1. Developer's Guide
  2. Customizing BRM Server Components
  3. Using BRM with Oracle Application Integration Architecture

22 Using BRM with Oracle Application Integration Architecture

Learn how to integrate your Oracle Communications Billing and Revenue Management (BRM) system with external applications, such as financial management software, by using Oracle Application Integration Architecture (Oracle AIA).

Topics in this document:

About Oracle Application Integration Architecture

Oracle AIA enables 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 charge offers and discount offers 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 the Application Integration Architecture documentation on Oracle Help Center.

To set up BRM to work with Oracle AIA:

Installing and Configuring the Required BRM Components

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.

  • 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.

Integrating BRM Features with External CRM Applications

You can integrate the following BRM features with your external CRM applications:

Integrating Collections with External CRM Applications

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:

  1. Install the Agent-Assisted Billing Care Process Integration Pack.

  2. 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.

  3. Configure BRM to publish CollectionsAction business events to the AQ database queue. See "Synchronizing Pricing Data between the BRM Database and External CRMs" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

  4. Configure your external CRM application to retrieve the CollectionsAction business event from the AQ database queue. See "Synchronizing Pricing Data between the BRM Database and External CRMs" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

  5. Configure the BRM pin_collections_process utility to publish CollectionsInfoChange business events to the AQ database queue:

    1. Open the pin_collections_process configuration file (BRM_home/apps/pin_collections/pin.conf) in a text editor.

    2. Add the following entry to the file: 

      - pin_collections_process publish_run_details 1

    3. Save and close the file.

    See "Understanding Collections Manager" in BRM Collections Manager for more information.

Integrating Friends and Family Promotions with External CRM Applications

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 provisioning tag. During the pricing data synchronization process, the Oracle DM publishes the provisioning tag and its associated charge offer in a ProductInfoChange business event to the AQ database queue. The external CRM application can then retrieve the ProductInfoChange business event from the AQ 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 AQ queue.

  • Configure your external CRM application to retrieve the ProductInfoChange business event from the AQ queue.

For more information, see "Synchronizing Pricing Data between the BRM Database and External CRMs" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

Displaying Siebel CRM Promotion Names on Invoices

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.

Integrating BRM Features with External CRM Applications in a Multischema System

You can integrate the following BRM features with your external CRM application in a multischema system:

Integrating Account Migrations with External Applications in a Multischema System

Account migration is synchronized between the external CRM application and BRM in a multischema system as follows:

  1. 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.

  2. 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) using an event notification message.

  3. The EAI DM publishes the AccountInfoChange business events to the Oracle advanced queuing (AQ) database queue.

  4. Oracle AIA retrieves the AccountInfoChange business events from the AQ database queue and updates the information in the AIA database.

  5. Oracle AIA updates the AIA cross-reference table in the AIA database.

  6. 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:

Note:

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.

  1. 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.

  2. Add the publish_migrated_objects entry to the AMM Infranet.properties file by doing the following:

    1. Open the BRM_home/sys/amt/Infranet.properties file in a text editor.

    2. 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.

    3. Save and close the file.

  3. Configure BRM to publish AccountInfoChange business events to the AQ database queue. See "Configuring the EAI Payload to Synchronize Data" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

  4. Configure your external application to retrieve the AccountInfoChange business event from the AQ database queue. See "About Retrieving Specific Events from the AQ Database Queue" in BRM System Administrator's Guide.

Integrating Collections with External Applications in a Multischema System

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 (bill unit) 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.

Creating Charge Offers and Discount Offers for an External CRM

When you create charge offers and discount offers to use in an external CRM, do not add them to bundles and packages. External CRMs, such as Siebel CRM, do not use BRM bundles and packages. They create their own bundles with the BRM charge offers and discount offers.

You use the pin_export_price utility to export charge offers and discount offers from BRM to external CRMs.

Creating Charge Offers with Different Prices for Multiple Price Lists

When you use Oracle AIA to integrate BRM with an external application, such as a CRM application, you can configure prices in BRM charge offers to vary based on the price list used by the external application. To do this, when you configure a charge offer in PDC, you create charge selector rules that associate the external application's price list names with the appropriate charges.

When the charge offer is purchased, the price list name is saved with the purchased offer information in BRM. Before the BRM rating engine calculates each charge, the price list name is added to the event being rated, and the rating engine uses that name and the charge selector rules to determine the price.

For information about Siebel CRM price lists, see the following:

https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E58077_01/doc.116/e55959/chap3_mdmsiebelcrm.htm#CHDJHDID

Validating Customer Contact Information

During account creation, 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.

  • Configure BRM to accept any telephone number format.

    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 Account Creation" in BRM Managing Customers.