Service Portfolio Management integration with Order Management
This article will cover the procedures, best practices, and tips for creating a basic customer order line-item project with order tasks captured as project tasks in Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) project templates.
Order Management Telecom (OMT) will target the customer order project template created, for requesting SPM instantiate a project with project tasks derived from the project template, if OMT has determined that project management oversight conditions have been met.
It is critical that we configure the SPM project template and project task template correctly for the SPM integration, project management oversight feature to operate correctly.
This article will guide you through how to create a customer order project template with project tasks for an SD-WAN product offering that has a few of its domain orders and order tasks captured in the project template's associated project task template.
We will examine the project oversight entity relationship model to understand how entity relationships work to ensure that synchronization of task state can be maintained between SPM and OMT object entities.
The article will not delve into in any depth SPM feature capabilities, the intent is to focus on what needs to be in a project template specific for enabling OMT to use a configured customer order project template and project tasks as a targeted template.
If you need some basic grounding in creating project templates prior to reading further, please click on the below SPM feature project template creation.
Article post overview
What this article will cover:
- Feature usage background
- Feature list overview
- Feature enablement
- Design time – SPM template configuration to enable feature use:
- configuration of a customer order project template for SD-WAN Offering
- configuration of project task template configuration of domain order for three SD-WAN product domains
- configuration of project management for oversight for order line-item decision table for SD-WAN order-line item – SD-WAN Service Package
- Configuration of project management for oversight for domain order decision table for three SD-WAN Service Package domain orders
- Reference material
Post two
Will delve deeper into creating a more complex three project site for customer order delivery project tracking.
Post three
Will discuss the OMT to SPM runtime automated project oversight triggering and real time synchronization of order task to project task state and project task work notes synchronization with order entity work notes and
a demo recording will be made available to show how this works for a new customer order – top order lines instantiated as a project, where there are 3 sites that correspond to 3 top line order items that creates 3 projects for project task tracking of domain order state and order task state. The article will cover:
- Real time sync of order task to project task
- Project oversight relationship tables
- Work notes sync
- Demo recording of synchronization of state and work notes from OMT to SPM for an active customer order subject to project management oversight.
Feature background
It is common for telecommunications service providers to provide project management oversight, either as a paid service or on projects which have strategic importance.
Service providers will offer project oversight for customer orders that have non OMT project task and task dependencies that may be a predecessor or successor of OMT order tasks within a project to enable successful fulfillment of a customer order.
Examples of task assignments that are managed as part of a project, requiring project oversight are customer site service access work, site assessment, equipment procurement, building permits, data center preparation, colocation equipment installation, outside and inside plant work field work activities.
The service provider’s project could include not only OMT customer order lines stood up as a project, and domain orders and order tasks as project tasks, but as part of the service delivery customer solution project, non-OMT project tasks assigned to other actors and systems that have automated or manual workflow tasks to be completed in support of customer order delivery project.
Example of a multi-site customer solution deployment composed of OMT and non-OMT project tasks
Customer order solution deployment scenarios that can be subject to project oversight
Use Case: Project Oversight for a new residential service requires fiber to the home.
Description: Customer purchased a triple play product comprised of home internet service, video streaming and VoIP.
The internet service is of a higher speed than what currently is supported for the copper connection to the home, therefore, the provider will be required to run fiber to the home. Since the state public utility commission requires the service provider to support rural high speed the provider must run a fiber connection. The provider has allocated budget for rural service high speed service upgrades and to ensure that the broadband service upgrades are delivered on time and within budget, the policy is to always stand up a project and assign a project manager for oversight.
Use Case: Project oversight for business service.
Description: A business customer has a 20 location (headquarter and 19 remote office sites) and has purchased an Ethernet broadband LAN product that delivers 1GPS bandwidth between all 19 sites and its datacenter located at HQ. The service provider has fiber already installed at each site; but there are 20 sites and 20 different service activation due dates, spanning over a 12-month period before the entire order is completed. As a policy, business customers that order services for more than 2 sites or have multiples of services are always delivered as a project, which is a paid service.
SPM better together with OMT Business value for customer adoption:
Order Management Telecom (OMT) and Service Portfolio Management (SPM) integration will enable Order Management for TMT to automatically trigger project management oversight of customer order line items to achieve the following outcomes.
SPM better together with OMT Business value for customer adoption:
- Automation between Project Oversite (Track and manage) and Customer Order Solution delivery (Order fulfillment) will help in reducing project oversight inefficiencies due to manual tracking of Order fulfillment tasks.
- Provide the service provider’s project manager with visibility to fulfillment manager and agents order task activity (task completion) from a project oversight point of view.
- Automation of project to order task state and work note synchronization reduces project oversight OpEx by streamlining the project task tracking and updating process.
- Helps to reduce project fallout, delays due to inefficient manual project task tracking. Alleviates some of the headache manually tracking and updating the project status. Project managers can focus more on customer interactions and not manually capturing order related tasks as they are completed. There could potentially for a large and complex customer order to have hundreds of tasks to track within projects.
Here is an example that further illustrates the need for automated project oversight of customer order delivery of fulfillment for order-line items.
The Funco International account has a customer order, comprised of a three-site solution to be fulfilled. Each customer site will have a fulfillment flow comprised of thirty-nine order tasks that need to be completed to deliver the services on time per service location. location. Thirty-nine order tasks tracked as project tasks inn SPM…this is a small delivery organized as a program that has 3 projects for Funco International account.
- Houston Site One: 39 project tasks – task state synchronized and automatically updated from OMT order tasks state updates.
- Dallas Site Two: 39 project tasks – task state synchronized and automatically updated from OMT order task state updates.
- Santa Clara Site Three: 39 project tasks - task state synchronized and automatically updated from OMT order task updates.
Below screenshot for the Funco Internal Houston site – in Service Portfolio project workspace – there will be three separate customer top order line items for three customer sites [Huston, Dallas, Santa Clara]. A project manager is assigned for project oversight of all three sites.
The Funco International program contains three projects, for a total of 117 customer order project tasks. Even though 117 project tasks are not that many to manually track and update, imagine if it was 20 site SD-WAN customer order? That is a total of 780 project order tasks to manually track and update for a one 20 site SD-WAN customer order!
A great way to demonstrate SPM integration with OMT would be to have multiple projects instantiated and under a program, a collection of projects with project tasks being automatically updated by OMT as order tasks are completed.
Creating a collection of customer order projects under a program;
You could assign a project manager to each project site under the program to manually track and update the project tasks. Rather, assign one project manager that leverages the SPM to OMT integration feature that automates order task to project task using real time state synchronization and reduce project management OpEx .
In summary – This integration is intended to solve the problem of automating manually intensive customer project task tracking of customer orders that frequently experience delays and fallout due to lack of automated order task to project task updates. The benefit of this automation is very impactful when it's adopted for large scale, multi-site, long duration customer order solution delivery.
SPM integration with OMT Feature list.
- Automatic project instantiation – Based on project oversight rules, OMT will automatically instantiate a project in SPM.
- Project oversight determination decision table OOB – create business rules to determine for order line item, domain order or order task will require project oversight in SPM.
- Staggered/inflight orders for new tasks created as part of staggered decomposition or inflight – project template will have placeholder template tasks defined to enable synchronization; for inflight provides for re-opening project tasks synchronized with order tasks.
- Quantity order – Support tracking and syncing of order tasks with quantity >1.
- Uni-directional notes, comments and order line and order task state communication
- OMT UI – view related list of relationship between order line item/project, domain order/project task, order task/project task.
- Auto - closure of project tasks – system property to configure auto closure of project tasks.
- Demo templates included for Customer project template and internal project template to use to create new project templates and project tasks.
Let’s jump into an exercise with a problem to solve!
Problem to solve:
Assess what level of project tracking is required– do we need to capture all the domain orders as project tasks? What level of granularity will the project manager desire to have visibility and automated project task state synchronization between project task and order entity task state?
Description: project manager requires that for the same product offering but for a different customer, project oversight is only required for three domain orders as project tasks to be instantiated as an SD-WAN run time
Persona: Admin, IT project administrator
Responsibilities:
- Project templates - Create the PPM project templates that are used to automatically generate the projects for orders requiring project oversight. Project templates also define the planned tasks for order delivery.
- Project task templates – configures mappings between order tasks and planned project tasks associated with a project template.
- Project oversight conditions - Specify the conditions that determine the orders that qualify for project oversight and the project templates used to create those projects. You use different Project Management Oversight decision tables to set the conditions for order lines, domain orders, and order tasks and the appropriate project template.
- Reviews templates for completeness to ensure all order tasks are defined correctly as project tasks in project templates.
- Manages project template lifecycle and troubleshoots and resolves template and project task synchronization issues.
- Create Project template & corresponding project task templates should be created in Project Portfolio Management, in order words - Product Specifications can be used to create customer project templates and the individual product fulfillment tasks can be captured as project template task records for the project template.
Outcomes:
- A new customer project template to instantiate an SD-WAN offering’s Service package specification (top order line item)
- A project task template with only domain specifications (domain orders) as project tasks to track and synchronize OMT domain order state mapped to project task state.
- OMT will request SPM to instantiate a project and project tasks for the following highlighted order entities for automatic state synchronization between project/project task and order line item and domain order from the template (based on decision table conditions meet)
- OMT will capture in its project oversight relationship tables the relationship between the project and order line item and the project task and order entity object as configured for synchronization in the project task template.
OMT to SPM object mappings:
Before we create our simple demo, let’s understand the relationship between a project and order line item, domain order and order task as it relates to a project record, and project task.
A customer order can be a part of a program, the Vancouver release does not automatically create a program, it’s out of scope for the initial MVP for this feature. A system admin or IT project administrator would need to manually create a program that has a collection of customer orders (order line items as projects) within SPM.
- A customer order will have of one-to-many order line items.
- One or more top order line items can be associated with zero to many SPM projects.
- A top order line item will decompose into one or many domain orders.
- One to many domain orders can be associated with zero to many project tasks.
- One to many domain orders can decompose to zero to many children order tasks.
- An order task can be associated to zero to many project tasks.
SPM integration with OMT Plugins Prerequisite:
Ensure the project management plugins are present.
To create internal projects, PPM Standard plugin must be installed, and to create customer projects, Customer Project Management plugin must be installed. If these plugins are installed after upgrading the Order Management for Telecommunications, Media & Technology (sn_ind_tmt_orm) plugin, please repair the Order Management for Telecommunications, Media & Technology (sn_ind_tmt_orm) plugin.
Types of project templates and plugins required:
The PPM Standard plugin (com.snc.financial_planning_pmo) is required to be installed in addition to Order Management for Telecommunications, Media & Technology (sn_ind_tmt_orm).
The PPM Standard Plugin installs a set of applications for managing demands, projects, portfolios, and resources. Provides complete visibility from idea to execution. It also helps to plan, track, and manage resources, cost, time, and budget on projects and demands in a portfolio through various workbenches.
Creating a Project template
Create a SD-WAN Offering project template for a SD-WAN Service Package that will later be subject to automated project management oversight at SPM/OMT runtime.
From an existing project – you can create a new project template from an existing project template if you already have a previously defined project template and modify it to suit a different project management oversight tracking requirement.
Conversely, you can create a customer or internal project template and project tasks from an existing customer order project - top order line item as a project and project tasks (domain specifications and order tasks as project tasks. Just navigate to the 'Planning Console' of the project, add & edit the project tasks as required, save the work, navigate back to the 'Details' tab, and select 'Save as new Template' from the related links.
The Order Management for Telecom application Vancouver release demo data includes project templates that you can copy and change as needed to configure a new project template.
- SD-WAN Customer Product Bundle (for customer project)
- Demo Internal SD-WAN Project Template (for internal projects
Create a new SD-WAN offering – Service Package project template from existing template
Step 1 – Select existing SD-WAN Customer Product Bundle (template) to duplicate the project template.
Step 2 – Copy Template to create a new template.
Step 3 –Name the template and description based on what you believe best describes how the template will be used when stood up as an active customer order project. Save the new project template.
Step 4 - Ensure that the new template has been created and selectable in the project template list
Step 5 – Begin configuring the new project template – SD-WAN Offering – Domain orders or whatever name you chosen.
Provide a brief description based on what you believe best describes how the template will be used when stood up as an active customer order project when OMT requests SPM to instantiate the project from the targeted project template configured.
See the SPM to OMT Mapping table for mapping relationship between project and order line-item, project tasks and domain order, and order task.
Now we configure the new template with project template tasks for project oversight of SD-WAN Service Package to only have the three domain orders highlighted as project tasks in the project task template.
- Product order for SD-WAN Edge Device
- Product order for SD-WAN Controller – domain specification in SD WAN offering product bundle
- Product order for SD-WAN Controller – domain specification in SD-WAN offering product bundle
Delete all record rows except the ones highlighted as these are the only project tasks that will be tracked by the Project manager when the project is stood up when OMT determines based on project oversight decision table conditions that project oversite is required by SPM.
Note: the name I created is an example template name
Step 5 – Begin configuring the new project template – SD-WAN Offering – Domain orders or whatever name you chosen.
Delete all record rows except the ones highlighted as these are the only project tasks that will be tracked by the Project manager when the project is stood up when OMT determines based on project oversight decision table conditions that project oversite is required by SPM.
Provide a brief description based on what you believe best describes how the template will be used when stood up as an active customer order project when OMT requests SPM to instantiate the project from the targeted project template configured.
Note: The name of the project template is customer project for SD-WANSD-WAN Service Package; this is not just arbitrary naming on my part, it reminds me that this project template is for project management oversight. See the SPM to OMT Mapping table for mapping relationship between project and order line-item, project tasks and domain order, and order task.
New Template made:
Now we configure the new template with project template tasks for project oversight of SD-WAN Service Package to only have the three domain orders highlighted as project tasks in the project task template.
- Product order for SD-WAN Edge Device
- Product order for SD-WAN Controller – domain specification in SD WAN offering product bundle
- Product order for SD-WAN Controller – domain specification in SD-WAN offering product bundle
Step 6 – Save/update customer project template
Note: if you wanted to add back in a project task for domain specification, one easy way is to create a project from the template and add additional domain specifications such as Service Order for SD-WAN Security Service, then save as a new project template. See the SPM project documentation in reference section for specific actions to add a project task to a project.
Configuring OMT project oversight decision tables
Now that you have a new project template ready as the targeted template for project instantiation from OMT, we go to OMT project oversight decision tables to begin the design time process for:
- Determining that a customer order top order line item – SD-WAN specification “SD-WAN Service Package” meets conditions for project management oversight.
- Determining that a domain order level specification meets the conditions for project task oversight.
Configure OMT Decision Tables for OMT Project oversight determination
Problem to solve:
Determine that project oversight is required for customer order line item based on the following conditions being meet as configured in the Project management Oversight for Order Line-Item decision table.
Persona – admin
Persona responsibilities:
- Project templates - Create the PPM project templates that are used to automatically generate the projects for orders requiring project oversight. Project templates also define the planned tasks for order delivery.
- Project task templates – configures mappings between order tasks and planned project tasks associated with a project template.
- Project oversight conditions - Specify the conditions that determine the orders that qualify for project oversight and the project templates used to create those projects. You use different Project Management Oversight decision tables to set the conditions for order lines, domain orders, and order tasks and the appropriate project template.
- Reviews templates for completeness to ensure all order tasks are defined correctly as project tasks in project templates.
- Manages project template lifecycle and troubleshoots and resolves template and project task synchronization issues.
- Create Project template & corresponding project task templates should be created in Project Portfolio Management, in order words - Product Specifications can be used to create customer project templates and the individual product fulfillment tasks can be captured as project template task records for the project template.
Description: As an Admin I need to configure in OMT project management oversight for an SD-WAN customer order line-item based on specified conditions being met so that OMT determines project oversight is required and requests SPM to instantiate a project from the targeted project template
- Determine that project oversight is required for a top order line item based on project management oversight determination conditions have been met once the order has been approved.
Outcome:
- Based on project management oversight for SD-WAN Service Package (top order line item), and the Project Management Oversight decision table conditions configured, OMT will automatically trigger a request for SPM to instantiate a project based on the targeted project template
OMT will capture the in its project oversite relationship table the relationship between the project and the order line item for a project manager or a fulfillment manager and or agent to view.
Step 1 – Select and configure Project Management Oversight for Order Line-Item decision table.
Step 2 – Configured the conditions as seen below in project management oversight for order line-item decision table and save.
- Action is “Add”
- Specification is SD-WAN Service Package
- Account is Funco International
- Location is 20221 Noel Road, Dallas, TX
- Offering is Premium SD-WAN Offering
- Project template is SD-WAN Offering – Domain orders.
Note: the project template in the results column is a name I made up; This decision table is used to associate the input top order line item with one or more project templates based on the satisfying conditions. Please note that the condition columns are demo data and will need to be updated by the customer. Refer to the demo data rows in this decision table as an example.
Note for below: OMT demo data will have default condition columns out of the box for project management Oversight for Order Line items, you can add additional condition columns or change the defaults to match order line fields or reference records that you want to also use as conditions:
Step 3 – Configure the Project Management Oversight for Domain Order.
Configure the Project management for Domain Order decision table for the three product orders you wish to be instantiated as project tasks in SPM that correspond to the three project tasks configured earlier in the project task template as described below.
Step 4 – Create a customer order for a new product For Funco International in OMT
- Account is Funco International
- Contact is Sarah Johnson
- Location is 20221 Noel Road, Dallas, TX
- Product Offering is Premium SD-WAN Offering
- Add optional SD-WAN Security as a domain order.
Submit customer order and approve. After order approval, top order line items that satisfy conditions in the 'Project Management Oversight for Order Line Item' , OMT automatically trigger a request SPM to instantiate a customer project.
On creation of a domain order in OMT, if the domain order is eligible for project management oversight, as per 'Project Management Oversight for Domain Order, the domain order is linked to project task(s). This view is from the point of view of SPM customer project.
Project oversight for order line outcome from OMT UI POV:
Top Order Line Task Relationship to project established example:
Outcome from SPM Project point of view:
Note: Several ways to look at the project point of view, easiest path would be to click on the “CSPRJ0001154” task and OMT will route you to the project workspace for CSPRJ0001154.
Notice that there are three project tasks that have been created under customer project. How did we get there? We clicked on the CSPR0001154 under task – brought us to the project manager point of view.
Click on the project tasks tab and you will see three project tasks that correspond to the three domain orders, that were configured in the OMT Project Management Domain Order Oversight decision table for object entity mapping and synchronization and with project tasks.
Summary of demo outcomes:
- Created an SD-WAN Service Package Template by copying the demo customer project template to create a new SD-WAN Service Package project with three domain orders as project tasks in project task template.
- Configured the out of the box Project Management Oversight for Order line Item for conditions that will enable OMT to automatically determine this requires project management oversight.
- Configured the Project Management Oversight for Domain Order with conditions that enable OMT to establish the relationship between three domain orders with the project tasks corresponding as configured in the project task template.
In this exercise, we executed the following SPM integration with OMT configuration flow:
Congratulations! You are ready for the next article; OMT project oversight decision table configuration.
Reference material:
Strategic Portfolio Management with Order Management Telecom integration – Vancouver Release documentation:
SPM Community Blog:
Strategic Portfolio Management Welcome Guide - ServiceNow Community
Vancouver Release product Readiness documents and videos
Industry-Products-GTM - 1 - Product Readiness - All Documents (sharepoint.com)
Troubleshooting Guide:
