How to Send the Time in a USSD Notification Response (Doc ID 2968966.1)

Last updated on DECEMBER 10, 2023

Applies to:

Goal

On all versions of Oracle Communications Network Charging and Control (OCNCC or NCC) and Oracle Communications Convergent Charging Controller (OC3C or 3C), in-band Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) notifications can be generated and returned to subscribers through the USSD GW (Gateway) as described in the following article:

How to Configure a New USSD Notification [Video] (Doc ID 1323100.1)

OCNCC/OC3C achieves this by having Advanced Control Services (ACS) treat USSDGW as a Specialized Resource Function (SRF) and sending it playAnnouncement (pA) messages with elementaryMessageIDs and variable parts which USSDGW converts to text along with the substituted variable parts.  This is done in the ACS Control Plan Editor (CPE) with the Play Variable Part Announcement (PAPV) Feature Node (FN).

There is a limitation in the supported SRF functionality in USSDGW where it fails to substitute variable parts of the TIME type and instead logs the following alarms:

The limitation is only in USSDGW as ACS is able to support the TIME datatype in pA messages and correctly attempts to send the timestamp to USSDGW.  The Intelligent Network Application Part (INAP) pA message's TIME variable part is in the format "HHMM".

This article will document a workaround to send a timestamp variable part back in a USSD notification/message down to seconds resolution.

Solution

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