Siebel Communications Guide Addendum > Customer Order Management > About Service Bundles >

A Description of Service Bundles

A service bundle is a group of related services that you sell as a package. Service bundles simplify service selection and configuration. A single billing instance in the BRM application is constructed for a service bundle. A service bundle is similar to a product bundle. For more information about product bundles, see Siebel Product Administration Guide.

You must create service bundles. To create a service bundle, select Service Bundle in the Billing Type field for the bundle. Other examples of values for the Billing Type field include: Discount, Event, Item, and Subscription. A service bundle can include:

• Simple products. If a product is available in one form and does not include other products that you can configure for it, the product is a simple product. Simple products have the billing service type of the parent service bundle.
• Customizable products. If a product can include other product components that you can configure for it, the product is a customizable product (or complex product). A customizable product can include simple products, other customizable products, service bundles, and non-billing products. Customizable products have the billing service type of the parent service bundle.
• Nested service bundles. If a parent service bundle contains a child service bundle, the child service bundle is a nested service bundle. Child service bundles can have a different billing service type from the parent service bundle.
• Non-billing products. If a product is not billed to the customer, the product is a non-billing product. Non-billing products do not have a billing service type and can be part of an installed asset. These products exist only in the Siebel Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application and are not passed to the Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) application.

To see the products in a bundle, navigate to Administration - Product screen > Products view, select the product bundle, and click the Bundle Product view tab. A service bundle for wireless phone service might include the following items:

• Rate plans (for example, Main Line 1, Main Line 2, and an add-on line)
• Activation fees
• Usage fees
• Features (for example, call forwarding)
• Discounts (for example, 50% off the first 3 months and a free minutes discount)
• SMS (Short Message Service) for text messaging. This service might include rate plans (for example, SMS Basic and SMS Unlimited)

In this example, the activation fees and usage fees are simple products, the rate plans, features, and discounts are customizable products, and the SMS is a nested service bundle.