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welcome to telecommunications business process each omphalos this is Robert burr Tillich and I consult in business architecture engineering and transformation table of contents we'll begin by clarifying what we mean by process flows as distinct from process hierarchies or process decompositions and why it's important to have process flows complimenti tom then we'll walk through in detail several of the major customer centric end-to-end process flows that have been defined by the TM for me tom team these include requests to answer order to payment usage to payment and problem to solution as prerequisite this course assumes you are familiar with eat Amla ville two processes including key e tom vertical and horizontal process groupings especially fulfillment assurance and billing understanding process flows let's begin by setting some groundwork eat aam or enhance telecom operations map is a business process framework issued by the TM forum standards organization as you can see in the simplified item level one view below left Etan positions the customer at the top of the model and network at the bottom there are four white bands that run across the model that in simple terms are the four layers customer which use the service which uses resource which use a supplier partner our focus will be on the pink operations half on the right with the four verticals the most important being fulfillment assurance and billing enabled by operations support and readiness the next level down in e tom consists of hundreds of hierarchical process decompositions in other words tree diagrams which is great for classifying what a process does into categories and subcategories but e tom does not contain actual process flows in other words blocks and arrows which people look for to understand how a process actually unfolds over time in the tree diagram below right you see a typical Eitam hierarchical decomposition for a level two process block X which happens to reside in the billing vertical and the customer Oh for example it then decomposes into level three process blocks and one of them even decomposes into level four process blocks which is as deep as Eaton goes a sample process decomposition here is a more elaborate process decomposition from the enterprise management section at the bottom of Eton Enterprise Management at the highest level decomposes into common domains like strategic and enterprise planning financial and asset management human resources management and so on let's look more closely at column three enterprise effectiveness management you can see that it decomposes in two distinct categories like process management quality management and program and project management it should be intuitively obvious that these domains don't really sequence directly with each other it's highly unlikely that anyone would draw a process diagram with quality management happening first and project management second or vice-versa there is no time sequence implied and no sequence arrows are shown if truth be told this really isn't a process diagram even though it is made up of process blocks so a process hierarchy alone will not tell people what the steps are for doing their work a sample process flow here we see a process excerpt called managed building inquiries for the first time we see flow arrows showing process progression from one step to another we also see a decision diamond block at the far left we see a few sub process calls the blocks with double bars that indicate a jump to a more deep process elsewhere and so on this is a flow and is a visual representation of the sequence of steps and decisions taken to manage incoming billing inquiries by a CSR for example a process flow tells us how to do the work process decompositions and flows are complementary both process decompositions and process flows are needed just like a books index and table of contents are both needed but for different purposes the index is the listing by category and the table of contents is the flow process flow business stream value stream journey these terms are often used interchangeably although there are subtle differences but the common intent is to show a time sequence from one step to another rather than the hierarchical decomposition you get with otama of the box an item decomposition is always helpful for creating heat maps to show what processes are in scope where functional gaps exist and so on but engaging clients in process discussions with Etan but no process flows is hardly better than a dictionary in a blank sheet of paper a Tom on its own simply has no process content the way most business people think of process meaning with arrows so as consultants we need to pre build process flows from item how using TM forum examples work from past engagements process experts best practices and so on so where do we start end to end process flows there are infinitely many possible flows one can construct using Etan blocks which flows are the best ones to prepare based on the need to have holistic and intuitive flows our focus will be on customer centric and to end flows suggesting a closing of the loop in other words the customer who has triggered the flow by placing a must receive satisfaction as to the requests completion by the end of the flow for example the process flow configure router would not be an end to and flow from the customer's perspective since it typically would not begin and end with a customer action however a flow that begins with customer placement of an order follows with fulfillment of the order by the CSP including router configuration and ends with customer confirmation of product delivery would be an end-to-end flow unfortunately there is no one common set of end-to-end flows although there is no shortage of terms for such constructs often with an X to Y naming pattern like lead to order order to cache hire to retire record to report and so on TM forum process flows the relatively recent Etan document gb9 21 addendum e describes numerous end-to-end flows we will cover the most important customer centric flows from this set namely request to answer shown below by the yellow return arrow running atop the customer process ro order to payment the green return arrow in the fulfillment vertical problem to solution the red return arrow in the assurance vertical and usage to payment the blue bottom to top arrow in the billing vertical accessing item documentation a word on accessing standards documents before we begin while TM forum and item documentation is not at all necessary to go through this presentation if you are a TM for a member then you will have access to the source documents the latest Etan materials including the GB 921 addendum e process flows can be found at the following links in either PDF or Word format note that the TM form update cycle is six months so these links may change which case you will need to search on the TM forum site for the latest archive of refreshed Etan documents the process flow examples and images for this PowerPoint walkthrough have been taken from the document GB 921 e and 2m process flows release 13.5 keep in mind that there is no one correct process flow these are meant to be illustrative examples and suppress detail when it is repetitive or cluttered we're now ready to begin with the first process flow flow number one request to answer this first process flow will serve as a template for the remaining flows in this presentation we will first review a description of the flow with assumptions examples and then follow it with key elements like tasks inputs outputs and critical issues then we'll look at an e tom level two shaded map followed by the e Tom decomposition trees with required level three processes check marked finally we put it all together in an actual flow let's now return to request to answer what is this process flow about this flow comprises activities relevant to managing any customer requests across all communication channels specific information requests or product requests from the customer are qualified and addressed this could lead to the preparation of a pre-sales offer if the customer shows interest in a particular product assumptions about this process flow include the offer preparation may or may not lead to reservation of resources in advance resources might be reserved for some special products or customers depending on the operators policies and procedures if the offer is accepted by the customer the next flow order to payment is triggered examples of this process flow include customer calls in to request product and pricing information customer walks into a store interested in upgrading to an HD set-top box customer logs onto a website to explore offerings customer sends an email to request product information or literature key elements key tasks in the request to answer flow may include presenting the product portfolio to the customer informing the customer about products handling customer retention and loyalty handling customer data managing the lifecycle of the request and cross-selling or up selling to the customer inputs to this process flow may include an expression of customer need with no products specified a specific customer product requests a request for general information the product catalog itself and its references to the product portfolio outputs from this process flow may include a statement or presentation of the offer itself to the customer product information general information or status information for an earlier request some critical issues to consider for this process flow include process differences between standardized versus individual offers how product complexity can impact this process the request handling time and how customer satisfaction is measured footprint in item level - you can see from the shaded footprint that this process flow will use process blocks strictly from the customer row which is understandable since this flow is all about customer interaction the story begins with customer interface management running along the top which will receive the customer request triage it and then handoff to selling marketing fulfillment or ultimately order handling the latter is its own process flow to be covered later retention and loyalty act as a kind of background process at all times ensuring we are interacting in a way that keeps the customer experience top of mind where to get item level 3 detail now how do we drill down to get the detailed process blocks with which to build our process flows using your access to the TM forum site you can download copious Eitam documentation in particular get gb9 21 addendum d for the 600 plus pages of the level 3 process detail there is lots of freeform text description of the 300 plus level 3 process blocks however you don't need to delve into all this detail as the process name and short description are usually sufficient there is even a recently added addendum DX for even larger amounts of detail at level 4 but this will not be referenced in this presentation the next three slides show how we pull out some of the level 3 detail to stitch into a process flow relevant item level 2 decompositions part 1 the next pages shows several item process trees where an item level 2 blog decomposes into several level 3 blocks in the first one at the top of this page we call up customer interface management here we will use two of its level 3 blocks indicated by the red checkmarks manage contact is the process that keeps track of all customer interactions regardless of the channel it's about managing and maintaining a log of customers calls emails even relevant social media manager quest goes one step further and keeps track of customer requests whether orders for products and services trouble tickets simple admin rights change requests and so on the remaining level 3 blocks are not relevant for the request to answer flow in the second item tree we call up retention and loyalty here we will use validate customer satisfaction as one of the closing steps in the flow note that other level threes could be used depending on the use case for example a request to create the initial customer account might use establish customer relationship but we will leave that sub case out of our flow for simplicity the third item tree is often one of the most bewildering since it falls in the operations support and readiness column of the eat ahmad 'l in this catch-all area for enabling processes in supporting data we will need the manage customer inventory process since we need to access data related to customers and their products and services decompositions part 2 similarly from the e tom tree for selling we will need manage prospect for the processes that capture and convert prospects to customers we may need the develop sales proposal process if the customer is requesting a customized solution for which a proposal and quote may be required from the marketing fulfillment response tree we will use the process block issue and distribute marketing collateral for when product information needs to be forwarded to the customer and from the order handling tree we will only need the process block determine customer order feasibility in order to perform a high level validation as to whether the customer can get what they want a more detailed version of this step may be performed after an actual order is invoked later sample flow in item level 3 at last we have here our request to answer process flow composed of the preceding check-marked process blocks this flow is depicted here using a light form of the bpmn process notation the process is triggered by the circular start symbol at the top left with the caption customer request note that this symbol is just slightly different from the BPM and finish symbols at the far right as well as the far left oddly with a heavier outline once the request is triggered by a call to a call center or a web login or other channel event the manage contact process kicks in to capture the customer interaction metadata it must also establish the customers identity through password or authentication questions from a CSR when we exit this process block we the state labeled customer identified so here the process author is not specifying what to do if the customer cannot be identified furthermore some requests of a non private nature like requesting general product information do not need to have the customer identified at all by the way noun definitions are very important in business process architecture for example what does the process author here really mean by request there are many requests which are not tied to ordering a product for example asking about one's balance or a question about an existing plan or device in the next block of the flow we see that the manage request process determines what the customer is asking for and how to proceed one option is to go to the left and end the flow perhaps because the customers request was quickly handled in that case the author may include many more details inside of the manage request block on how to handle these other request types as you can see it is up to the process author to determine what detail to house where and to define what the nouns do and do not cover if the request is related to purchasing products and services the flow then continues to manage prospect as part of the pitch to entice the customer with appropriate offerings perhaps some suggested offerings are made based on what we know about the customer already the next step in the process is issue and distribute marketing collateral which is another way to say the customer will be given product information perhaps at one time by mailed brochure but more realistically today by a email or web link this then proceeds to determine customer order feasibility the CSP must determine whether there are marketing or technical reasons why the customer may not be able to get the desired product or service perhaps the customer is not eligible for an offering because they have a low in handset perhaps they cannot combine the new offer with an existing plan perhaps DSL service cannot be activated because there is no available network capacity the home is too far away from the CSP wire center there are many detailed steps not shown at this level about how to respond to each of these scenarios but the process author does indicate here some of the sources of information used to determine feasibility which run through several rows of the e Tom model customer data including subscription details service data and network resource data assuming the product is available to the customer we can then proceed to the next step of the flow which is develop sales proposal this can range from presenting a quote to the client to a segue for some customized solution along gir the more complex this step the more it is geared towards business rather than residential customers the ideal output here is offer elaborated and submitted but the finish being the customer receiving the proposal another arrow goes down to validate customer satisfaction the author is trying to say that in parallel with the offer being made there is a stream of activity validating that the customer is indeed happy with the proposal and hence that customer satisfaction is validated at this point we have walked through our first flow hopefully you can see the customer requests to answer story unfold in a way that the process blocks on the preceding page is just could not convey yes many secondary scenarios and exceptions were just glossed over here but it helps to depict a happy path for handling requests on a single page sub processes can further flush the detail out from any sub cases flow number to order to payment the next major flow we're going to look at is order to payment sometimes also called order to cash what is this process flow about this process deals with all activities which convert the customer request or an accepted offer into a ready for use product this process involves capturing customer order information triggering the relevant provisioning process and handing over the order to the service layer once the product is successfully provisioned the customer order is closed and customer satisfaction is validated assumptions about this process flow include this scenario is relevant for products offered to mass-market customers the preorder feasibility check verifies whether the requested product can be offered to the customer based on service and resource availability the product portfolio and the customers configuration the preorder feasibility check would not generally involve reservation of resources prior to issuing the customer order however there might be a reservation of some critical resources depending on the operators policies and procedures examples of this process flow include customer calls to order high speed internet and customer walks into a shop to buy a mobile phone with service key elements key tasks in this process flow may include handling the customer order handling customer contracts doing a credit check activating services and testing services indicating that a service is ready for billing inputs to this process flow may include an accepted offer a contract inventory information and customer data product elements their relations and constraints and suppliers outputs from this process flow may include an invoice are ready for service confirmation hardware and software some critical issues to consider for this process flow include rework or fall out rate for order handling time to complete the order for the customer availability of resources footprint in item level to viewing the e Tom level - footprint you can see that in the customer management role all the same level - blocks are shaded as for requests to answer but now with the addition of bill invoice management as well because our story must cover payment you can also see that all the blocks in the rest of the green fulfillment column are are required as you would expect in turn end-to-end flow about fulfillment these are service configuration and activation resource provisioning and when required supplier partner requisition management these are supported by corresponding process catch all's in support and readiness in the yellow column SM and o service management and operations support and readiness are M and o resource network management and operations support and readiness and supplier partner management support and readiness quite a mouthful for what are enabling processes the block in the lower right corner supplier partner settlements and payments management is highlighted because of payments flowing out of the CSP to external providers but this will not be explicitly shown in the flow relevant item level to decompositions part 1 let's now quickly look at the level 3 blocks will again need to build our flow as with request to answer we will use manage contact validate customer satisfaction and manage customer inventory nothing new to adhere decompositions part 2 since we are now actually fulfilling the order rather than just developing a proposal we need more specific customer data for example information to conduct a credit check thus in the selling item tree we check mark acquire customer data we next call up almost all the level 3 blocks under order handling including determined customer order feasibility and authorized credit as well as several steps in the customer order life cycle such as issue customer order track and manage customer order handling complete customer order and finally close customer order decompositions part 3 from the bill invoice management Etan tree in the upper left we will use the create customer bill invoice process the service configuration and activation item tree in the lower left is very prominent in this flow there is a whole service order lifecycle implied here with steps like issue service order track and managed service provisioning and finally close service order in between these steps provisioning gets done allocates specific service parameters to services can include assigning telephone numbers or IP addresses to services as well as to setting the values of many attributes like speed and encryption settings and features like call waiting a name display for the services implement configure and activate service is the series of implementation steps leading up to the service being turned up and test service end-to-end is self-explanatory we will need managed service inventory and managed resource inventory from the to support and readiness e time trees on the right so that we can access available services and resources and allocate and assign them to fulfill the customer order decompositions part for the next and last levels down in the e tom stack are shown here for each service we may need one or more resource orders spawned we may need to select and assign physical resources like ports and cable pairs so again we see a life cycle this time a resource ordered life cycle implied in process blocks like issu resource order track and manage resource provisioning and closed resource order resource provisioning is addressed by blocks like allocate and install resources configure and activate resources and test resources if we need to call on suppliers the supplier partner requisition item tree provides process blocks like initiate requisition order track and manage requisition and receive an accept requisition sample flow in item level three now we're ready to traverse our order to payment story flow the trigger begins after the request to answer flow ends and with the customer now accepting the offer at the far left again we need to contextualize the customer using managed contact perhaps asking for more stringent authentication data before proceeding with an actual order perhaps verifying that only the account holder may even place an order we now acquire customer data perhaps a social security number or the like in order to authorize credit assuming this step passes we do another determine customer order feasibility step this time we'll be more exacting in our determination with the latest inventory data rather than just an approximation this determination will be fed from data from the customer subscription inventory service inventory and resource inventory repositories if all is well we next move to issue customer order you can see a cascading effect here where the customer order then triggers one or more issue service order steps which in turn can trigger one or more issue resource order steps and which further in turn may trigger initiate supplier partner requisition order steps if more resources need to be acquired each order layer then goes through the lifecycle steps described on the previous slides where work is done and tested orders are tracked and managed and ultimately closed and then reported back to the higher layer hopefully the logic and repeating pattern of these constructions will be intuitive in the end when the customer order is closed we can proceed to the create customer bill invoice step ending with the invoice being received by the customer and as before we conclude the interaction with the step validate customer satisfaction flow number three usage to payment what is this process flow about some services have a flat rate charge other services are billed based on usage this process deals with all activities related to the handling of product service usage the accuracy of pricing is ensured and all usage data is captured and duly processed for billing information requests and Bell generation assumptions about this process flow include the scenario is relevant for products offered to the mass-market customer base the process elements for resource mediation will not always be applicable the perform rating process element is usually under the customer layer for customized products and under the service layer for standardized products examples of this process flow include customer makes toll calls customer receives a report of all long-distance phone calls made last month key elements key tasks in this process flow may include collecting usage data mediating usage records rating usage records generating the invoice analyzing usage trends managing QoS quality of service or SLA service level agreements in case of compensation to customer due to service issues inputs to this process flow may include a trigger that service is ready enhance ready to bill product usage outputs from this process flow may include closing of a usage session like ending a call an invoice a usage report some critical issues to consider for this process flow include timely and accurate invoicing invoice usability monitoring of QoS SLA and relationship to invoicing footprint in each amla - in the e time level - footprint we see that most of the blocks in the billing column are highlighted no surprise since we need to be able to mediate supplier partner usage like roaming charges resource usage data service usage data as well as charges and cust our billing events to feed into the invoicing process we are also leveraging the customer QoS SLA management process should compensation to the customer be necessitated by service issues the other process blocks are already familiar to us relevant item level to decompositions part 1 what item level 3 process blocks will we need to build a usage to payment process flow rather than starting from direct customer contact as we have with the earlier flows this flow story begins with the resource and service layers where usage events are collected mediated and consolidated into meaningful data with which to create the bill so starting from the upper left Etan tree we will use the process mediate resource usage records with which to then report resource usage records to the service layer over to the next e time tree on the right to the guide resource usage records process then from the same e tom tree we will use the process mediate service usage records with which to then report service usage records to the customer layer using the bottom item tree to the guide building events process we also need to report billing event records sounds complicated but it is a logical and repeating pattern decompositions part two of course we then need to invoke the charging process specifically the perform rating step then as part of invoicing we need to first apply pricing discounting adjustments and rebates then create the customer bill invoice and finally produce and distribute the bill for completeness we will also leverage assess customer QoS SLA performance should the CSP need to compensate the customer for service issues lastly we check manage requests to capture the step when a customer to look up detailed usage information distinct from billing sample flow in a Tom level 3 now let's see how these various steps connect in a process flow in fact there are several triggers in this process diagram indicating several flows are collapsed in one view the process is seeded by the customer using a service or resource and our closing of a communication session which ultimately means generating a usage record this could be a resource level usage record rolled up and guided to the service level or a service level usage record rolled up and guided to the customer level all usage records need to converge on guide billing events if we are not to lose revenue perform rating and apply pricing discounting adjustments and rebates are the necessary bill calculations that lead to create customer bill invoice and produce and distribute bill the process author has superimposed a few related processes onto the story for example the assess customer QoS SLA performance step is fed by the usage and session data in order to detect bad service quality report resource usage records to report service usage records to report billing event records is a chain of data analytic steps used to supply detailed usage information to the customer when they request it in the manage request step flow number for problem to solution our last flow is a basic service assurance story triggered by a customer problem what does this process flow about this process deals with a technical complaint or problem initiated by the customer analyzes it to identify the source of the issue initiates resolution monitors progress and closes the trouble ticket the basis for our problem is an unplanned interruption to a product or service or reduction in the quality of a product or service this is different from a complaint to salut floo not covered here which deals with customer inquiries in which the customer is not pleased with a product or handling speed of an inquiry and so forth assumptions about this process flow include this scenario is relevant only for technical complaints which are termed problems problems such as no outgoing calls or SMS and fall the handset may be resolved at a first level of support or redirected to other layers examples of this process flow include customer calls to report that there is no internet access customer calls to report a cable channel having choppy video key elements key tasks in this process flow may include receiving a customer problem diagnosing the problem managing the problem to resolution inputs would include customer incident or QoS report outputs from this flow would include resolve trouble or a credit note some critical issues to consider for this process flow include response time for trouble resolution customer satisfaction measurement and usage of relevant information for continuous process improvement footprint in item level - viewing the Eitam level - footprint you can see that in the customer management row familiar level - blocks are shaded for customer interaction but with the addition of some building blocks to cover any customer compensation for the problem you can also see all the problem related blocks along the left side of the pink assurance column are also required as you would expect in an end-to-end flow about problem resolution this covers service level problems resource level problems and even supplier partner level problems relevant item level - decompositions part 1 again let's quickly look at the level 3 blocks we'll need to build our flow as with the earlier flows we will use manage contact validate customer satisfaction and create customer bill voice again nothing new to add here decompositions part 2 while on this slide we mostly see e tom trees not used thus far we should quickly recognize the repeating pattern across customer service resource and supplier partner that is characteristic of e tom as well as similar patterns for transaction life cycles for example in the upper left problem handling a tom tree first we create customer problem report or ticket then via track and manage customer problem we isolate customer problem then correct and recover customer problem and finally close problem report or ticket similarly in the upper right service trouble management item tree first we create service problem report or ticket then via track and manage service problem we diagnose service problem then correct and recover service problem and finally close service problem report needless to say the same pattern plays out in the lower-left resource trouble management item tree lastly in the lower-right supplier partner problem reporting and management ee tom tree we see an abridged version of this pattern basically because the problem is resolved outside the CSP but still monitored by it sample flow in item level 3 now let's see how these recurring patterns stitch together for our final process flow the flow is triggered by a customer request specifically a request to resolve a problem manage contact and manage request are the first process steps as usual to receive and triage the customer need once the csr establishes that this is about a customer calling in with a problem we move to create customer problem report or ticket here you will notice again the cascading structure of the process flow each of the four layers customer service resource and supplier partner is bridged at the track and manage step track and manage not only coordinates between ticket creation diagnosis resolution and closure at each level but also hands off to the next lower level of problem resolution as required for example a service problem may necessitate opening one or more resource trouble tickets which then spawn their own life cycles when all levels have closed their trouble tickets we move on to create customer bill invoice for any compensation to the customer as well as the usual check to validate customer satisfaction obviously much detail and how to fix a problem is embedded deep in each step at this level of process flow abstraction however we can see how recurring patterns give process modeling and almost fractal and recursive structure such that one need not repeat oneself over and over once the basic process patterns are understood in conclusion in this guided PowerPoint walkthrough we have reviewed how a process flow is different from a decomposition we then reviewed four key customer centric end-to-end process flows and how they can be constructed out of Etan process blocks requests to answer order to payment usage to payment and problem to solution remember the e tom framework does not contain process flows itself item gives you the elements with which to build a process flow and these elements are organized by process hierarchy to connect with business people you need to have flows I hope this information in these examples will help you on process projects when you have to build process flows using Etan for more information about e tom flows please check out the resources below and visit my site at robert virtual accom you