System and method for establishing electronic business systems for supporting communications services commerce
View Patent ↗A comprehensive electronic business support system comprises three layers: (1) the business layer, including various smart components which unify data and business processes across all customer interactions; (2) the integration layer, including various communications messaging interfaces and enterprise application integration adapters, which provide a flexible, automated, and process driven solution for integrating across business applications and operations support systems; and (3) the presentation layer, including various customer views, which are presented via particular business portals. A smart component server provides the core services and comprehensive business process logic required to successfully conduct business online. The communications messaging interfaces integrate with back-office systems for functions such as billing, provisioning, and interconnection.
1. An electronic business support system, comprising a smart component server, wherein said smart component server comprises:
smart components comprising a plurality of activity smart components and a plurality of service smart components;
wherein each of the plurality of activity smart components performs a specific business logic;
wherein each of the plurality of service smart components provide common infrastructure capabilities required by said plurality of activity smart components;
a plurality of communications messaging interfaces that transport information from said electronic business support system to external systems;
a plurality of transport adapters, which facilitate connectivity with said external systems;
an administrator console, which is a Java-based tool that uses XML files to map object attributes to a database which is associated with said electronic business support system;
wherein said smart components are implemented as stateless session enterprise Java beans;
wherein each of said communications messaging interfaces is associated with a routing policy that dispatches said communications messaging interface to a particular transport adapter which is used to handle a particular message.
2. The electronic business support system of claim 1 , wherein each of said activity smart components performs a communications-specific function.
3. The electronic business support system of claim 1 , wherein each of said communications messaging interfaces is mapped to a plurality of strategies.
4. The electronic business support system of claim 3 , wherein said strategies include:
at least one source strategy that is used by an interconnect service to build up a payload message that is associated with one of said communications messaging interfaces before being dispatched to said transport adapter; and
at least one target strategy that is used to update said electronic business support system with data from inbound messages.
5. The electronic business support system of claim 1 , wherein said communications messaging interfaces are associated with multiple transport adapters to send different messages.
6. A method for sending a communications messaging interface from the electronic business support system to an external system, comprising the steps of:
obtaining a reference to an enterprise Java bean of an interconnect service;
identifying a code that is associated with said communications messaging interface;
creating an object for said communications messaging interface;
adding event data which is specific to said communications messaging interface; and
sending said communications messaging interface to said interconnect service;
wherein said communications messaging interface is associated with a routing policy that dispatches said communications messaging interface to a particular transport adapter which is used to handle a particular message.
7. The electronic business support system of claim 6 , wherein said communications messaging interface is mapped to a plurality of strategies.
8. A method for adding a new communications messaging interface for an electronic business support system, comprising the steps of:
confirming said communications messaging interface has not been defined in the electronic business support system;
giving a code which assigns a unique identification to said communications messaging interface;
adding said code and its corresponding routing policy class name to a database;
creating source and target strategies; and
making an entry for said communications messaging interface in the database;
wherein said communications messaging interface is associated with a routing policy that dispatches said communications messaging interface to a particular transport adapter which is used to handle a particular message.
9. The electronic business support system of claim 7 , wherein said strategies include:
at least one source strategy that is used by an interconnect service to build up a payload message that is associated with said communications messaging interface before being dispatched to said transport adapter; and
at least one target strategy that is used to update said electronic business support system with data from inbound messages.
10. The electronic business support system of claim 8 , wherein said communications messaging interface is mapped to a plurality of strategies.
11. The electronic business support system of claim 10 , wherein said strategies include:
at least one source strategy that is used by an interconnect service to build up a payload message that is associated with said communications messaging interface before being dispatched to said transport adapter; and
at least one target strategy that is used to update said electronic business support system with data from inbound messages.