This chapter is an overview of how to set up your Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) system to integrate with external applications using Oracle Application Integration Architecture (Oracle AIA).
You can integrate BRM with applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and financial management software.
Oracle AIA is a set of products that enable you to set up and orchestrate cross-application business processes so that multiple applications can work together. Oracle AIA runs on top of Oracle Fusion Middleware.
Oracle AIA for Communications pre-built integrations are pre-built packaged process integrations between specific Oracle applications, including Siebel CRM and BRM, based on Oracle AIA. For example, you can use the pre-built integrations to do the following:
Create products, discounts, and sponsorships in BRM and synchronize them with Siebel CRM, where they can be packaged and purchased by customers.
Create BRM accounts from accounts created in Siebel CRM.
Access billing information from BRM to display in Siebel CRM.
Export general ledger (G/L) data from BRM for import into Oracle Financials.
For more information, see Oracle AIA and the AIA for Communications pre-built integration documentation on the Oracle Technology Network Web site:
To set up BRM to work with Oracle AIA:
Install and configure the required BRM components. See "Installing and Configuring the Required BRM Components".
Integrate BRM features with your external CRM application. See "Integrating BRM Features with External CRM Applications".
To integrate BRM with Oracle AIA:
Install, deploy, and configure JCA Resource Adapter in a J2EE application server. The adapter is the point of connection between BRM and external applications. Requests for information come to the adapter, which then calls BRM opcodes and returns data to the external application.
Install and configure Synchronization Queue Data Manager (DM). This DM enables you to synchronize pricing data changes in the BRM database with external applications. For example, when a product is created or modified, Synchronization Queue DM sends the data to a database queue. The data in the queue can then be retrieved by an external application.
Run the pin_ledger_report utility to export G/L data to XML files. This data can then be imported into financial management software such as Oracle Financials.
You can integrate the following BRM features with your external CRM applications:
Collections. See "Integrating Collections with External CRM Applications".
Friends and family promotions. See "Integrating Friends and Family Promotions with External CRM Applications".
Invoicing. See "Displaying Siebel CRM Promotion Names on Invoices".
External CRM applications can track and manage collections activities, such as sending dunning letters, in BRM through the Oracle AIA architecture. Collections data is synchronized between the external CRM application and BRM as follows:
The external CRM application updates the status of a collections action in BRM by calling the Collections Manager API through Oracle AIA and JCA Resource Adapter.
Collections Manager notifies the external CRM application when a collections activity occurs, such as an account entering collections, by using the event notification system.
Oracle AIA retrieves data from Collections Manager by reading views on the BRM collections tables.
To integrate collections with your external CRM:
Install the Agent-Assisted Billing Care Process Integration Pack.
Configure your external CRM application to send the status of collections actions to the PCM_OP_COLLECTIONS_SET_ACTION_STATUS opcode. The external CRM application sends information to the opcode through Oracle AIA and JCA Resource Adapter.
The attributes required to call the opcode are listed in the BRM_Home/apps/brm_integrations/wsdls/BRMCollectionsServices.wsdl file.
Configure BRM to publish CollectionsAction business events to the Oracle AQ database queue. See the discussion in BRM Synchronization Queue Manager.
Configure your external CRM application to retrieve the CollectionsAction business event from the Oracle AQ database queue. See the discussion in BRM Synchronization Queue Manager.
Configure the BRM pin_collections_process utility to publish CollectionsInfoChange business events to the Oracle AQ database queue:
Open the pin_collections_process configuration file (BRM_Home/apps/pin_collections/pin.conf) in a text editor.
Add the following entry to the file:
- pin_collections_process publish_run_details 1
Save and close the file.
See BRM Collections Manager for more information.
External CRM applications can track and manage friends and family promotions in BRM through the Oracle AIA architecture.
When customers order a friends and family promotion, BRM stores information about the promotion in a product provisioning tag. During the pricing data synchronization process, the Synchronization Queue DM publishes the provisioning tag and its associated product in a ProductInfoChange business event to the Oracle AQ database queue. The external CRM application can then retrieve the ProductInfoChange business event from the database queue and update the information in its system.
To integrate friends and family promotions with your external CRM application:
Configure BRM to publish ProductInfoChange business events to the Oracle AQ database queue.
Configure your external CRM application to retrieve the ProductInfoChange business event from the Oracle AQ database queue.
For more information, see "About Sending Account Data to Pipeline Manager" in BRM Synchronization Queue Manager.
You can set up your system to display Siebel CRM promotion names on customer invoices.
To include Siebel CRM promotion names on BRM invoices:
Ensure that BRM is configured to display promotion details on invoices.
Configure Siebel CRM to send information about the promotion to the PCM_OP_SUBSCRIPTION_SET_BUNDLE opcode. The application sends information to the BRM opcode through Oracle AIA and JCA Resource Adapter.
The attributes required to call the opcode are listed in the BRM_Home/apps/brm_integrations/wsdls/BRMSubscriptionServices.wsdl file.
Use an invoice template that displays promotion names and details.
For more information, see "Adding Siebel CRM Promotion Names to Invoices" in BRM Designing and Generating Invoices.
You can integrate the following BRM features with your external CRM application in a multischema system:
Account Migration Manager (AMM). See "Integrating Account Migrations with External Applications in a Multischema System" for more information.
Collections. See "Integrating Collections with External Applications in a Multischema System" for more information.
Account migration is synchronized between the external CRM application and BRM in a multischema system as follows:
AMM populates the MIGRATED_OBJECTS_T cross-reference table in the primary BRM database with the batch ID and old and new POID values of all the objects that have successfully been migrated.
After successfully migrating a group of accounts from one schema to another, BRM generates AccountInfoChange business events. These events are sent to the Enterprise Application Integration Data Manager (EAI DM) by using an event notification message.
The EAI DM publishes the AccountInfoChange business events to the Oracle AQ database queue.
Oracle AIA retrieves the AccountInfoChange business events from the Oracle AQ database queue and updates the information in the AIA database.
Oracle AIA updates the AIA cross-reference table in the AIA database.
Oracle AIA deletes the entries in the MIGRATED_OBJECTS_T cross-reference table in the primary BRM database after reading the entries for a particular batch.
To integrate account migration with the external application in a multischema environment:
Important:
Before running AMM, verify that all the collections related Oracle Data Integrator jobs have been completed successfully. For more information on the Oracle Data Integrator jobs, see the Oracle Data Integrator documentation.Install the Oracle AIA for Communications pre-built integration that integrates BRM with your external application. For more information on the Oracle AIA for Communications pre-built integrations, see the Oracle AIA documentation.
Add the publish_migrated_objects entry to the AMM Infranet.properties file by doing the following:
Open the BRM_Home/sys/amt/Infranet.properties file in a text editor
Add the following entry:
publish_migrated_objects = value [, value2 ...]
where value is a comma-separated list of storable classes whose objects are stored in the MIGRATED_OBJECTS_T cross-reference table.
Note:
If you do not set this entry, AMM will not integrate with an external application in a multischema environment.Save and close the file.
Configure BRM to generate AccountInfoChange business events to the Oracle AQ database queue. See the discussion on installing and configuring the Synchronization Queue DM in the BRM documentation.
Configure your external application to retrieve the AccountInfoChange business event from the Oracle AQ database queue. See the discussion on retrieving specific events from the Oracle AQ database queue in the BRM documentation.
To integrate collections with your external application using Oracle AIA in a multischema system, BRM populates the custom views in BRM collections tables with the /collection_actions POID schema number, hard-coded as 0.0.0.1 regardless of the schema where the account resides. For /account and /billinfo objects the external application reads the schema where the account is residing, whether it is a single-schema or a multischema environment.
See "Integrating Collections with External CRM Applications" for information on integrating collections with your external application.
When you create products and discounts to be used in an external CRM, do not add them to deals and plans as described in the BRM documentation and in the Pricing Center Help. External CRMs, such as Siebel CRM, do not use BRM deals and plans. They create their own bundles with the BRM products and discounts.
You use the pin_export_price utility to export products and discounts from BRM to external CRMs.
BRM supports synchronizing a product that includes multiple rate plans configured using the rate plan selector in Pricing Center when integrated with external applications using Oracle AIA.
Additionally, the BRM customer, subscription, and rating components enable Oracle AIA order management to specify the price list name in the BRM product offerings that are used during the BRM rating process.
During account registration, BRM validates the format of customer contact information, such as phone numbers, before creating the account in the BRM database. For example, when a customer or customer service representative enters a phone number, BRM validates that the phone number includes the correct number of digits or contains parentheses around area codes.
By default, BRM accepts nine different telephone number formats. If your external CRM does not use one of the default formats, you must either:
Add your telephone number format to the list of acceptable formats by using the Field Validation Editor.
Configure BRM to accept any telephone number format. In the Field Validation Editor, set the telephone format mask to the following:
^.*$
Note:
BRM stores customer contact data in the format passed in by the external CRM. BRM also uses this same format when creating customer invoices. You must configure your external application to pass in phone numbers in the format you would like displayed on customer invoices.For information about setting the valid telephone number formats, see "Customizing Registration" in BRM Managing Customers.