Telecommunications Network Inventory and Order Management for Telecommunications and Media
Summarize
Summary of Telecommunications Network Inventory and Order Management for Telecommunications and Media
The Order Management for Telecommunications and Media (OMT) application enables ServiceNow customers in the telecommunications sector to centrally manage product and service orders. These orders are structured into service orders and resource orders, automating the fulfillment process and integrating with the Telecommunications Network Inventory (TNI) application for network-related tasks. This integration ensures seamless handling of inventory configuration items (CIs), models, and templates, essential for network provisioning and change management.
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Order Workflow and Integration
The OMT application orchestrates order fulfillment through several stages:
- Orchestration: Generates resource orders to execute tasks including network planning, initiated by service agents or TMF 641 APIs.
- Plan: Uses Service Project Management (SPM) templates to create and process projects linked with order management.
- Procure: Manages procurement activities for hardware assets required to fulfill orders.
- Design Assign: TNI creates change requests and tasks based on change characteristics, executing workflows that read or create required CIs.
- Build: Physical service implementation occurs via Field Service Management (FSM).
- Activate: Deploys the service using activation procedures.
All network-related order tasks that involve inventory changes require creating a change request in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. The integration mandates licenses for both OMT and TNI in the same instance and currently supports only the ADD action service order requests.
Administration and Configuration
Administrators must configure key components to enable change request creation for network inventory actions:
- Create Record Producers: Facilitate user input for change requests.
- Create Change Models: Define standardized change workflows.
Default change models provided include:
- Provision LAG: Creates Ethernet links and Link Aggregation Groups with VLAN associations.
- GPON Broadband Service (Automated): Automates provisioning of GPON services over existing networks.
- Fiber-wise Mobility Infrastructure: Provisions mobility infrastructure.
- Design and Assign Telco Equipment: Creates equipment based on predefined templates at network sites.
Change models follow a lifecycle with states such as New, Implement, Review, and Closed.
Change Request Workflow
The workflow integrates OMT and TNI as follows:
- OMT creates an order task triggering the TNI flow to launch a change request.
- Order task actions and service specifications map to change models and record producers.
- Mapped characteristics populate record producer variables, submitting via ServiceNow APIs to create the change request.
- Work notes update order tasks throughout the process, including upon change request closure.
Role of Inventory Agents
Inventory agents are responsible for opening, verifying, implementing, and closing change tasks. Implemented CIs are tracked under the Affected CIs tab, and upon task closure, install base items are created linking product orders to CIs. This ensures accurate inventory and order fulfillment tracking.
Practical Insights for ServiceNow Customers
- Ensure both OMT and TNI applications are licensed within the same instance to leverage network inventory integration.
- Configure record producers and change models to automate network-related order tasks effectively.
- Create decision entries in TNI to enable automatic change request creation for order tasks.
- Utilize default change models or customize as needed to align with your network provisioning workflows.
- Inventory agents play a critical role in updating task statuses and ensuring CIs are accurately reflected in the system.
Demo and Related Concepts
ServiceNow provides demo data such as the SD-WAN product with tasks that trigger equipment creation change requests, useful for testing and training. The integration also relates closely to Hardware Asset Management, enhancing comprehensive asset and inventory tracking within telecommunications environments.
With the Order Management for Telecommunications and Media (OMT) application, you can manage all your product and service orders from one place. These product orders are divided into service orders that are further divided into resource orders.
Introduction to OMT integration
The order workflow generates the order tasks that fulfill the customer-facing service order (CFS) and resource-facing service order (RFS). Network-related tasks that involve the inventory configuration items (CIs), models, and templates, may interact with the Telecommunications Network Inventory application to create network CIs. For all network-related order tasks, you must create a change request in the Telecommunications Network Inventory application.
- Orchestration: In this stage, the Order Management for Telecommunications application fulfills the function of order orchestration. It generates resource orders to execute a variety of order-related tasks, encompassing network planning. These resource orders can be initiated by either a service agent or through the TMF 641.
- Plan: In this stage, the SPM leverages pre-defined SPM project template to initiate project creation. Subsequently, the SPM utilizes the established integration with the Order Management for Telecommunications to facilitate further project processing.
- Procure: In this stage, instantiation of procurement activity for hardware assets to fulfill the request is obtained.
- Design Assign: In this stage, the Telecommunications Network Inventory application initiates the following process:
- creates change request that triggers the respective change model based on the analyzed change characteristics.
- creates change tasks based on the change characteristics.
- completes all the tasks through the inventory task flow that includes template sub flow, read flow action, and create flow action. After which required CIs or resources are read or created.
- Build: In this stage, the service is physically built or implemented through FSM.
- Activate: The service is deployed using activation procedure.
To create a network CI, the Telecommunications Network Inventory and Order Management for Telecommunications applications are integrated to perform service or product tasks, such as design and assign. A change request is initiated for the tasks that need a network inventory-related action.
- You must have the license of both the Telecommunications Network Inventory and Order Management for Telecommunications applications in the same instance.
- In this integration, only the ADD action service order request from Order Management for Telecommunications and Media is provided.
For admins
- Create a record producer. To learn more, see Create a record producer.
- Create a change model. To learn more, see Create a change model.By default, the Telecommunications Network Inventory application provides the change models that are described in the following table.
The states are New, Implement, Review, and Closed for the earlier change models. By default, all new change model states are set as New.Table 1. Default Change Models Change Models Description Provision LAG Creates Ethernet links across ports, and a LAG circuit over those Ethernet links. LAG has virtual interfaces. The VLAN ranges are also created and associated with LAG. GPON broadband Service (Automated) Provisions a GPON service over the existing network. Fiber-wise Mobility Infrastructure Provisions a mobility infrastructure over the existing network. Design and Assign Telco Equipment Creates equipment according to the predefined template at a particular network site. -
Create a decision entry in the decision table provided by the Telecommunications Network Inventory application. See Order Management for Telecommunications integration to learn how to create an entry.
- The OMT subflow creates an order task.
- When the Order Task Created trigger is received, the TNI flow launches the Create Change Request and later creates a Change Request action.
- The OMT action and Service Specification are mapped to the Change Model, Record Producer in the TNI Order Task Submit Script Include and Decision Tables. Then the OMT characteristic is mapped to the Record Producer variables.
- The Producer is then submitted to the Record Producer via the sn_sc.CatItem API.
- It creates a Change Request with respect to the Order Task, Change Model, and Variables. Also, it uses the sn sc.CatItem API to return the result to the TNI flow.
- When this action is completed, it adds work notes to the Order task.
- After the Change Request is closed, it adds work notes to the Order task.
For inventory agents
An inventory agent can open, verify, implement, and close the assigned change tasks. After implemented, the created CIs are added under the Affected CIs tab. The work notes of the order task are updated when the order task is closed.
- A change request for an order task is created automatically only if a decision entry is created.
- A number of change requests is created based on the need for inventory action of an order task.
- As a demo data:
- In the Order Management for Telecommunications and Media application, the SD-WAN product has an Allocate and Install CPE task that triggers an equipment creation change request to the Telecommunications Network Inventory application.
- The Telecommunications Network Inventory application has demo data that you can use to create equipment, provision a link aggregation group (LAG), automate a Gigabyte Passive Optical Network (GPON) broadband, and fiber wise mobility infra as Telecommunications Network Inventory workflows.