Telecom Service Order: Need Solution to Auto‑Switch “Add” to “Change” When Active Product Inventory

[VinayK479003139]

Hello Everyone,

We are working with the Telecom Service Management (TSM) application and facing a functional requirement around Service Order creation, specifically when users select the Add action.

📌 Current OOTB Behavior

1. When creating a Service Order (Action = Add), the user selects a catalog item.
2. Even if the Account + Location + Service already has an Active Product Inventory, the system still:
   • Creates a new Product Inventory record, and
   • Processes the order under the Add workflow.
3. This is confirmed as OOB‑as‑designed behavior.

📌 Business Requirement

If an Active Product Inventory already exists for the selected:

• Account
• Location
• Service

then the system should:

✔ Not allow creation of a duplicate inventory, and
✔ Automatically convert the Add action to a Change action,
✔ And associate the Service Order line with the existing Product Inventory instead of creating a new one.

Essentially, the Add flow should redirect into the Change flow when an active inventory exists.

📌 Challenge

The OOB Service Order process asks the user to select the action (Add/Change/Disconnect) before the catalog selection happens.
The platform does not check for existing Active inventories during the Add process.
Users may unintentionally create duplicate inventories.

📌 Brainstormed Approaches

During discussions, we identified two possible customization approaches:

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1️⃣ Validate on Add (Before Line Creation)

When the user clicks Add on a catalog item:

• System checks if an Active Product Inventory already exists for the same Account + Location + Service.

• If found:

  • Show a warning message:

    “An active product inventory already exists for this service. Do you want to proceed with Add, or create a Change order instead?”

• Optionally force the user to stop and choose Change manually.

---

2️⃣ Automatic Redirection to Change Flow

If an existing Active inventory is detected:

• Cancel the Add process.
• Redirect user to New Service Order dialog.
• Auto‑populate Account/Location/Service.
• Default the action to Change.
• Link the record to the existing Product Inventory.

This ensures user experience remains smooth, but requires deeper customization.

---

📌 Ask to the Community

Has anyone implemented similar logic in TSM?

Specifically, we are looking for guidance on:

🔹 Where exactly in the Service Order creation process we should insert the validation (UI Action, Client Script, Script Include, Flow Designer, etc.)
🔹 Whether it's technically feasible to branch from Add flow → Change flow dynamically
🔹 Recommended best practices to avoid breaking OOTB Telecom order orchestration
🔹 Any examples or patterns others have used to prevent duplicate Product Inventory creation

Any inputs, design suggestions, or references to documentation would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!