Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) functional architecture

  • Rversion finale: Australia
  • Mis à jour 13 mars 2026
  • 3 minutes de lecture

    • Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) is a comprehensive order management solution designed specifically for telecommunications service providers. SOMT serves as a critical orchestration layer within the larger telecommunications ecosystem, integrating with key systems to manage the complete journey from prospect identification to service activation.

    Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) in the Telecommunications ecosystem

    Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) is a critical application in the telecommunications industry, serving as the central orchestration layer for order management. It acts as a central hub connecting various systems across the telecom operator's landscape:

    • Customer-facing channels: Mobile apps, web portals, and sales representatives.
    • Supporting systems: Product catalogs, inventory systems, and service qualification platforms.
    • Fulfillment systems: Field service management and network activation platforms.

    Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) leverages TeleManagement Forum (TMF) industry standards to manage telecommunications orders across both selling and fulfillment phases while integrating with multiple upstream and downstream systems.

    Foundation components

    Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) is built on the following core data entities that underpin the entire order management process:

    • Account: Customer account information and organizational hierarchy.
    • Contact: Customer contact details and relationships.
    • Location/Site: Service delivery locations and site information.
    • Product Model: Product specifications and definitions created using the Product-Service-Resource (PSR) framework.
    • Sold Product: Customer's purchased products and entitlements
    • Install base item: Customer's product configuration.
    • Entitlements: Entitlements associated with the sold products.
    • Contracts: Customer contract including account details and specific assets covered.

    These foundational elements provide the essential data structures that support all operations, from lead management through service activation. The Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) functional architecture operates across two distinct phases: the Selling Phase and the Fulfillment Phase.

    Selling phase

    This phase covers the customer acquisition and order capture process:
    • Lead Management: Initial prospect identification
    • Opportunity Management: Sales opportunity qualification
    • Product Catalog: Product offerings and configurations
    • Sales Agreement: Pre-sales contractual arrangements
    • Shopping Cart: Customer selection management
    • Quote: Pricing and proposal generation (CPQ)
    • Contract: Post-sales contractual obligations
    • Order Capture: Final order submission

    During this phase, Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) integrates with digital apps, self-care portals, account managers, product catalogs, and service feasibility systems.

    SOMT selling phase

    Fulfillment phase

    After order submission, the next phase is the fulfillment process:

    • Order Distribution: Decomposition into service orders and work orders.
    • Service Order Management: Tracking through activation lifecycle.
    • Activation Handoff: Submission to provisioning systems.

    During this phase, Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) coordinates with Field Service Management for Telecommunication, external inventory systems, and network activation platforms.

    SOMT fulfillment phase

    Remarque :
    Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) orchestrates the order management process and submits service orders to downstream activation systems but does not perform network activation or provisioning.

    TeleManagement Forum (TMF) Open APIs

    The Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) leverages TeleManagement Forum (TMF) Open APIs throughout its architecture, ensuring standards-based integration with third-party systems. Key API integrations include:

    • Product catalog management API: Manage product catalog information from external systems. See Product Catalog Open API.
    • Product inventory API: For ServiceNow applications or external CRM / CPQ submitting orders. See Product Inventory Open API.
    • Service catalog API: For synching technical specifications with other network domain specific provisioning catalogs. See Service Catalog Open API.
    • Service order API: Service Order API: Customer order is handled by another application and Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) acts as a service order manager or when the decomposition and orchestration is handled by the marketplace owner and sends order to Sales and Order Management for Telecommunications (SOMT) for fulfillment. See Service Order Open API.
    • Technical service qualification API: Checks availability of resources and services before an order is submitted for fufillment. See Technical Service Qualification Open API.
    • Quote management API: Based on the TMF 648 API. See Quote Management API.

    Non-TMF APIs