2 Integrating Offline Mediation Controller with BRM

This chapter describes how to integrate Oracle Communications Offline Mediation Controller with Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) for suspense handling.

Before reading this chapter, you should be familiar with BRM concepts and architecture related to suspense handling and the Account Synchronization Data Manager (DM), which is a component of BRM.

About Suspense Manager

Suspense Manager, which is a component of BRM, is an optional service integration component that you purchase separately. You use Suspense Manager to:

Analyze, edit, recycle, write off, archive, restore, resubmit, and delete individual (event) CDRs that have failed processing.
Analyze, resubmit, write off, and delete CDR files (batch) containing any number of individual CDRs that have failed processing. CDR files cannot be edited or archived.

Suspense Manager includes the Suspense Management Center client that allows you to perform these tasks using a graphical user interface (GUI).

Integrating Offline Mediation Controller with Suspense Manager

The following steps summarize what is required to integrate Offline Mediation Controller with Suspense Manager to manage suspended record-level (event) and file-level (batch) CDRs:

Note:

Before integrating Offline Mediation Controller with Suspense Manager, verify the following:

Offline Mediation Controller is installed.
Suspense Manager is installed. For more information on how to install Suspense Manager, see the discussion about installing Suspense Manager in the BRM documentation.

Configure and customize Suspense Management Center.

You use the Suspense Management Center GUI to analyze, edit, recycle, write off, archive, restore, resubmit, and delete suspended event CDRs or batch CDR files.

For more information, see the discussion about configuring and customizing Suspense Management Center in the BRM documentation.
Configure the event notifications for Suspense Manager.

Suspense Manager uses event notifications to perform follow-up operations.

For more information, see the discussion about configuring event notification for Suspense Manager in the BRM documentation.
Create a list of queryable fields.

A queryable field list is a list of event data record (EDR) fields that you use to search and analyze suspended CDRs. Suspense Management Center allows you to search for suspended CDRs based on values in these queryable fields, and displays these values in your search results.

For more information, see the discussion about creating a list of editable fields based on your /suspended_usage subclasses in the BRM documentation.
Create a list of editable fields.

An editable fields list, is a list of EDR fields that you use to edit and correct failed CDRs in Suspense Management Center.

For more information, see the discussion about creating a list of editable fields based on your /suspended_usage subclasses in the BRM documentation.
Load editable fields into the database.

For more information, see the discussion about loading editable fields into the database in the BRM documentation.
Configure the Suspended Event (SE) Loader and the Suspended Batch (SB) Loader applications, which are components of BRM.

For Offline Mediation Controller suspense handling:
- The SE Loader application loads suspended events into /suspended_usage objects in the BRM database.
- The SB Loader application loads information about suspended batch files into /suspended_batch objects in the BRM database.
For more information, see the discussions about setting up SE Loader and SB Loader for Suspense Manager in the BRM documentation.
Create indexes for search templates.

You can improve database performance by creating indexes for your most common searches.

For more information, see the discussion about creating indexes for search templates in the BRM documentation.
(Optional) Change suspense reasons and subreasons.

If the default error messages or error message mappings do not meet your business needs, you can change them.

You use the load_pin_suspense_reason_code (event) or the load_pin_batch_suspense_reason_code (batch) utilities, which are components of BRM, to load your suspense reason code mapping into the BRM database.

For more information, see the discussion on changing the list of suspense reasons and subreasons in the BRM documentation.
(Optional) Configure debugging.

Suspense Management Center provides several ways to capture and display debugging information.

For more information, see the discussion about configuring debugging in the BRM documentation.

About Oracle AQ Messaging for Suspense Handling

In Offline Mediation Controller suspense handling, the Oracle AQ database queue publishes business events from the Account Synchronization Data Manager (DM), which are components of BRM, to the Oracle AQ database queue. The Recycle AQ Job Collection Cartridge (CC) receives the business event and dequeues the job ID message from the Oracle AQ database queue.

For more information on the Account Synchronization DM, see the BRM documentation.

For more information on the Recycle AQ Job CC, see "About the Recycle AQ Job Collection Cartridge".

Integrating Offline Mediation Controller with Oracle AQ Messaging

The following steps summarize what is required to integrate Offline Mediation Controller with Oracle AQ messaging for suspense handling:

Verify that your database is configured for advanced queuing.

For more information, see the discussion on configuring database machines for advance queuing in the BRM documentation.
Verify that Account Synchronization DM is installed and configured for Oracle AQ queues.

For more information, see the discussion on installing and configuring the Account Synchronization DM in the BRM documentation.
Configure the BRM event notification and the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) payload.

The Account Synchronization EAI framework notifies the Account Synchronization DM when an event occurs and requires some action, and sends the business event payload, which comprises of all the BRM events that belong to a specific event, to the Account Synchronization DM.

For more information, see the discussion about the EIA framework in the BRM documentation.
Verify that the acct_sync stored procedure package exists.

To send events to multiple queues in different schemas in a multischema system, you must grant running permission for each source schema user from the target schema, for the acct_sync package.

For more information, see the discussion on installing and configuring account synchronization in the BRM documentation.
Configure the published format for the payload definition (payloadconfig_ifw_sync.xml) file as XML by doing the following:
1. Open the BRM_Home/sys/eai_js/payloadconfig_ifw_sync.xml file, where BRM_Home is the directory in which BRM is installed.
2. Search for the following line:
```
<PublisherDefs>
   
```
3. Add the following:
```
<Publisher DB="0.0.9.9" Format="XML">
   RecycleRequest,
   ResubmitBatchRequest
</Publisher>
  
```
4. Save and close the file.

Enable the RecycleRequest and ResubmitBatchRequest business events in the (payloadconfig_ifw_sync.xml) file by doing the following:

Open the BRM_Home/sys/eai_js/payloadconfig_ifw_sync.xml file.

Search for the following lines and adjust accordingly:

<!-- For Suspended Events -->
<RecycleRequest Source="EVENT"
   Tag="RecycleRequest"
StartEvent="/event/notification/suspense/recycle" >
   <Attribute Tag="Version" Value="1.0" />
   <Field PinFld="PIN_FLD_ACCOUNT_OBJ" Tag="AccountObj"/>
   <SubElement Name="JobActions"
OnEvent="/event/notification/suspense/recycle" />
</RecycleRequest>
   
<!-- For Suspended Batch -->
<ResubmitBatchRequest Source="EVENT"
   Tag="ResubmitBatchRequest"
   StartEvent="/event/notification/suspense/batch_resubmit" >
   <Attribute Tag="Version" Value="1.0" />
   <Field PinFld="PIN_FLD_ACCOUNT_OBJ" Tag="AccountObj"/>
   <SubElement Name="JobActions"
    OnEvent="/event/notification/suspense/batch_resubmit" />
</ResubmitBatchRequest>
  
<!-- Action Obj -->
<JobActions Source="EVENT" PinFld="PIN_FLD_ACTIONS"
   DataFrom="PIN_FLD_ACTIONS" Tag="Actions" >
   <Field PinFld="PIN_FLD_ACTION_OBJ" Tag="ActionObj" />
</JobActions>

Save and close the file.

For more information, see the discussion about configuring the account synchronization in the BRM documentation.

Integrating EDR Field Mapping

The Suspense Distribution Cartridge (DC) node serializes the CDR based on the output field names from the NPL mapping. Shorter designations may be used in place of the output field names by using EDR field mapping, which reduces the length of field names by replacing the field name with an ID.

For suspense handling, EDR field mapping is used by the Suspense DC and the Recycle Enhancement Processor Cartridge (EP) nodes for suspended event CDRs.

EDR field mapping uses the following:

The BRM_Home/xsd/edr_field_mapping.xsd XML schema file, contains valid XML rules and values.
The BRM_Home/sys/data/config/edr_field_mapping.xml configuration file, maps the EDR field name to an ID number. The edr_field_mapping.xml file must conform to the XML schema rules as defined in the edr_field_mapping.xsd file.
The BRM_Home/bin/load_edr_field_mapping utility, loads the EDR field mapping configuration file into the BRM database.

Important:

The sample edr_field_mapping.xml file is loaded into the BRM database during installation of the Suspense Manager Server.

After installation, changes can be made to the sample edr_field_mapping.xml file using the load_edr_field_mapping utility.

Updating the EDR Field Mapping File

After installation of the Suspense Manager Server, changes can be made to the edr_field_mapping.xml file.

To update the EDR field mapping file:

Go to the BRM_Home/sys/data/config/ directory.
Open the edr_field_mapping.xml file in a text editor.
Search for the following line:
```
<edr_field_mapping name="Name">
  
```
where, Name is the version number of the mapping.
Add or update an id field entry, using the following syntax:
- The id field must contain numbers and periods.
  
  The parent block field container must end with a .b value. The childs id field must be sequentially numbered and prefixed with the parents id block field's value, without the .b value.
- A type field, which contains the numbers 1, 2, 4, 8, or 32.
  
  where:
  - 1 is used for string data types.
  - 2 is used for integer data types.
  - 4 is used for date data types.
  - 8 is used for decimal data types.
  - 32 is used for block data types.
For example:
```
<f id="1.5.b" name="DETAIL.ASS_DUMMY_EXT" type="32"/>
<f id="1.5.0.1" name="DETAIL.ASS_DUMMY_EXT.RECORD_TYPE"/>
<f id="1.5.1.2" name=DETAIL.ASS_DUMMY_EXT.RECORD_NUMBER" type="2"/>
  
```
Important:
Before new entries are loaded in the database, all existing entries that contain the same version number as the new entries are deleted. To prevent overwriting of existing entries when the edr_field_mapping.xml file is loaded into the database, configure the name attribute to increment the version number to the next number.
Save and close the file.

Loading EDR Field Mapping into the BRM Database

To load the EDR field mapping into the BRM Database:

Go to the BRM_Home/sys/data/config/ directory.
Run the following command, which loads the EDR field mapping file into the BRM database:
```
load_edr_field_mapping XML_file
  
```
where XML_file is the name of the XML file that contains the configuration data.