Journey Management - Appointment Scheduling

Note: Spartacus 4.x is no longer maintained. Please upgrade to the latest version.

Note: Spartacus 4.x was tested with SAP Commerce Cloud versions 1905 to 2205. Spartacus 4.x has not been verified to work with (and is not guaranteed to work with) SAP Commerce Cloud 2211 or later releases.

Note: This feature is introduced with version 2.0 of the TUA Spartacus libraries.

As a result of Journey Management configuration, a product offerings may be defined with the requirement of an appointment to be scheduled. This means that an appointment reservation is required before the order can be successfully placed. The Journey Management appointment feature enables customers to make this reservation during the “Add to Cart” process.

Appointment selection and reservation in a productive system requires third-party integration to the appropriate backend system. This feature can be adapted to work with a customer-specific business process flow.

This feature applies to product offerings or product specifications that have a checklist policy for Appointment Reference and/or Installation Address configured. It is applicable to product offerings sold as a simple product offering or bundled product offering through configurable guided selling. For more information, see Configurable Guided Selling in the TUA Help portal.

Table of Contents

Prerequisite

To test this feature using a mockup service, follow the instructions to set-up soapUI. Ensure that the Appointment system is always up and running.

Note: The mockup service is not recommended for the production environments as it is intended only for demonstration purpose.

  1. Download soapUI, version 5.6.0 as per your installed Operating System.
  2. Navigate to the TUA Spartacus git repository and download the mock_services.zip file.
  3. Extract the mock_services.zip file. The content of the ZIP when extracted is the Resource_Pool_Management_API.xml file.
  4. Click the Import icon on the soapUI toolbar. The Select soapUI Project file dialog box opens. Import the Resource_Pool_Management_API.xml file into the soapUI.
  5. Right-click Appointment and then click Start Minimized. When the mock service is up, you can see that the Appointment mock service is also up and running.

Business Use Cases

The following business use cases are covered for this feature:

  1. A customer wants to purchase a product offering that requires an installation service at a preferred address specified by the customer. During the “Add to “Cart” process, the customer is prompted to specify the address and/or make an appointment reservation. If the product offering has only an installation address policy configured, the appointment selection screen will not display.

  2. A customer enters Configurable Guided Selling and wants to purchase a product offering that requires an installation service at a preferred address specified by the customer. During the “Add to Cart” process, the customer is prompted to specify the address and/or make an appointment reservation. If multiple products requires installation, the end customer will only be prompted once to provide this information making the configurable guided selling journey seamless. Behind the scenes, the installation address and appointment will be copied to all product offerings requiring this information. If the product offering has only an installation address policy configured, the appointment selection screen will not display.

  3. A customer has the ability to change the installation address and/or appointment from within the cart.

  4. A customer may not immediately place the order but instead waits until the next day, or the customer completely abandons the cart. After a defined period of time, the cart times-out and the appointment is automatically cancelled, and the slot can be made available for another customer.

Frontend and Backend Dependencies

Dependency Detail
Recipe b2c_telco_spa
Minimum version of backend TUA TUA Release 2007 or 2011 (latest patch is required)
Minimum version of core commerce backend SAP Commerce Cloud release 2005 (latest patch is recommended)

Configuring and Enabling Installation Address and Appointment in TUA

The Installation address and the Appointment-Reference checklist policy is configured in the Backoffice by the Product Manager. For more information, see Journey Checklist Policy Configurations.

Components

The following new and updated components must be enabled in the TUA backoffice to appear on the Spartacus TUA storefront:

Component Name Status Description
JourneyChecklistStepComponent Updated This component is updated to include:

1. JourneyChecklistInstallationAddressComponent.
2. The Next button to save the address in the address book of the user and to navigate to the next step, which can be either "Add to Cart" or the "Installation address" selection.
JourneyChecklistAppointmentComponent Updated This component displays the available time slots for scheduling an appointment to the customer.

Note: The Please Call to Schedule option shows selected by default. The other values are in the Month Date, Year, and Time (AM/PM) format. For Example: Sept 9, 2020 12:00 PM
JourneyChecklistInstallationAddressComponent New This component wraps the TmaAddressFormComponent for the checklist installation address. It is responsible for populating the installation address when the customer clicks the Edit pencil icon.
AppointmentComponent Updated This component displays the appointment details in the Order page, Order History page, the Cart summary, and the Add to Cart screen.

It is in the following format: Appointment: Month Date and Year Time (AM/PM). For example, Appointment: Sept 9,2020 12:00 PM or Appointment: Please Call to Schedule.
InstallationAddressComponent New This component displays the the details of the installation address in the Order page, Order History page, the Crart summary page, and Add to Cart pop-up.

It is in the following format: Installation Address : Building Number, Street Name, City, StateOrProvince(Optional), Country, and Postal Code
AppointmentDetailsComponent New This component is a wrapper for the AppointmentComponent and the InstallationAddressComponent. It enables editing of an appointment using the Edit pencil icon. For more information, see AppointmentComponent and InstallationAddressComponent.
TmaAddToCartComponent Updated This component displays the enhanced Add to Cart button to call the checklist actions and open the checklist action stepper, if any checklist actions for Appointment or Installation address are present.
TmaAddressFormComponent New This component enables to input the following address details: House/Building Number, Street Apartment/Unit/Suite(Optional), City, Country, State/Province (appears only in case the country is US), Zip/Postal Code.
TmaAddedToCartDialogComponent Updated This component is updated to include the AppointmentDetailsComponent in the Add to Cart screen
TmaCartItemComponent Updated This component is updated to include the AppointmentDetailsComponent on the Cart entry level.

For example:
for SPO, it displays at the Cart and the Order entry Level
for BPO, it displays at the BPO level
TmaCartItemComponent Updated This component has modified the display of the appointment details to move at the Cart entry level. For more information, see TmaCartItemListComponent.
TmaGuidedSellingAddedToCartDialogComponent Updated This component is updated to display the AppointmentDetailsComponent. For more information, see AppointmentDetailsComponent.
TmaGuidedSellingCurrentSelectionComponent Updated This component displays the Add to Cart button for a BPO that calls the checklist action and opens the checklist action stepper, if any checklist actions for an appointment or for the installation address are present.

TM Forum APIs

End Points TMF Description
POST appointment/searchTimeSlot TMF-646 Displays the available list of time slots
POST /appointment TMF-646 Creates an appointment for the customer
GET /appointment/{id} TMF-646 Retrieves the  appointment details of a customer
PATCH /appointment/{id} TMF-646 Updates the appointment details of a customer
GET /checklistAction None Retrieves applicable list of checklist policies for product offerings
PATCH /shoppingCart/{id} TMF-633 Updates an existing entry in the shopping cart
POST /geographicAddress TMF-673 Creates an installation address
PATCH /geographicAddress/{id} TMF-673 Edits an installation address

For more information, see TM Forum APIs.

Further Reading

For further reading, see the following topics in the TUA Help portal.