Chain Customer HTTP-S Trouble Management (Underlying Orders Trading Troubles Partners) Bills/Usage Reporting Billing and Bill Verification Performance and Status SLA Management Electronic Bill Presentation Monitoring Payment Reports and Graphs Events Usage Alarms Figure 17. Example of B2C and B2B Portal Dimensions B2B WHOLESALE PORTALS B2B portals are generally deployed to support complex transactions involving everything from changing a customer's provider and ordering facility circuits to handling billing settlements and managing complex trouble tickets that can affect service delivery. Generally, B2B portals support four major functional roles and numerous transactions in each area. Chapter 5 - The Enterprise OSS Platform Account Creation and Maintenance Transactions This category is true to its name. It includes creating new accounts and maintaining the information pertaining to those accounts, including contact or billing addresses and customer hierarchies. Though many or most of the functions actually occur in background systems, such as billing or ordering, the Web portal can play a critical role in obtaining and verifying information. It can also provide a single point of access to the multiple applications and processes involved in customer account management. How great a role the portal plays in gathering customer data depends on who owns the customer. A retailer, for example, will need to collect far more individual demographic data than a wholesaler when creating an account. 8.2 Ordering Transactions For IICs, B2B ordering transactions generally involve orders for unbundled network elements or for services between the service provider and its underlying network provider. There are many different types of ordering transactions associated with submitting or retrieving various types of information. Some of these transaction flows and forms are standardized, but many vary from supplier to supplier in how they are implemented, the technologies deployed, and in the details of how transaction processes flow 