infonova bss: order management · pdf filer6 functional overview | infonova r6 order...

R6 Functional Overview | Infonova R6 Order Management

For Telcos and service providers, order

management, service provisioning and

fulfillment is a critical activity. Customer

satisfaction and acquisition, as well as

operator success depend on a flexible and

efficient order and fulfillment process.

Many of today’s products incorporate

components from multiple suppliers and in

many instances, there are cross

dependencies that need to be

orchestrated.

Service Providers expect easy

configuration of business rules and

workflows, with the capability to automate

processes and incorporate manual

interventions where necessary (tasks,

SLAs, notifications). In this paper, we

show how the Infonova R6 is aligned to

service oriented architecture principles

and how Infonova Order Management

helps to manage delivery and activation of

services efficiently through the entire order

handling process. In addition, we

demonstrate how orchestration of cross

dependencies are realized via a powerful

workflow management and a sophisticated

rule engine and how end-to-end process

automation is achieved using a fully

integrated Task and Notification

Management.

Infonova Order Management Improve efficiencies and raise customer satisfaction with Infonova Order Management

Functional Overview | Infonova R6

R6 Functional Overview | Infonova R6 Order Management 2

INFONOVA’S NEXT GENERATION R6

Infonova's R6 is specifically designed to support cross-industry 2.0 and Telco 1.0 business

models: triple & quad play bundling, white labeling, rich wholesale products and innovative

partner models. At the same time, Infonova’s platform helps optimize existing business

models and allows flexible intercommunication between legacy and next generation systems.

The proven product family modules cover the enhanced 'Order-to-Cash' lifecycle: Platform

and Business Management, Product Management, Customer Management, Order

Management, Billing and Finance.

For internal as well as external integration, Infonova R6 is aligned to SOA principles and

contains a powerful combination of software components to deliver the sophisticated

functionality required for successful order management. By using this SOA integration

approach each of the Infonova modules has the ability to be used and integrated with existing

OSS/BSS platform environments separately by using the Infonova API suite.

THE INFONOVA SOA APPROACH

Service-oriented architecture (SOA) can be defined as a software design and implementation

methodology (i.e. architecture) of loosely coupled, coarse-grained, reusable artifacts (i.e.

services), which can be integrated in a wide variety of platform independent service

interfaces.

SOA plays an important role in the Infonova R6 platform. SOA optimization provides greater

flexibility, efficiency, and responsiveness for services used and provided by companies,

particularly, when OSS/BSS environments are heterogeneous, and business requirements

are dynamic.

Figure 1: SOA aligned Infonova API

The SOA-aligned Infonova API is implemented to enable more efficient interaction with

external systems, e.g., Customer Care, Ticket Systems and Network Layers. It provides a set


of interfaces that can be used to extend or to allow clients to integrate such functionality into

an existing IT environment. Examples of this include searching for fullfillment of customer's

orders and services over multiple systems, submitting tickets or triggering credit card

payments into external systems.

Business processes are essential to the SOA approach, therefore the model must also

integrate an additional standard for this aspect: the jBPM Process Definition Language (jPDL)

is used to implement the choreography and orchestration of services. Business Process

Management provides the foundation to respond faster to changing business requirements

and to react to events in real-time.

INFONOVA R6 ORDER MANAGEMENT

Infonova R6 Order Management handles the end-to-end process of a customer's request for

services. This includes customizing the offers, order entry, preparing the order for

provisioning, decomposing the order into order items and managing the service activation and

fulfillment process including all cross dependencies.

WORKFLOWS AND RULES FOR A COMPLEX SERVICE ORCHESTRATION

Order Management is workflow driven; this means workflows are the central element of this

component. Additionally, Infonova’s Rules Engine allows the definition of business rules that

can be applied on workflow steps.

An order encapsulates a customer's request for services. This applies to new customers as

well as existing ones, if they want to modify or terminate their services. Each order consists of

one or more order items that describe the selected service features.

The order entry process is workflow-controlled and calls functionality provided by other

functional areas like Customer/Account Management, Product Catalogue/Product

Configuration and Resource Provisioning. Pre-order checks can be implemented and include

address check, credit check, fraud check and service availability. Order entry triggers

processes in various other areas and controls handover and status of the end-to-end process.

All calls to 3rd

-party interfaces are done via the component Service & Resource Provisioning

(SRP).

Additionally, Workflow Management has a request/response mechanism for easy interfacing

with asynchronous external interfaces. This includes SLA violation tasks and scheduled

execution of service calls.

ORDER HANDLING AND SERVICE & RESOURCE PROVISIONING

After an order is placed and stored, Order Handling is triggered to initiate the provisioning

process that is workflow controlled. Order Handling uses Service & Resource Provisioning to

relay requests to internal OSS stacks and element managers or to external service providers,

for example,


address checks

service availability/quality checks

payment checks or credit checks

provisioning requests

Order Handling selects the right workflow based on the order type, creates a workflow

instance, and starts the provisioning process (one sub-workflow for every service):

General order

workflow,

order checks

Sub-workflow

Provision

PSTN Service

Sub-workflow

Provision

Mobile Service

Sub-workflow

Provision

Internet Service

Order workflow

continues,

activate accounts

Trigger

Processe.g.:

Place order

Barring Churn in/out

Terminate Port in/out

Figure 2: Order Workflow Overview

WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT

The Workflow Management component is based on jBPM and provides a framework for

defining and executing any kind of long-spanned business or internal processes, such as the

order process, change of service features, the addition of new operators, and task and

notification management.


Infonova BSS

Workflow Engine

EJB JCA JMS WebServiceESB

Figure 3: Infonova's Workflow Engine

Workflow Management features versioning of process definitions, hierarchical process

structures, concurrent parallel execution paths, manual intervention tasks, asynchronous

continuations/wait states, a request/response mechanism for easy interfacing with

asynchronous external interfaces, service level agreement handling, and scheduled

execution.

WORKFLOW INTEGRATION

Business Process Management (Infonova R6 BPM) enables the creation of business

processes that coordinate the activities of people, applications and services. With its modular

architecture, the workflow combines easy development of workflow applications with a flexible

and scalable process engine. Since Infonova BPM is packaged as a simple Java library, it is

able to run on an Application Server, JBoss4.x, for highly scalable enterprise applications. By

providing a flexible and robust framework for coordinating, and monitoring business

processes, Infonova R6 BPM makes changing complex business processes dramatically

easier - significantly enhancing business agility.

Because business processes are essential to the Service-oriented Architecture (SOA)

approach, the Infonova R6 BPM model integrates the jBPM Process Definition Language

(jPDL). jPDL specifies a XML schema and a mechanism for packaging all process-definition-

related files into a process archive.

The integration of jPDL enables the use of 3rd-party process modelers (e.g., Eclipse

integrated process designer) to engineer business process steps. The following figure shows

both views of an example workflow, graphic on the left and XML on the right:


Figure 4: A Basic Workflow in Graphic and XML View

VERSIONING OF PROCESS DEFINITIONS

Typically process definitions require regular updates to respond to the changing needs of the

service provider. Most systems can be triggered up by this requirement. To avoid this

problem, Infonova R6 BPM provides a process versioning mechanism. This allows multiple

process definitions of the same name to coexist in the platform. A process instance can be

started in the latest version of a process definition, and it will continue executing within that

definition for its entire lifetime. When a newer version is deployed, newly created process

instances start in the newer version, while older process instances continue executing in the

older process definitions.


WORKFLOW RUNTIME INTERFACE

The Workflow Runtime Interface is used to interact with running process instances in the

jBPM Workflow Engine. All Infonova components are able to use this interface to control

running processes. Infonova's WebAC uses this interface for administrating the process

definitions and for providing necessary information to Task Management.

Infonova BSS

Workflow Engine


Figure 5: Infonova's Workflow Interfaces

Interaction can be established through four different kinds of communication levels:

Interaction Description

Local Call

For synchronous local calls when the Infonova BPM runs on the

same instance as the caller.

EJB, Web Service

Enterprise Java Beans and Web Services for synchronous remote

calls when the Infonova BPM runs on a remote instance.

JMS, ESB

Java Messaging Service and Enterprise Service Bus for

asynchronous remote calls when the Infonova BPM runs on a

remote instance.

JCA

Java Connector Architecture for data storage within files, databases

or other storage media.

INFONOVA R6 WORKFLOW ENGINE

Infonova R6 BPM interacts with various external systems as well as internal modules and the

customer/operator interface. The main tasks of Infonova R6 BPM include the definition of time

periods such as SLA response times, triggering of manual tasks, and management of

asynchronous requests. The current status of process tasks and task instances, and context

variables are maintained in the core database.


RULE MANAGEMENT

Workflows comprise a series of nodes "action" or decission points, in which the workflow uses

expressions to determin the next delegate node. Each node it evaluates has a rule set that

dictates which action has to be taken - this can be done via a Rules Engine.

Infonova's Rules Engine complements the Workflow Engine by providing business-user

focused systems for the creation, management, deployment, collaboration and analysis of

rules. The combination of the Rules Engine and the Workflow Engine delivers a proven

"Business Rules Approach" methodology.

There are many ways to take advantage of the capabilites of a Rules Engine within a

workflow, for example, by

Delegating some decisions in the workflow to rules to determine which path is to be

taken

Letting the rules change or update business objects

Providing interceptor points (e.g., at the start and end of each workflow step) for rule

execution

Using rules to raise tasks when certain configurable conditions are met

As already mentioned, the Infonova R6 BPM can execute processes described in jPDL. It

supports the following processes and features:

Atomic core operations with rollback functionality

Functionality to facilitate and monitor in-order and on-time execution and delivery of

process steps

Unlimited number of process steps

Enabling of dependencies between process steps

Support for parallel event chains

Assignment of process and step owners

Process definition templates and profiles

Status information like

o Progress indicator

o Blocking points

o Warnings

o Errors

o Ongoing / final status

o Work order number / date / owner

o Task step date / owner

o Delay


o Task step

The Rules Engine can be applied to any system that uses rules in any form to produce an

outcome, for example, form validation systems and dynamic expression engines.

Infonova BSS

Workflow Engine


Rule Engine

Figure 6: Rule Engine

Business rules can be configured to control parts of ticket distribution flows, who receives

notifications, how the service fullfillment will be triggered, when and for which services the

barring can be done, service throttling and similar processes. In combination with a workflow

engine any kind of long spanned business rule in an integrated system can be configured

during run time.

DECLARATIVE PROGRAMMING

Rules Engines define "What to do" not "How to do it". The key advantage of this is that rules

can make it easy to express solutions to difficult problems and consequently have those

solutions verified (rules are much easier to read then code).

Rules Engines are capable of solving complicated problems, plus providing an explanation of

how the solution was found and why each decision was made.

LOGIC AND DATA SEPARATION

Data is in the domain objects, logic in the rules - this breaks the object-oriented coupling of

data and logic, which can be an advantage or a disadvantage, depending on the point of

view. The upshot of the separation of data and logic is that the logic is easier to maintain,

when changes have to be applied, since it is all laid out in rules. This is especially true for

cross-domain or multi-domain logic. Instead of the logic being spread across many domain

objects or controllers, it can all be organized in one or more very distinct rule files.

CENTRALIZATION OF KNOWLEDGE

By using rules an executable knowledge base is established. This means there is a single

point of truth for business policies (for example); ideally, rules are readable so they can also

serve as documentation.

TOOL INTEGRATION

Tools like Eclipse (and in future, Web-based UIs) provide ways to edit and manage rules and

get immediate feedback, validation and content assistance. Auditing and debugging tools are

also available.


TRACEABILITY

Rules Engines effectively provide traceability by logging the decisions and why they were

made.

UNDERSTANDABLE RULES

By creating object models and domain-specific languages (optional) that model the problem

domain, rules can be defined so they resemble natural language. This also means the rules

and logic can be understood by (possibly nontechnical) domain experts. However, all other

functionality is still in the code, as usual.

TASK AND NOTIFICATION MANAGEMENT

Task Management provides functionality for two task types, automatic and manual. Automatic

tasks are created by the system, when, for example, an error occurs and actions from a CSR,

technical support person or other operative are required. It is fully integrated with the rule and

workflow engine and allows any kind of error and complaint management used for fullfillment

and assurance.

Infonova BSS

Workflow Engine


Rule EngineTask Management

Figure 7: Task Management

If a task is raised by a workflow step in the Order Management process, for example, the task

is assigned to a CSR. After the task has been resolved, the workflow is automatically or

manually triggered to continue with the next step.

Notifications are triggered automatically, for example, by a workflow step, or sent manually by

a CSR. The notification methods can be specified for each actor and include mail, phone, e-

mail or text message (SMS).

Any kind of escalation path can be defined within the workflow, rule and task management to define:

SLA time

Number of retries and duration

Rules

Task definition and assignment

Task severity

Escalation


EXAMPLE OF INFONOVA R6 ORDER MANAGEMENT

The following flowchart depicts a typical Order Management workflow within the Infonova R6

system. The different subworkflows are orchestrated after the order has been placed and are

triggered to decompose the order into services and several workflow steps to communicate to

any kind of network layer for service provisioning and activation.

Figure 8: Example - A Typical Order Workflow in Infonova


The above example shows how a very complex workflow is organized by the Infonova R6

system to achieve the goal of full automation and zero-touch provisioning (or -upgrading, -

repairing, etc.). The start of the process can be triggered automatically (mobile number port in

request, service outage alert) or manually (place order), and then dozens of internal and

external systems are visited in a workflow spanning more than a hundred nodes in multiple

concurrent or alternative paths. In real-live scenarios at our customers the nodes in this

workflow are visited often in excess of 700 times, using the built in rules engine to configure

dependencies and actions at decision points. Steps requesting manual steps are minimized to

where target systems are not implemented or where they are required for business or legal

reasons (approve discount, sign T&C). Together with automated retry mechanisms (in case of

network or interface outages) and escalation paths, our clients are able to optimize their

processes to run without manual intervention for almost 100% of their product offering.

EXEMPLARY METRICS

In a typical carrier deployment of Infonova R6, workflows like in the above example are

typically executed in an environment that exhibits the following specs:

New Orders placed: 65000

Workflow steps executed: ~ 6 Million

Average workflow transitions per customer

order:

~ 100

R6 is ideal to cater for short, very effective turnaround times in service and billing activation

with complex workflows and multiple, parallel resolution paths. It easily scales up to millions of

workflow steps and thousands of manuals tasks triggered and controlled through the system

each month.

INFONOVA

Infonova, founded in 1989, specializes in providing technology and business-oriented solutions and services to telecommunications, media, utility and convergent industries.

Infonova’s BSS solutions have been implemented for incumbent, attacker and cable operators supporting triple & quadruple play service portfolios.

Encapsulating decades of knowledge, Infonova’s latest BSS product, R6 is a fully J2EE platform that supports real multi-tenant concept-to-cash operations for fully convergent and complex multi-industry 2.0 business models while also supporting Telco 1.0 simultaneously. R6 also delivers transformation scenarios and Pre- & Post-paid Convergence at a fraction the cost and time of traditional integration scenarios.

For more information please visit www.infonova.com

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