This document provides an overview of the CMP 8.10 release with specific focus on the additional functional and non-functional enhancements with respect to CMP 8.9.
This document is aimed at internal and external audiences familiar with CMP, to explain the key features of the release including any changes in how existing functions or processes are working.
With respect to CMP 8.9, CMP 8.10 introduces new functionality as well as changes to existing functionality and non-functional improvements. These changes can be summarised as follows:
NetEngage provides a Voucher Management solution to allow both prepaid subscribers to top up their prepaid balances using a voucher purchased external to CMP. CMP 8.10 provides an integration to the NetEngage Voucher Management System (VMS) to support voucher-based balance top ups.
CMP 8.10 introduces the concept of consolidated services that allow multiple charges can be represented as a single line on an invoice. This can be used when an end customer has purchased a product that has multiple components that aren't required to be exposed to the end customer on the invoice.
CMP 8.10 provides a standard integration to the NetEngage Voucher Management System to allow for voucher top-ups where the voucher has been purchased external to CMP. The voucher top up is achieved through the purchases RESTful web service using a product type of 'VOUCHER' and by supplying the voucher PIN code and serial number. Support for voucher top ups has necessitated changes to the AgentView purchases panels at both account and subscription level. Details of the new capabilities and screens are specified below.
In CMP 8.10, the first two screens of the subscription creation and upgrade wizards have been consolidated so that the base package, associated with the price plan, is now displayed automatically when the price plan is selected and cannot be changed. This simplifies the subscription creation process by reducing the number of screens in the wizard.
The introduction of consolidated services has necessitated changes to both the Invoice Production and Bill Print jobs as described in section 3.3.1.2 below.
The SubscriptionCreation and UpdateTariff SOAP web services have been updated to ensure that tariff and package codes are no longer primary elements of the request. The details of the changes are described in section 3.6 below.
A new REST web service, POST Topup, has been provided to allow a subscriber to top-up their prepaid balance using a voucher that they have purchased.
The GET Purchases REST web service response has been updated to return voucher purchases. The GET Account web service has been updated to include credit card or direct debit information based on the payment method of the account. The GET Subscription and GET Subscriptions web services have been updated to add additional attributes and objects to the response. The GET Allowances web service has been updated to include the purchase identifier associated with the allowance to allow a distinction between base and add-on packages.
The details of these changes and other RESTful web service changes are detailed below.
The functional and non-functional changes highlighted in section 2 above have had an impact CMP in the following areas:
In CMP 8.9, a number of changes were made to service discounts that removed the concept of service value bands in place of a single percentage or value discount value. This made the 'Delete', 'Bands' and 'Add' right click options redundant and these options have now been removed leaving only 'Change' as an option. Clicking the change option now displays a new popup, Maintain Discount Scheme Service that allows the user to change either the fixed discount amount or the percentage discount defined for the discount service.
The introduction of support for voucher top ups from an external system has resulted in a number of changes to the purchases panels at both account and subscription level. Voucher top ups are displayed within the purchases panels with a product type of 'Voucher' and the purchase description shows the voucher serial number that was used for the top up.
The Account Purchases bottom panel has been updated to add a column showing the purchase identifier, the product type and the product description. The 'Type' column has been renamed to 'Purchase Type', 'Channel Description' has been simplified to just 'Channel' and 'Amount' has been changed to 'Price' for consistency with other panels.
The Subscription Purchases bottom panel has been brought in line with the Account Purchases bottom panel by adding a column showing the purchase identifier, the product type and the product description. The 'Type' column has been renamed to 'Purchase Type', 'Channel Description' has been simplified to just 'Channel' and 'Amount' has been changed to 'Price' for consistency with other panels.
The Subscription Purchases bottom panel has been updated to rename the 'Description' column to 'Product' to better describe what is being displayed. The same change has been made to the Agreement purchases mini panel as well.
CMP 8.10 has introduced the concept of consolidated services when multiple charges can be represented as a single line on the invoice. This can be used when an end customer has purchased a product that has multiple components that aren't required to be exposed to the end customer on the invoice.
The Invoice Line Details popup has been updated to include a 'Price Consolidation Service' attribute which is populated with the service description if appropriate for the detail line.
In CMP 8.9, the second screen of the subscription creation wizard allowed an agent to select a base package that was different to the base package defined for the Price Plan. As a base package is explicitly associated with a price plan, changing the package should not have been possible.
In CMP 8.10, the first two wizard screens have been consolidated so that the base package, associated with the price plan, is now displayed automatically when the price plan is selected and cannot be changed. This has also now simplified the subscription creation process by reducing the number of screens in the wizard. A similar change has been made to the Subscription Upgrade Wizard.
CMP 8.10 does not provide any new Bulk Actions.
CMP 8.10 does not provide any enhancements to the existing Bulk Actions.
No new jobs have been introduced as part of the CMP 8.10 release but the following daemon has been introduced:
CMP 8.10 introduces the concept of consolidated services that allow for multiple charges to be grouped together in a single line on a customer's invoice. As a result of this, subscription invoicing has been enhanced to take consolidated services into consideration.
As a result of the introduction of consolidated services, a new object, 'Bill Item Consolidation', has been added to the Bill Print JSON file after the existing 'Bill Item' element. This new object has to be added to both the 'Subscription Bill Items' and the 'Account Bill Items' objects.
In CMP 8.9, the Allocation Renewal job accepted a date parameter to determine which records are to be processed. If a date was not supplied, then today's date was assumed. The reason for this parameter was to allow the job to run for an earlier date in case the job was not run. The job has been updated to prevent it being run with a future date.
The integration to the NetEngage OCS requires the use of the subscriber's MSISDN, to query/update the prepaid cash balance, rather than the subscription identifier that is used in other OCS integrations. As a result, the recurring prepayments balance JSON schema has been changed to optionally allow a serial number (MSISDN) to be supplied along with a subscription number.
The Credit Reference Extract JSON schema was missing a number of attribute descriptions that have now been added as part of CMP 8.10. In addition, the paymentFrequencyUnits attribute only supports a value of 'M' (monthly) so the enum set has been updated accordingly.
The Purchase Analytics job has been updated to take into account the introduction of voucher top ups in CMP 8.10. The output product type can now take a value of 'Voucher' for a voucher top up and the output product code and description will contain the voucher number used for the top up.
In CMP 8.10, the Bottomline PDF Collection daemon has been renamed to the Bill PDF Collection daemon as its capabilities are not specific to an integration to the Bottomline bill formatting system.
No changes have been made to any of the options within the System Management menu option in CMP 8.10.
No changes have been made to any of the options within the System Monitoring menu option in CMP 8.10.
No changes have been made to any of the options within the System Configuration menu option in CMP 8.10 .
No changes have been made to any of the options within the System Administrator menu option in CMP 8.10 .
A new option has now been introduced as part of CMP 8.10 to allow Service Properties to be listed and maintained. Service properties allow a service code to be linked to specific events such as a termination fee or a payment plan change fee.
The new configuration screens are accessible from a System Configuration menu option. On selecting the Service Properties menu option, the user is presented with a list of currently defined service properties. From here it is possible to edit a specific service property and change the associated service code from a dropdown of service codes available.
A new option has now been introduced as part of CMP 8.10 to allow Networks to be listed and maintained. A subscriber is provisioned to a specific network based on the services they subscribe to.
The new configuration screens are accessible from a Network menu option. On selecting the Networks menu option, the user is presented with a list of currently defined networks. From the list screen it is possible to access the number change rules that are defined for the specific network selected.
A new option has now been introduced as part of CMP 8.10 to allow Subscription Groups to be listed and maintained. Subscription Groups are a means to further categorise subscriptions with similar capabilites and usage patterns. Subscription Groups replace Network Types in previous versions of CMP.
The new configuration screens are accessible from a Network menu option. On selecting the Subscription Groups menu option, the user is presented with a list of currently defined subscription groups. A Business Configuration RESTful API is provided to add new subscription groups. From the list screen it is possible to access the workflow events that are used to create and disconnect subscriptions, and the rules that define what group changes are supported for the selected subscription group. Change rules ultimately determine what price plans a subscriber can change to.
No Business Configuration screens have been changed as part of the CMP 8.10 release.
There are no new Pricing Configuration screens that have been introduced as part of CMP 8.10.
No Pricing Configuration screens have been changed as part of CMP 8.10.
No new SOAP web services have been introduced as part of the CMP 8.10 release.
The CreateSubscription SOAP web service has been changed in the CMP 8.10 release to ensure that tariff and package codes are no longer primary elements of the request. The tariff code and package code have been deprecated meaning that, whilst the values will remain on the SOAP request, any values supplied in the request will be ignored.
The UpdateTariff SOAP web service has also been changed in the CMP 8.10 release to ensure that tariff and package codes are no longer primary elements of the request. The tariff code and package code have been deprecated meaning that, whilst the values will remain on the SOAP request, any values supplied in the request will be ignored.
As part of the integration to a Voucher Management System in CMP 8.10, a new RESTful web service has been introduced to allow a subscriber to top-up their prepaid balance using a voucher that they have purchased. The API assumes that the voucher has been purchased external to CMP.
As a result of the changes made to support voucher top-ups as part of CMP 8.10, the GET Purchases RESTful web service response has been updated to return voucher purchases. For voucher purchases, the response will contain a product type of "VOUCHER" and the product description and product code contain the serial number of the voucher used for the top-up.
The GET Account web service has been updated to include credit card or direct debit information based on the payment method of the account.
The GET Subscription and GET Subscriptions web services have been updated to add the following additional attributes and objects to the response:
The GET Allowances web service has been updated to include the purchase identifier associated with the allowance. A purchase identifier is only relevant and returned for add-on purchases.
The following changes have been made to improve the consistency of the web services whilst maintaining backwards compatibility:
In addition, the following RESTful web services have had their endpoints updated to improve consistency across APIs. The existing endpoints have been preserved for backwards compatibility:
The following new network RESTful web services have been introduced in CMP 8.10:
The following new Subscription Group (formerly known as Network Type) RESTful web services have been introduced in CMP 8.10:
No RESTful web services have been updated as part of the CMP 8.10 release.
No changes have been made to integration adapters in CMP 8.10.
The NetEngage-specific adapters are optional components of the CMP deployment that are based on the licence agreement with MDS Global.
When CMP is being used in conjunction with the NetEngage OCS, subscribers created in CMP and requiring real-time control of their usage need to be provisioned to the NetEngage OCS along with any allowances purchased as part of the registration process and any spend caps automatically assigned.
CMP consumes standard JSON format provisioning requests and connects subscriptions on the NetEngage OCS via its standard APIs. As a result of additional integration to the NetEngage Online Charging System as part of CMP 8.10, some changes have been made to the provisioning outbound JSON schema. Optional date-time attributes have been added as follows:
As the subscriber access network services, the NetEngage OCS will rate the usage and apply the charge to any inclusive allowances, spend caps and prepaid balance as appropriate. The rated usage generated by the OCS for CMP subscribers needs to be loaded into CMP for consultation and subsequently for inclusion on invoices.
CMP collects rated usage files in the proprietary unaggregated rated usage format from the NetEngage OCS via SFTP and transforms them to the standard CMP rated usage JSON format so that they are ready to be processed by the CMP Rated Usage Loader.
The NetEngage OCS generates usage records with a local timestamp which requires conversion into UTC time before the usage record is store in CMP. To facilitate this, a new property, sabre-netengage-usage-adapter.usage.timezone, has been added to the NetEngage Usage Adapter module configuration.
The Openet-specific adapters are optional components of the CMP deployment that are based on the licence agreement with MDS Global.
No changes have been made to the Openet adapter as part of CMP 8.10.
The Lifecycle-specific adapters are optional components of the CMP deployment that are based on the licence agreement with MDS Global.
No changes have been made to the Lifecycle adapter as part of CMP 8.10.
No changes have been made to UK-specific adapters in CMP 8.10.
In addition to functional and non-functional changes and improvements, the CMP 8.10 product also addresses a number of application support issues. This section provides a summary of the issues fixed in this release.
The following issues have been addressed within this release:
| Reference | Area | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CMPIS-2488 | NetEngage Provisioning Adapter | CMP needed to change to handle monitory values differently for different OCS integrations. |
| CMPIS-2485 | Web Services | The BillingControlId attribute has been changed to AgreementNumber in GET Billable Items, GET Subscriptions and GET Subscription REST Web Services. |
| CMPIS-2483 | Web Services | The endpoint of the POST Registered Card REST web service has been updated. The existing endpoints have been preserved for backwards compatibility. |
| CMPIS-2482 | Web Services | The endpoint of the GET Comms Preferences and GET Comms Preference REST web services have been updated. The existing endpoints have been preserved for backwards compatibility. |
| CMPIS-2481 | Web Services | The GET Account REST web service has been updated to return the payment days within the paymentTerms response object. |
| CMPIS-2480 | Admin Console - Daily Operations | Importing a schedule into the admin console schedule option failed. |
| CMPIS-2479 | Web Services | The GET estimateBills REST web service incorrectly included expired services within the response. |
| CMPIS-2478 | Web Services | The endpoint of the GET Agreements and GET Estimated Bills REST web services have been updated. The existing endpoints have been preserved for backwards compatibility. |
| CMPIS-2472 | Web Services | The endpoints of the GET and PATCH Account Comms Settings, GET and PATCH Subscription Comms Settings and GET Salesperson REST web services have been updated. The existing endpoints have been preserved for backwards compatibility. |
| CMPIS-2469 | AgentView | A prepaid cash balance was displayed as zero when a subscription was disconnected rather than showing any outstanding prepaid balance. |
| CMPIS-2466 | Workflow Monitor | Workflow Monitor failed when processing multiple events for the same Subscription at the same time. |
| CMPIS-2465 | Web Services | The GET usage REST web service failed to return data for prepaid subscriptions. |
| CMPIS-2464 | Workflow Monitor | A price plan change did not end allowances that already had a future expiry date set. |
| CMPIS-2462 | Allocation Monitor | Allocation Monitor failed when no adding workflow event was configured for a spend cap. |
| CMPIS-2452 | Business Configuration | When adding a new allowance in Business Configuration the amount was not being stored correctly. |
| CMPIS-2451 | Billing | Statement Production job was failing due to an issue with Payment Plans |
| CMPIS-2448 | OCS REST | The allowance transform capability has been restricted to prevent transformation within an allowance. |
| CMPIS-2446 | AgentView | Issue logging into AgentView due to a deprecated method in OpenJDK 8. |
| CMPIS-2440 | Openet Provisioning | The GET allowance web service call to Openet has been updated to use the allowance instance id instead of the allowance id. |
| CMPIS-2398 | AgentView | Some of the branding configuration for AgentView was incorrectly implemented preventing certain components being independently branded. |
| CMPIS-2371 | AgentView | It was not possible to blank out an assigned Network Serial Number in the Card detail panel. |
| CMPIS-2362 | Wholesale Reconciliation | The Usage Reconciliation Report only displayed a maximum of 100 entries. |
| CMPIS-2333 | Business Configuration | The 'Price Number of Days' was not set to zero correctly when the 'Period Covered' of the service was changed from months to days. |
| CMPIS-1909 | AgentView | Confirming a Spend Cap update without updating the amount caused workflow events to be raised unnecessarily. |
The product documentation is available online on the documentation portal. This online portal requires authorised access, which can be obtained by contacting MDS Global support. The documentation is also available as downloadable PDFs as follows:
Online help is available in AgentView, Business Configuration, the Administration Console and the Bulk Actions console.
The CMP 8.10 installer includes the capability to upgrade a CMP 8.9 installation without the loss of configuration or customer data provided that the software, file system and database structure of the installation in question are at no point manually modified.
The CMP 8.10 Installation Guide, and the details below, should be read before attempting the upgrade to CMP 8.10.
It is important that the following sections are read prior to performing the upgrade, specifically the Configuration Changes section, as it may be advisable to backup relevant configuration prior to performing the upgrade to ensure the configuration can be replicated, if necessary, post upgrade.
It is important that the existing installation is left running before starting the upgrade. There is no reason to shut down any components however service may be affected whilst performing the upgrade.
CMP 8.10 is dependent on version 8 of Red Hat and therefore the version of Red Hat should be upgraded to version 8 prior to the CMP 8.10 upgrade. For specific instructions on the upgrade of Red Hat, please contact MDS Global.
The following changes have been made to the Installation Configuration Tool as part of CMP 8.10:
No third-party libraries will be updated as part of the installation/upgrade.
The following table has been added to the database schema in CMP 8.10:
The following table attributes have been added in CMP 8.10:
No tables or views have been dropped in CMP 8.10:
No table attributes have been dropped in CMP 8.10:
The following table attributes have been modified as part CMP 8.10:
It was identified that if the securityLevel on the usageCap table was set to anything other than '9', issues were caused in AgentView and REST. It therefore should be ensured that the security level is set accordingly for all usage cap records.
In CMP 8.9, the configuration of the service used to create a termination fee (Property Group = TERMINATION_FEE, Property Name = termination.fee.service) was held on the Company Parameters table (COA8REP). In CMP 8.10 this has been moved to the Service Properties table (serviceProperties). The creation of the property in the Service Properties table is done automatically as part of the upgrade to CMP 8.10 but the existing service code configured for the corresponding company parameter in CMP 8.9 is not transferred automatically so will need to be manually reconfigured.
As part of CMP 8.10, the standard data population scripts used to auto-populate a number of CMP configuration tables for a greenfield installation have been updated. For existing installations, the configuration specified in this section will be automatically injected into the appropriate database table and therefore will not need to be manually configured.
The following service properties will be added as part of the upgrade to CMP 8.10:
| Property Group | Property Name | Service Code |
|---|---|---|
| SALESORDER | upfront.handset | UPHSET |
| SALESORDER | recurring.handset | RCHSET |
The service codes UPHSET and RCHSET have also been added to the service (CODYREP and CWAWREP) and serviceTaxCode (COEIREP and CFA9REP) tables.
The following workflow properties will be added as part of the upgrade to CMP 8.10:
| Property Group | Property Name | Event Type | Event Code |
|---|---|---|---|
| PROVISIONING | add.package.event | OCS | ADPK |
The workflow OCS/ADPK has also been added to the workflow event type (COBXREP) and event code (COCQREP and CVDDREP) tables.
