Understanding Information Lifecycle Management (ILM)

Information Lifecycle Management (ILM) is a separately licensable component of Oracle Utilities Customer Care & Billing that works in tandem with the Oracle database feature of the same name.

For general information about the ILM process and how ILM works with OUAF applications, refer to the Information Lifecycle Management chapter of the Oracle Utilities Application Framework Administrative User Guide.

This section provides an overview of the components used by the Information Lifecycle Management functionality.

ILM-Enabled Maintenance Objects: Retention Period

The majority of Maintenance Objects support a single retention period. They can either inherit the system-wide retention days that are configured on the ILM Configuration master configuration or they can have a retention period specified via the Maintenance Object option ILM Retention Period in Days.

Adjusting Eligibility of Non-Final Transactions

As delivered, Oracle Utilities Customer Care & Billing maintenance objects allow non-final transactions to be eligible for archive. This is a logical approach when transactional data has a very long retention period.

If non-final transactions should not be eligible for archive this can be controlled at either the Maintenance Object (MO) or Business Object (BO) level:

  • MO - ILM Restrict By Status (Y/N): Setting this to "Y" opts into the ability to restrict archiving by status. This is required to be set for either of the MO or BO level restrictions to be considered. To enforce the status, it requires that either the ILM Restrict By BO Final Status (Y/N) option or ILM Final Status Field Value option is also configured.
  • MO - ILM Restrict By BO Final Status (Y/N): Setting this to "Y" indicates that the transactions for the MO must be in a final status to be eligible for ILM. A status is considered to be final, based on the BO lifecycle configuration. This can be overridden by the BO option Final Status Required for Archive (Y/N). This is only applicable for an MO that is maintained by business objects.
  • BO - Final Status Required for Archive (Y/N): Setting this to "Y" indicates the transactions for this particular BO must be in a final status. This setting overrides the MO level ILM Restrict By BO Final Status (Y/N).

The following table helps to illustrate how these three settings impact whether a given transaction must be in a final status:

  • MO: ILM Restrict By Status
  • MO: ILM Restrict By BO Final Status
  • BO: Final Status Required for Archive
  • Final Status Required for Eligibility?
  • N
  • Y
  • Y
  • N
  • N
  • Y
  • N
  • N
  • N
  • N
  • Y
  • N
  • Y
  • N
  • N
  • N
  • Y
  • Y
  • N
  • N
  • Y
  • Y
  • Y
  • Y
  • Y
  • N
  • Y
  • Y
  • Y
  • Y
  • Not Provided
  • Y
  • Y
  • N
  • Not Provided
  • N
Note: There are a few MOs that do not support the BO level setting. To best understand how these fields are interpreted for an MO, refer to the detailed description of the algorithm plugged into the ILM Eligibility system event for the MO. For example, the generic ILM Eligibility Based on Status (F1-ILMELIG) algorithm does not support the BO level override option.

CCB ILM-Managed MOs

The CCB MOs support only a single retention period and many do not support the BO level setting.

Refer to ILM Master Configuration for the list of ILM-managed MOs. Most of the CCB MOs on this list either have a specific ILM eligibility algorithm or use the common F1-ILMELIG algorithm with a restriction on BO final status.

The following table lists exceptions to the above rule. These MOs are not BO-based. Thus, the MOs that use the F1-ILMELIG algorithm will be restricted by the specific status(es) mentioned.

Maintenance Object

ILM Eligibility Algorithm Type

Restrict By Status

Billable Charge

F1-ILMELIG

Yes. Status: Canceled

Case

F1-ILMELIG

Yes. Status: Closed

Field Activity

F1-ILMELIG

Yes. Statuses: Complete, Canceled

Financial Transaction

N/A. Eligibility checks are performed directly from the FT ILM crawler batch process.

N/A

Order

F1-ILMELIG

Yes. Statuses: Complete, Canceled

Payment

N/A. Included in Payment Event ILM processing (C1-PEVILMELG)

N//A
The following MOs are considered ILM-managed even if the ILM fields, ILM eligibility algorithm and ILM crawler batch process do not exist. The tables are partitioned on Create Date/Time, as the record's age is sufficient for archive eligibility.
  • Collection Process
  • Severance Process
  • Overdue Process
  • Cut Process
  • Write Off Process

Proactive Archive Eligibility for Transactional Data

Some types of transactional data can be analyzed for archive eligibility as they are received rather than waiting until their retention period has expired. This means that these records are judged ready to be archived as they are created and do not need to be read, analyzed, and updated during the ILM crawling process. This greatly reduces the number of records to be crawled at the end of the retention period and shortens the window of time required for ILM crawling. This approach exists in Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management and Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter. For more information, refer to the user documentation of these applications.