My API Story: A foundation for flexibility and agility

Maciej Simm, Head of Product, Enxoo, explains why he is a strong believer in an API-first approach to application development and outlines how Enxoo uses TM Forum Open APIs to improve integration.

Tell us about yourself and your job

As Head of Product at Enxoo, I’m leading the company's product development efforts, coordinating design, architecture & delivery. Enxoo is a rapidly growing software vendor, delivering unique BSS solutions that are built on the Salesforce platform and tailored to the needs of wholesale & B2B telecoms. I joined the company shortly after it was founded in 2011 and had the unique opportunity to ‘bootstrap’ a new telecom solutions product line from the very beginning, building Enxoo for Communications - the company’s flagship BSS framework as well as other products. Personally, I’m a tech geek, aspiring entrepreneur, and dedicated follower of Lean Startup ideas.

Why do you believe in TM Forum’s Open API program?

Coming from an engineering background, I always had a strong belief in an API-first approach to application development. I believe that when you’re building an application you need to clearly define its main functions and methods that allow the outside world to interact with it. The TM Forum Open API program attempts to do something remarkable as it aims to standardize typical telecom application workflows and data that is being exchanged in the background, establishing common principles to solve some of the most common issues that you’re typically facing when building integrations.

Frictionless integration, where you would simply point one app to another and they would just nicely interact with each other, still sounds like a utopia to me. However, I believe Open APIs provide huge value to the telecom industry as they prevent companies from constantly “reinventing the wheel”.

What TM Forum Open APIs are most valuable to your company?

The following API’s are most important for Enxoo: TMF646 Appointment API TMF674 Geographic Site Management API TMF679 Product Offering Qualification API TMF622 Product Ordering API TMF648 Quote Management API TMF621 Trouble Ticket API

Why did you choose to highlight those APIs?

Open API standards, including the above, are a key foundation for service providers to achieve the flexibility and agility that is needed to quickly adapt to the changing market environment and rising customer requirements. They are therefore a key focus for Enxoo and play a fundamental role in our current and future product development.

How do you use those APIs?

We’re providing subscribers of our platform with an overlay that is mapping core Enxoo app features to TM Forum Open API standard. Subscribers of our apps are exposing these APIs to their customers & partners in line with TM Forum specification.

How have you benefited from using those APIs?

Apart from obvious benefits for our customers, it helped us internally to answer a lot of R&D-related questions on how to structure certain data elements or where to define boundaries between different modules.

Where do you use them?

Some of our customers in Europe and the Middle East are already using these APIs in their production environments. They have also expressed great interest in actually using and exposing them to their customers and partners. Discover more My API stories.