sales Management............ 27

06.04 Service Level Agreement Management 128

03.04 M/S Mass Market Sales Management .... 43

06.05 Service Problem Management ..............131

03.05 M/S Corporate Sales Management ......... 35

06.06 Service Quality Monitoring & Impact

Analysis .......................................................132

03.06 M/S Sales Portals.................................... 47

04.0 Product Management Domain .................. 50
04.01 Product Strategy / Proposition
Management ................................................. 50
04.02 Product / Service Catalog Management.. 52
04.03 Product Lifecycle Management ............... 56
04.04 Product Performance Management ........ 58
05.0 Customer Management Domain ............... 60
05.01 Customer Information Management ........ 61

06.07 Service Performance Management .......135

06.3 Service Order Management ....................118
07.0 Resource Management Domain..............137
07.01 Resource Domain Management
Applications .................................................157
07.01 Resource Lifecycle Management ..........138
07.02 Resource Process Management
(Workflow/Integration) .................................145

05.02 Transactional Document Production ....... 62

07.03 Resource Inventory Management

Applications .................................................148

05.03 Customer Order Management ................ 66

07.04 Resource Order Management ...............152

05.04 Customer Self Management ................... 72

07.06 Resource Process Management

(Workflow/Integration) .................................163

05.05 Customer Contact Management, Retention

& Loyalty........................................................ 80

07.07 Resource Assurance Management .......167

05.06 Customer Service Representative Toolbox

...................................................................... 84

07.07 Voucher Management ...........................177

05.07 Customer Quality of Service & Service

Level Agreement Management ..................... 89

07.09 Real-time Billing Mediation ....................179

05.08 Customer Service / Account Problem

Resolution ..................................................... 91

07.08 Billing Data Mediation ...........................178

08.0 Supplier/Partner Domain .........................181

08.01 Supply Chain Management ................... 181

05.09 Receivables Management ....................... 93

08.02 Partner Management ............................182

05.10 Billing Inquiry, Dispute & Adjustment

Management ................................................. 96

08.03 Wholesale / Interconnect Billing

Applications .................................................184

05.11 Bill Format / Render ................................ 98

09.0 Enterprise Domain ..................................186

05.12 Product/Service Rating Applications ..... 100

09.02 HR Management ...................................188

05.13 Billing Account Management ................. 102

09.02 Revenue Assurance Management ........ 186

05.14 Collection Management ........................ 104

09.03 Financial Management .......................... 189

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09.04 Asset Management ............................... 190

Contract Storage ..............................................41

09.05 Security Management ........................... 190

Contract Generation ..........................................40

09.06 Knowledge Management ...................... 191

Contract Implementation ...................................40

09.07 Fraud Management ............................... 195

Contract Management.......................................40

Contract Workflow .............................................37

A/R Management .............................................. 94

Corporate Sales Management ..........................36

Adjustments ...................................................... 98

Corporate Sales Workflow Management...........36

Affiliates ............................................................ 34

Correlation & Root Cause Analysis Applications

....................................................................170

Analyze and Manage Customer Risk ................ 82

Asset Management Applications ..................... 190
Assign/Procure Network Resources ............... 122

CSR assurance applications .............................87

CSR billing applications ....................................88
CSR fulfillment applications ..............................87

B
Bill Calculation ................................................ 107
Bill Inquiry ......................................................... 97

Customer and Product Data Collection .............69

Customer Bill Charge Calculation ...................108

Billing Account Associations Management...... 102

Customer Contact Management, Retention &

Loyalty ...........................................................81

Billing Account Configuration Management .... 103

Customer Credit Eligibility .................................45

Billing Account Management........................... 102

Customer Information Management ..................61

Billing Data Mediation Applications ................. 179

Customer Order Distribution .............................71

Billing Inquiry, Dispute & Adjustment

Management ................................................. 97

Customer Order Establishment .........................67

Build Customer Insight ...................................... 83

Customer Order Lifecycle Management............72

Customer Order Management ..........................66

C
Campaign Analytics .......................................... 22
Campaign Design ............................................. 22
Campaign Execution & Refinement .................. 23
Campaign Management .................................... 21
Campaign Performance Tracking ..................... 24

Customer Order Orchestration ..........................70

Customer Order Publication ..............................70
Customer Order Tracking & Management ........71
Customer Order Validation ................................69
Customer Qualification ......................................44

Capability Specification Management ............. 142

Customer Quality of Service & Service Level

Agreement Management ...............................90

Channel Guidance and Data Capture ............... 68

Customer Sales Portals ....................................48

Channel Sales Management ............................. 28

Customer Self Empowered Assurance .............77

Collection .......................................................... 88

Customer Self Empowered Billing .....................79

Collection Management .................................. 104

Customer Self Empowered Fulfillment ..............76

Collection Policy Definition and Configuration. 105

Customer Self Management .............................74

Collection Policy Execution and Monitoring .... 105

Collection Settlement ...................................... 106

Customer Service / Account Problem Resolution

......................................................................92

Commitment Tracking ..................................... 109

Customer Service Representative Toolbox .......86

Compensation ................................................... 26

Customer/Prospect Data Acquisition.................44

Compensation & Results................................... 26

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Dealers.............................................................. 32

Manage Bill Cycle Run ....................................109

Design ............................................................... 38

Mass Market Sales Management ......................44

Design Solution ............................................... 122

Mass Market Sales Reporting & Tracking .........47

Design/Price/Propose Workflow ........................ 37

Mass Market Sales Workflow Management ......46

Determine Access Provider............................. 126

Determine Delivery Interval ............................. 126

Offer Management ............................................46

Direct Sales Force ............................................ 29

Online Charging ..............................................110

Discounts Calculation...................................... 108

OSS Inventory/Data Synchronization

Management ...............................................162

Dispute Management ........................................ 98

Document Archiving .......................................... 65

Document Delivery ............................................ 64

Partner Management ......................................183

Payment ............................................................89

E
Enterprise Information Applications ................ 192

Personalize Customer Profile ............................83

Planning Design Automation ...........................142

F
Fault Status Monitoring Applications ............... 168
Financial Management Applications ............... 189
Financial Reporting ........................................... 96
Fraud Management ......................................... 195
Funnel & Lead Management ............................. 41
Funnel Management ......................................... 42

Price ..................................................................39
Price/Cost Optimization.....................................39
Procure Access ...............................................122
Procure CPE ...................................................123
Product & Service Availability ...........................45
Product / Service Catalog Management............52
Product Lifecycle Management .........................57

H
HR Management Applications ......................... 188

Product Offering Availability ..............................69

Product Performance Management ..................59

I
Implementation Planning................................. 140
Indirect Sales Portals ........................................ 49
Interaction Management ................................... 83
Internal Sales Portals ........................................ 48

Product Strategy / Proposition Management .....51

Product Support ..............................................194
Product/Service Order Decomposition ............120
Product/Service Rating ...................................100
Propose .............................................................39

J
Jeopardy Management ........................... 148, 167

Protocol Management .....................................173

Job Aids .......................................................... 194

Journalization .................................................... 95

Quotation Engine ............................................109

K
Knowledge Management Applications ............ 192

Real-time Billing Mediation Applications ......... 180

Receivables Management .................................94

L
Lead Generation ............................................... 23
Lead Management ............................................ 43

Resouorce Design / Assign Applications ......... 155

Resource Activation ........................................161
Resource Assurance Management .................167

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Resource Assurance Process Orchestration .. 168

Security Management Applications .................191

Resource Availability ....................................... 155

Service Activation Management ...................... 127

Resource Change Management ............. 147, 166

Service Address Validation ............................. 125

Resource Commissioning & Configuration

Management ............................................... 140

Service Availability ..........................................123

Resource Discovery ........................................ 160

Resource Domain Management Applications . 159
Resource Fault & Performance Data Mediation
Applications ................................................. 161

Service Availability Validation .........................125

Service Configuration Management ................126
Service Data Collection ...................................119
Service Design/Assign .................................... 121

Resource Inventory Management Applications

.................................................................... 149

Service Inventory Management....................... 116

Resource Lifecycle Management .................... 138

Service Order Management ............................ 118

Resource Logistics Applications ..................... 143

Service Order Orchestration ...........................119

Resource Order Configuration Management .. 156

Service Order Publication ...............................127

Resource Order Data Collection ..................... 154

Service Order Tracking & Management ..........120

Resource Order Management ......................... 152

Service Order Validation ................................. 121

Resource Order Orchestration ........................ 153

Service Performance Management ................. 135

Resource Order Publication ............................ 156

Service Problem Management ........................131

Resource Order Tracking & Management....... 153

Service Quality Monitoring & Impact Analysis .133

Resource Performance Management

Applications ................................................. 175

Service Specification Management ................. 115

Resource Problem Management Applications 174

Service Level Agreement Management .......... 129

Service Termination Points Determination ...... 125

SLA Metric Management .................................172

Resource Process Management

(Workflow/Integration) ......................... 146, 163

Solution Management .......................................38

Resource Service Order Validation ................. 154

Spares & Warehouse Inventory Management 143

Resource Specification Management Applications

.................................................................... 144

Strategic Planning ...........................................144

Supply Chain Management ............................. 182

Resource Status Monitoring Level 2 Capabilities

.................................................................... 170
Resource Testing Management ...................... 146
Resource Testing Management Applications .. 164
Results Reporting ............................................. 27
Retail Outlets .................................................... 31
Revenue Assurance Management Applications
.................................................................... 187

T
Tactical Planning .............................................141
Tax Applying ...................................................108
Telesales ...........................................................30
Traffic Management ........................................173
Transactional Document Formatter ...................64
Transactional Document Generator ..................64
Transactional Document Production .................63

Sales Account Management ............................. 42

Sales Aids ....................................................... 194

Validate Customer Satisfaction .........................84

Sales Negotiation .............................................. 46

Verify Customer Relationship ............................82

Sales Portals ..................................................... 48

Virtual Network Operators .................................34

Sales Workflow ................................................. 38

Voucher Management .....................................178

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Workforce Management ..................................147

Wholesale / Interconnect Billing Applications .. 184

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11. Appendix 1 TAM Short Description

To Be Defined

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12. Appendix 2 Changes from 2.1

There are major changes from 2.1 to release 3.0. In most of the sections the Level 1
applications have been unpacked and in many cases new Level 1 groupings have been
defined. Following are at a high level the changes from 2.1:

Market/Sales Domain: Introduction of new Level 1s like Mass market Management,

Sales Portal and unpacking of all Level 1s into Level 2

Customer Management: This section has undergone a major revision and new concepts
like CSR toolbox have been introduced. In addition the Billing and Fulfillment sections
have been organized and Level 2 and 3 introduced.

Service Management: The fulfillment domain has been reorganized under the Service
Order Management

Resource Management: This section has been completely organized and many new
concepts like Resource Lifecycle Management, Resource Order Management and
resource Assurance have been introduced.

There are no changes to all other domains.

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13. Appendix 3 - NGOSS and the TAM

This Telecom Applications Map is designed to provide the industry with
a frame of reference in order to evolve the set of applications that
enable and automate operational processes within a telecom operator.
It is a fundamental part of the overall TM Forum Lean Operator
program and TM Forums core technical roadmap: New Generation
Operations Systems and Software (NGOSS) that the telecom industry
worldwide is using as a guide to help the evolution of its processes and
systems.
The core aim behind NGOSS is to provide a technology and process
roadmap for the industry worldwide that allows the simplified
implementation of business process automation coupled with
significantly improved business flexibility and agility. These operational
aims directly link to the key objectives of TM Forums Lean Operator
program:

to transform operating costs

to transform business agility
to transform levels of customer service
to transform innovation levels

13.1 What is NGOSS?

NGOSS is a comprehensive, integrated set of tools for defining,
developing, procuring and deploying operational and business support
systems and software. It is available as a packaged set of industryagreed guidelines; maps; models; methodologies and specifications
that cover key business and technical areas. These NGOSS tools, and
the clearly defined methodology for using them, assist the user to
define, design and build NGOSS compliant solutions that can easily
integrate into any NGOSS compliant environment. As such, NGOSS
delivers measurable improvements in development and software
integration environments through use of standards processes, reuse of
components, and repeatable cycles.
NGOSS is a sound technical solution developed by industry leaders
with hundreds of combined years of operations and software
experience from some of the worlds major service provider and
supplier companies. Recognizing the need to create a common
integration environment for software systems, TM Forum member
companies have contributed significant resources from their senior
architecture and engineering resources to make NGOSS a success.

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This is being coupled with a major industry communications program

driven by the TM Forum.
Automating telecom business processes requires a multi-step
approach, from understanding existing processes through to designing
how systems will integrate and operate. Typical activities would
include:
Defining and engineering/re-engineering business processes
Defining systems to implement processes
Defining data using a common information model
Defining integration architecture
Defining integration interfaces
The elements of NGOSS align directly with the steps in this process
automation approach. As a result, NGOSS gives service providers the
tools they need to undertake automation projects with
confidence. NGOSS-based solutions use industry-accepted IT
concepts and technologies to deliver a more productive development
environment and efficient management infrastructure. NGOSS is
prescriptive for only those few cardinal points where interoperability is
of over-riding importance. NGOSS also provides for customization
across a wide range of functionality, thus allowing applications to be
tailored to provide a competitive advantage while also working with
legacy systems.
The elements of NGOSS fit together to provide an end-to-end system
for OSS development, integration and operations. The elements of
NGOSS may be used as an end-to-end system to undertake largescale development and integration projects, or may be used separately
to solve specific problems.
NGOSS is based on 4 key frameworks:

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New Generation OSS technical roadmap

Business process
framework
(Enhanced Telecom
Operations Map - eTOM)

Applications
framework
Telecom Applications Map
-TAF)

Enterprisewide
information
framework
(Shared Information
and data model - SID)

(COTS) software components.
NGOSS based applications should allow solutions to be rapidly implemented
through the integration of off-the-shelf software components.
Allow a clear migration path by integrating with and evolving from legacy systems.
NGOSS has been specified to maximize the opportunities for re-use of business
process components and integration with legacy systems. NGOSS takes into
account existing legacy systems and considers migration of processes and
software in its approach. Core to this is the specification of an integration
framework and contract interfaces for each component.
Reduce software development costs and risks by building on industry best practices
and existing standards work.
NGOSS draws widely from the work of other standards bodies and industry best
practices. NGOSS brings together the best from each of these and applies them
specifically into the telecom IT environment.
Provide comprehensive, enterprise-wide operational solutions for fixed, mobile, cable
and converged industry segments
NGOSS is aimed at the telecommunications market in general and is not
restricted to any one sector in particular. NGOSS provides tools to guide the user
through a full-lifecycle of business process automation improvements from the
analysis and requirements phases at the start of a project through to development
and testing of systems and software. The NGOSS tools may be used as an
integrated system or individually to focus on a specific area.
Allow corporate data to be widely shared across the enterprise and where
appropriate with trading partners
NGOSS solutions adopt the principle of logically centralized data, providing more
integrated views of customer and operational data via a common data model.
This has significant bearing on operations, allows much improved levels of
customer service (e.g. customer service agents can see all aspects of the
services provided to a customer) and facilitates much higher levels of process
automation.
Allow operators organization to evolve without systems lock-in by using loosely
coupled distributed systems
NGOSS based applications represent a move away from stand alone OSS
stovepipes, toward a common distributed infrastructure for management process
interaction.
Allow business processes to be easily changed without software change by
separating control of business process flow from application operation.
NGOSS solutions separate control of business processes from the operation of
business applications to provide flexibility to rapidly produce new business
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solutions and allow more re-use of business components across multiple

business scenarios. This may be accomplished by using business process
management (BPM/ workflow) techniques or policy based management.
Allow simplified systems integration (Plug & Play) through clearly defined contract
Interfaces between applications.
NGOSS has been specified to maximize the opportunities for re-use of business
process components. Core to this is the specification of contract interfaces for
each application component.
Allow simplified systems integration by utilizing a common communications bus
between applications.
NGOSS specifies the implementation of a common bus based architecture for
communications between application components.

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14. Administrative Appendix

This Appendix provides additional background material about the
TeleManagement Forum and this document.

About this document

This is a TM Forum Guidebook. The guidebook format is used when:
The document lays out a core part of TM Forums approach to
automating business processes.

Document Life Cycle

The TMF Applications Map is being issued as Team Draft Version. It
can be considered valid until released for Member Evaluation. The
purpose of an Evaluation Version is to encourage input based on
experience of members and the public as they begin to use the
document. Following the Evaluation Period, documents that are seen
to deliver value are candidates for formal approval by the TM Forum.
All documents approved by the TM Forum undergo a formal review
and approval process.
This document will continue under formal change control. Supporting
work will be issued as companions to this document. A document of
this type is a living document, capturing and communicating current
knowledge and practices. Further inputs will be made because of
detailed work ongoing in the TM Forum and the industry.

Document History
Version History

Version Number

Date Modified

Modified by:

Description of changes

0.1

31 October 2004

Keith Willetts

Initial Version

0.2

10 November 2004

TMF Staff

Formatting of Document

0.3

12 November 2004

Keith Willetts

Final revisions before first

circulation

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TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

0.4

November

Keith Willetts

Changes following review

by TDC

0.5.3

14th February 2005

Piyush Sarwal

Incorporated
contributions

0.5.4

7 April 2005

Libbey Scheible

Incorporated
contributions

0.5.5

17 April 2005

Piyush Sarwal

Incorporated Comments
from the team

0.5.6

18 April 2005

Libbey Scheible

Added team members to

list of contributors.

0.5.7

Not recorded

0.5.8

Not recorded

0.5.9

05-May-05

Tina O'Sullivan

Minor corrections and

additions prior to Member
Evaluation.

1.6.11 & 1.7.12

May & June 2006

Libbey Scheible

versions were not used

1.8.13

8 August 2006

Shayan Sanyal

incorporated
contributions and revised
sections on Market /
Sales and Customer
Management

1.9.14

9 August 2006

Libbey Scheible

incorporated
contributions on Product
Mgmt, Domain Mgmt,
Service Mgmt, &
Resource Mgmt.

1.10.15 1.17.12

Aug. & Sept. 2006

Piyush Sarwal &

Libbey Scheible

revised TAM diagram &

incorporated additional
changes such as moving
the NGOSS overview to
an appendix. Detailed
change control log
provided with Release
2.0 Change Request

1.18.13

12 October 2006

Libbey Scheible

revised the Assumptions

list in the Introduction
section to add the TNA
definition of an
application and to make
requested word changes
to TAM version.

2.0

21 November 2006

Tina O'Sullivan

Major tidy up of
document prior to

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TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

submission into Member

Evaluation.
2.1

10 April 2007

Piyush Sarwal

Updated document to
include short description
and other minor changes

2.2

15 April 2007

Piyush Sarwal

Incorporated AMDOCS
contribution, updated
Servie PM functionality

2.3

25-April 2007

Piyush Sarwal

Updated the document

based on Feedback and
Moved the Whole Sale
billing section

2.4

9 August 2007

Tina O'Sullivan

Processed BA_20070007 and template

changes.

3.0

June 2008

TAM Team

Restructuring the
Market/Sales,
Customer, Service and
resource domains

3.1

June 2008

A Chalmers

Format changes

3.2

July 2008

T.OSullivan

Minor corrections.

Release Number

Date Modified

Modified by:

Description of
changes

1.0

May, 2005

TAM team

Initial release

2.1

April 10, 2007

TAM Team

Updated document to
include short
description and other
minor changes

3.0

July 3, 2008

TAM Team

Release History

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14.1 Acknowledgments
This document draws liberally from the Enhanced Telecom Operations
Map TMF GB921. Thanks are given to the many authors and
contributors of this document.
In addition, TM Forum acknowledges the contributions to this
document of:
Keith Willetts, TMF Chairman
Logan-Orviss International
TDC Solutions
Azure Solutions
Application Map Team
Chuck Baldi, Nextel Communications
Viviane Cohen, Amdocs
Martin Creaner, TM Forum
Roger Cutts, Vodafone
Wayne Floyd, Sprint
Stephen Fratini, Telcordia
Chris Glode, Tribold
Troy Henson, EDS
Phil Holmes, BT
Jenny Huang, AT&T
Martin Huddleston, QinetiQ
Dave Milham, BT
Erica Moradi, Micromuse
Mohamed Okasha, Oracle
Andrew Ponticelli, Nextel
Rakesh Radhakrishnan, Sun Microsystems
Dave Raymer, Motorola
John Reilly, Metasolv
Shayan Sanyal, Amdocs
Piyush Sarwal, IBM
Kevin Scaggs, AT&T
Libbey Scheible, TM Forum
Paul Short, TeliaSonera
GB929 R3 Version 3.2

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TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

Carolyn Smithson, O2
Ole Thomsen, TDC
Pravin Vijay, SunTec
Yishai Brown, Amdocs
Andy Chalmers, TM Forum
Jim Clendon, Telecom New Zeland
Richard Mishra, Amdocs
Deena Freed, Casewise

14.2 About TeleManagement Forum

TeleManagement Forum is an international consortium of
communications service providers and their suppliers. Its mission is to
help service providers and network operators automate their business
processes in a cost- and time-effective way. Specifically, the work of
the TM Forum includes:
Establishing operational guidance on the shape of business
processes.
Agreeing on information that needs to flow from one process
activity to another.
Identifying a realistic systems environment to support the
interconnection of operational support systems.
Enabling the development of a market and real products for
integrating and automating telecom operations
processes.
The members of TM Forum include service providers, network
operators and suppliers of equipment and software to the
communications industry. With that combination of
buyers and suppliers of operational support systems, TM
Forum is able to achieve results in a pragmatic way that
leads to product offerings (from member companies) as
well as paper specifications.

14.3 Time Stamp

This version of the Application Map document, GB 929 Release 3.0, can be considered valid until
further notice from TM Forum.

GB929 R3 Version 3.2

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TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

14.4 How can we obtain a copy?

An electronic copy of this document can be downloaded at the TM Forum Web Site
(www.tmforum.org), Publications or through a link to Publications from a specific teams public
project area.
Depending upon the document, it could be accessible from New Items, Evaluation Versions, or a
teams Members Only project area.
If you would like a paper version of this document, please order via the TM Forum Web Site or
contact the TM Forum office. If you are not a member, please contact the TM Forum office on +1
973-425-1900.

GB929 R3 Version 3.2

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TM Forum Applications Framework (TAM)

14.5 How can we comment on the

documents?
Comments must be in written form and addressed to the team editor for review with the
project team. Please send your comments to the editor using the editors e-mail shown in
the section below.

Application Map Team Leader

Piyush Sarwal, IBM
Phone : +1-913-219-7082
Fax :
email : Piyush.Sarwal@mail.sprint.com

TMF Senior Technical Manager

Andrew Chalmers, TM Forum
Phone : +44-7836-654152
Fax :
email :

GB929 R3 Version 3.2

achalmers@tmforum.org

TM Forum 2008

Page 226 of 226

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