Collaboration for Customer Billing Management

The IBM WebSphere Business Integration Collaboration for Customer Billing Management manages billing accounts for customers in the telecommunications industry. When a billing problem is reported, this collaboration allows the telecommunications firms to manage the billing accounts in question to resolve the problem. When a service is activated, this collaboration allows the telecommunication firms to activate the billing cycle for the billing account. This collaboration supports the preparation and distribution of invoices to customers as well as the processing of receivables.

If you use the Customer Billing Management collaboration in conjunction with other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations, their relationships are as follows:

The following diagram shows the relationship of the Customer Billing and Collections Management collaboration with other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations.

Relationship with other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations

Position in telecommunications operations map

The Customer Billing Management collaboration handles billing operations within the business domain of Customer Relationship Management (CRM). The diagram below shows the position of the collaboration in the enhanced Telecom Operation Map (eTOM) as defined by the TeleManagement Forum (TM Forum).

Position in enhanced Telecommunications Operations Map

Process limitations

The Customer Billing Management collaboration does not currently support the following function points:

System assumptions

Like the other WebSphere Business Integration for Telecommunications collaborations, the Customer Billing and Collections Management collaboration uses WebSphere MQ Workflow Server and IBM WebSphere InterChange Server. IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters are used to connect between these two applications, and to other applications that participate in the collaboration.

It is assumed that the following three applications also participate in the Customer Billing Management collaboration:

This collaboration uses the following collaboration templates:

The system features that are expected to execute this collaboration, including IBM WebSphere Business Integration Adapters, are shown in the following diagram:

Customer Billing Management system assumptions

Use case

This process involves the preparation and distribution of invoices to customers, and the processing of received payments. The process begins when a customer service is activated or a customer billing problem is reported, and is completed when  the billing cycle for the customer's billing account is activated.

Actors

The Customer Billing Management use case has a single actor, a billing agent. The billing agent is an agent of the telecommunications provider who is responsible for the management of the billing and accounting systems.

Course

The following tables describe the main course and the alternate course that may be followed in the Customer Billing Management use case:

Use case description (main course)
# Activity by the actor System activity Reference
M1 Enter billing account search criteria    
M2   Find and retrieve billing account 1
M3 Enter billable item or modify billing account Add billable item  
    Update customer billing account  
M4   Activate billing cycle  

Use case description (alternate course)
# Activity by the actor System activity Reference
1 Input customer search criteria Find and retrieve customers  
  Select customer    
1a   Find and retrieve billing accounts  
  Select billing account   M2

The following activity diagram illustrates the Customer Billing Management use case:

Customer Billing Management use case activities

Note: In the activity diagrams, these shapes are used to identify process activities:

Legend of activities

Business examples

The following business example shows a situation where the Customer Billing Management use case is realized.

Generate and process customer invoice

This example consists of the following step:

  1. An order management system creates an entry for the account and posts this entry to a general ledger.

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