Communications Process Flow

Step 1: A communication request is triggered

The Communications process starts when a communication request is triggered. A trigger can be:

• Internal - for example a CMP workflow event, raised either manually or automatically.
• External - a request from an external system. A communication request can be created automatically on receipt of a notification from an external system.

When a trigger is invoked, CMP creates an entry in the core table in Communications, the CommsRequestHeader table.

When a Workflow Event is created, irrespective on whether the WhenToCreate is set to OnCreate or OnResolve, an entry in created in the CommsRequestHeader table.

For more information, see Comms Process Flow: Triggers

 

Step 2: Communication details are gathered

When an entry is created in the commsRequestHeader table, the Comms Monitor Job is triggered to process the CommsRequestHeader and produce a commsRequestDetail entry. This job:

• Works out the appropriate delivery method and target, for example a mobile number, email address etc.

• Derives the values of the default fields Default fields are contain customer-specific attributes stored in the CMP database. This customer data can be merged into communications. For example, a customer account number and account balance can be sent in a bill reminder SMS. that are associated with the communication.

• In the case of push notifications, online notifications and SMS Short Message Service. A text messaging service component of most mobile telephone systems. SMS uses standardized communication protocols to enable mobile phone devices to exchange short text messages. delivery methods, the job also merges the data of the derived fields with the message template to produce the actual message. For letters and email, this merging is carried out by separate jobs.

For more information, see Comms Process Flow: Gather Details

 

Step 3: SMS, push and external notifications are sent

After the Comms Monitor Job has completed, dedicated daemons pick up the requests to distribute them to the destination:

• Comms Push To Handset daemon A computer program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the control of an interactive user.
• Comms SMS To Handset daemon
• Push To External daemon (Extract Comms to Generic Format daemon)

For more information, see Comms Process Flow: Send SMS, Push and External Notifications.

Step 4: Letters and emails are created and sent

Email and letter communications require additional processing to merge data from default fields gathered from CMP with document templates to generate the required document type. The Comms Monitor job gathers the data; the Comms Email Monitor and the Comms Letter Monitor jobs merge the data.

The Comms Email Monitor and Comms Letter Monitor jobs are triggered automatically when the Comms Monitor job has finished gathering data for Comms Requests relating to emails or letters. For more information, see Comms Process Flow: Create and Send Letters and Emails

These jobs uses external frameworks - for example, Velocity and Prince XML Exstensible Markup Language. A markup language used to describe data that allows users to define their information formats, especially in order to display documents on the Internet. - to generate documents. Generated documents are subsequently detected by the following downstream daemons for transmission to the customer In the context of the Cloud Monetisation Platform, an individual or organisation who has signed an agreement to take goods and services from a service provider. A customer receives a bill associated with one or more subscriptions, and can be a single end user or a large company with many subscriptions assigned to one agreement.:

• Transmission Comms to Print Bureau daemon (Letter distribution)
• Transmission Comms to Email daemon (Email distribution)

For more information, see About Email and Letter Templates

 

Step 5: Letters and Emails are Stored

This is a distinct step carried out by the Comms Transmission to Document Storage Daemon. This allows the documents can be placed into storage on any machine, for example in systems such as Amazon S3 or on a machine via SFTP Secure File Transfer Protocol. A network protocol used for secure file transfer between remote systems over a secure shell.. Storing the documents in a long-term storage directory allows them to be viewed in AgentView The graphical user interface of the CMP that is typically used by Customer Service Agents to access CMP customer and billing data. In versions prior to CMP 8.0, this was called the CMP GUI..

For more information see Comms Process Flow: Store Letters and Emails.