Inventory Item Lifecycle
The lifecycle of an inventory item comprises three major phases:
- Provide
- Update
- Cease
The brief description of each of the phases is given below.
Provide
When an order is submitted with a 'provide' order line, the AssignInventoryItem operation creates an entry in the inventory, and the inventory item is associated with the subscriber ID.
The initial status of the inventory item is DRAFT. Each added inventory item has a unique inventory ID generated and returned to the calling application. This inventory ID is added to the User-Defined Fields for the corresponding order line. When an order is processed for provide order line, the inventory item is updated by using the UpdateInventoryItem operation and the inventory ID stored in the user-defined field. The inventory item status is updated to ACTIVE and the StartDate must be updated to the current date and time. All the user-defined fields on the order line are copied to the inventory component. This lets any changes make during the provisioning process to be reflected in the installed/ordered products.
Update
When submitting an order with an 'update' order line, the inventory ID for the product (which is being updated) must be submitted as a user-defined field on the order line. In the beginning of the order process, the inventory item is updated by using this inventory ID to add a new order to the order history by using the UpdateInventoryItem operation. After updating an order, each inventory item is updated by using the UpdateInventoryItem operation and the inventory ID stored in the user-defined field. The inventory item status remains ACTIVE and the StartDate must not be updated. All the user-defined fields on the order line are copied to the inventory component. This lets any changes make during the provisioning process to reflect in the installed/ordered products.
Cease
When submitting an order with a 'cease' order line, the inventory ID for the product being ceased must be submitted as a user-defined field on the order line. At the start of the order process, the inventory item is updated by using this inventory ID to add a new order to the order history by using
UpdateInventoryItem
operation. When the order submission process is done with a cease order, the inventory item is updated by using the
UpdateInventoryItem
operation. The inventory item status changes to WITHDRAWN and the EndDate are updated to the current date and time. The user-defined fields for the inventory item must not be changed.