the absence of an order management module, the customer requirements need to be captured manually. Also it should be noted that an order management module is like a central con- trol module that triggers and coordinates activities with multiple modules. Absence of the order management system would mean that these triggers need to be manually activated based on requirement. Proper planning: This helps to reduce time-to-market service. Based on the orders, the customer interests can be identified. So the right set of resources could be made available and innovative services based on the customer order trends can be introduced. Fundamentals of EMS, NMS and OSS/BSS More customer satisfaction: Online self-ordering OMS make the customer feel they are more in control from service selection to activation. The OMS also gives the customer the capability to track their order status and keeps the customer updated on the progress of the order. Trouble conditions during service provisioning and issues raised by the customer as trouble tickets are tracked and resolved by the trouble ticketing module in reference to the order details provided by OMS. A quick delivery of service is also a value added to the customer, which increases customer satisfaction levels. At a high level, the steps performed by the order manager can be listed as fol- lows (see Figure 20.3): 1. Validate the order for completeness and correctness. 2. Identify the parameters and the steps for provisioning the services requested. 3. Check if sufficient inventory is available and allocate resources to fulfill the service request. 4. Do any manual installation and setup, if required to the identified infra- structure. This is performed by interacting with the workforce management module. 5. Trigger provisioning and activation of requested services. 6. Update the status of the resources with the inventory module. 7. Do end-to-end, real-time testing of the configuration and fix any issues. 8. Initiate billing for the activated services. 9. Communicate order status