IATA NDC Demonstrator - A...
Transcript of IATA NDC Demonstrator - A...
IATA NDC Demonstrator - A Walkthrough
Roderick Ross, Ross Consulting
Aurelie Krau, TravelThink
December 2015
Table of Contents 1. Access and feedback ................................................................................... 2
2. Landing page ................................................................................................. 2
3. Search .............................................................................................................. 5
Anonymous search selection........................................................................... 5
Search results screen: web versus mobile views ........................................... 6
Viewing ancillary information and selecting optional ancillaries ............ 10
Advanced search ........................................................................................... 16
Filtering results ................................................................................................... 16
Comparing alternatives .................................................................................. 18
Selecting options and proceeding to check-out page............................ 21
Itinerary page ................................................................................................... 24
Personalized search......................................................................................... 26
4. Admin section ............................................................................................... 28
Basic policies on fares and class and notice period ................................. 31
Policies on access to rich content ................................................................ 31
Policies on ability to purchase optional ancillaries .................................... 32
Policies on carrier usage ................................................................................. 33
Policies on Distribution Channels ................................................................... 34
5. Reporting section .......................................................................................... 34
Ancillary information report ........................................................................... 35
Static ancillary spend dashboard ................................................................. 37
Dynamic ancillary spend dashboards ......................................................... 38
6. Persona section ............................................................................................. 41
Normal user ....................................................................................................... 42
Executives ......................................................................................................... 44
Directors ............................................................................................................ 46
Travel Manager ................................................................................................ 47
1. Access and feedback
The upgraded NDC demonstrator can be accessed at http://85.90.244.89.
The site can be viewed on any browser (not just Chrome as in the previous
version) and works well on mobile as well as the web (albeit that some
functionality is hidden in the mobile views to enhance usability).
We will keep the beta version of the upgrade on the test server and run it
in parallel with the previous NDC demonstrator (http://ndc.iata.org/cbt)
until all parties are ready to port across to the IATA domain.
IATA plans on having a startNDC site that will link to the NDC
demonstrator. The exact layout of that is yet to be determined.
Please send feedback to [email protected]..
2. Landing page
The landing page summarizes the context of the Demonstrator and
contains the following sections:
Background and context
How best to explore the sandbox
o Personas: covered in section 6 of this training document
o Search: covered in section 3 of this training document
o Admin: covered in section 4 of this training document
o Reporting: covered in section 5 of this training document
Educational content as you navigate the sandbox
o Explains how to look out for NDC alerts for NDC-specific
benefits pertaining to a given feature.
Additional information specific to Business Travel processes not
shown in the Demonstrator such as Approvals and Ancillary
purchases during travel
A disclaimer about the Demonstrator being purely an educational
tool and not a system.
Web view for landing page
Explanation of what the Educational alerts are and how to look out for them.
Information about how NDC could empower approval processes. An important aspect, but one not dealt with in the demonstrator.
Information about how NDC could empower ancillary purchases during a trip. An important aspect, but one not dealt with in the demonstrator.
3. Search
Although there are various menu options (Personas, Search, Admin and
Reports), the natural place to start is with a Search. You will see in the top
right hand corner that by default the Persona of the user is Marsha
Anderson (who belongs to the Executive group and has certain extra
NDC-features enabled, such as personalized search). This can be
changed later to various Personas defined in the Persona section, as
discussed in section 6.
Anonymous search selection
The Search feature allows one to toggle between anonymous and
personalized search. We can start with anonymous search first and will
address personalized search later on.
Anonymous search
Personalized search
Educational alert highlighting anonymous versus personalized search.
Note: It is important to realize that the data being returned in these
searches is dummy data that is hard-coded in the app. So there is no
point in changing routes and dates. That is not the purpose of the
demonstrator. Just hit the search button.
Search results screen: web versus mobile views
Note that different people will use different terms for this. Search results =
Quote response = Offers = Shopping results. At an NDC API level these are
referred to Offers as part of the NDC AirShopping use case.
The Search results screens for the web and mobile views are shown below.
Web view for Search results screen. Various people will use different terms: Quote response = Search results = Offers = Shopping results.
Mobile optimized Search results screen. Click on View Details to see information surrounding connecting flights.
In order to save screen real estate for the mobile optimized view, quotes
that have connecting flights have a “View Details” button that you can
click on to see connecting flight details.
Mobile view with expanded flight details for connecting flights. Click the toggle in the bottom right to minimize the view again.
If a quote has no connecting flights then the “View Details” toggle is not
included in the mobile view. The screenshot below shows a quote in the
inbound leg that has no connecting flight information.
Mobile optimized view for a quote with no connecting flight. Now we have real estate to display ancillaries.
Viewing ancillary information and selecting optional
ancillaries
The Search results screens contain rich information about flight options
and distinguish between ancillaries included in the price and optional
ancillaries.
Educational alert on Search results highlighting the NDC benefits associated with Rich Content.
Educational alert on Search results highlighting included ancillaries.
Educational alert on Search results highlighting the NDC benefits of being able to purchase Optional ancillaries.
If NDC suppliers (airlines) have galleries of images associated with their
various ancillaries, this can readily be supported. Currently we have a
limited image set and so only some options show the ancillary gallery
capability, but this can readily be changed if more images are provided.
Ancillaries that are bundled into the price are clearly listed. This enables a like-for-like comparison with other services. Their details may be viewed by
clicking on them, which launches a pop-up window.
Ancillaries that have multiple images associated with them are viewable in a Gallery, with a click-through capability. Either Click on the images below
the main one to choose a particular image, or click on the left or right of the main image displayed to advance to the next one or go to the previous one.
Optional ancillaries (corresponding to an unbundled fare) are clearly listed. Furthermore, they may be selected for purchase (by clicking on the Select
button), which then instantly increases the total fare displayed.
The total round trip cost is updated dynamically after selection of ancillary. The total cost of optional ancillaries purchased for round trip price is also
updated.
Note that in the figure above we made a design decision to highlight the
optional ancillaries (in orange) that have been selected in the “included
in the price” section as they now contributed to the total displayed price
and are effectively included in the new dynamically bundled fare.
We needed to do this so that the mobile display was usable and
consistent with the web view. To save real estate the mobile view doesn’t
have two rows showing included and optional ancillaries. Instead, it uses
color coding to distinguish between those that are included in the original
fare (green), those that are optional but not selected (grey) and those
that have been selected (orange). The screenshot below shows this in
more detail.
Mobile optimized view showing a selected meal ancillary (highlighted in orange).
Advanced search
Advanced Search options can be launched by clicking on the “goggles”
before launching the search.
Advanced search options: for cases where the user knows upfront that certain information, particularly associated with ancillaries, is a non-
negotiable requirement for them and they only want to see Offers from suppliers that satisfy this requirement.
Due the hard-coded nature of the Search results and the fact that the
number of results is quite limited, for Demonstration purposes an
Advanced Search doesn’t really achieve much and you would have to
know beforehand what you want to filter on in order to be confident you
will even get any results. It is thus not really advised until more dummy
data is loaded. Loading more dummy data was not a focus of the work to
date though.
Filtering results
The Search results can be filtered by the usual aspects of flight details
(departure, arrival, duration, stops) as well as by the ancillaries that are
either included or optional. The filtering works both on web and mobile
views.
Filtering the outbound quotes based on flight details. Click on the Flight details filter in the table heading.
In addition to filtering by flight details one, one can filter the results based
on the ancillaries that are either optional or included in the price.
Choosing ancillary filters. Click on the Ancillary Services filter in the table heading.
Users can also sort results by features of importance to them (Price, Duration and so forth). One can also toggle the order of sorting.
Comparing alternatives
In addition to the Search results page that clearly demonstrates the
difference between different options, a powerful comparison page is
provided. This allows even more explicit like for like comparison in terms of
ancillaries, by laying it out in a matrix fashion.
NDC educational alert highlighting ability to for detailed like-for-like comparisons.
Select options for comparison by clicking the check-boxes and then clicking the Compare button in the top-left of the green table header. This
will filter and compare options on that specific part of the journey (the outbound route in this case).
A matrix comparison allows like for like comparison of alternatives. In this
view you can select ancillaries that are optional and you can also select the quote you want. Or you can return to the quote page.
By clicking on an ancillary in the green menu bar, the detailed summary of ancillaries at the bottom of the table is filtered, enabling a like-for-like
comparison of ancillary details.
Select optional ancillaries for further like-for-like comparison.
By clicking on an Ancillary icon (the meal symbol – which changes color to white to indicate selection) in the table heading it filters the display of the pictures at the bottom of the table, to allow for quick visual comparison of
a given ancillary’s quality across two suppliers.
Selecting options and proceeding to check-out page
After having explored various alternatives, you can select a desired
option for the outleg, and then one for the return leg.
Note: The data structures that we inherited assume round trip pricing. This
means a couple of things:
Selecting an option on the outbound select automatically filters
possible options on the return leg (as per screenshots below).
The fares are round trip totals, and so as you select ancillaries in each leg
you must bear in mind that the displayed ancillaries total is that for the
round trip, not just for the particular section of the journey you are on.
In terms of the actual NDC API, selection of Offers from the Shopping Use
case allows one to proceed to the Order Create use case (which is the
check-out page).
Selection of outbound and inbound options, with optional ancillary selection in each part of the journey. Once you click Select on the inbound
leg it will take you to a check-out page.
The Check-out page highlights the selected quotes as well as any selected ancillaries. On this page it is possible to select additional ancillaries, or to
unselect any ancillaries that were chosen.
It is possible to select (or unselect) additional ancillaries for purchase on the check-out page. The price is dynamically updated.
Once the user is happy, you can click book.
Note that in a real corporate booking tool, an approval typically needs to
take place, although some companies only require approval if a booking
is out of policy. Regardless, this is a standard step that is independent of
NDC. All that NDC will enable is for approval information to be much
richer, and be based on a better estimate of the total journey cost.
Furthermore, approvals could be provided for additional ancillaries
purchased on the road.
This aspect is not covered in the current demonstrator, but mock-ups were
provided for the IATA video and a quick mention is made of it in the
landing page.
Itinerary page
At the completion of the booking process an itinerary page is displayed,
which summarizes the booked information. It also highlights ancillaries that
might be available for purchase during the trip (e.g. if a traveller is running
late and needs to purchase security fast-tracks or priority boarding).
Itinerary page summarizing the trip.
One can view ancillary information on the itinerary by clicking view
details. This then provides a summary of the ancillaries.
View details associated with the ancillaries.
NDC educational alert indicating ability to clearly highlight ancillaries purchased on the traveller ability plus the ability for them to purchase
additional ones on the road (all governed by Policy).
Personalized search
In certain situations users may prefer to identify themselves with suppliers
when doing flight searches. The user can do so by switching the
Personalized search toggle to “On” in the request page, as shown below.
Selecting personalized search option.
If this option is turned on, airlines will be able to:
• Return either pre-negotiated or on-the-fly packages and tailored
upgrade options.
• Return deals as per the traveller’s preferences and status, taking
into account frequent flyer details, preferred payment mechanisms,
seat preferences and preferred ancillaries. Refer to Section 4 (the
admin section) and Section 6 (Personas section) of this document
for more details.
Travel managers can control the level of personnalization allowed and/or
choose to switch off this feature and opt for purely anonymous search.
Naturally corporate rates can be returned regardless of the search mode.
Response page highlighting personalized offering.
4. Admin section
The Admin section shows some examples of the types of features that
NDC could enable in terms of policy configuration.
Note: The policy data in the demonstrator is currently hard-coded and is
not configurable via the User Interface. In a real corporate booking tool,
one would be able to check/uncheck them, but since they are hard-
coded in the back-end of the demonstrator we have disabled the ability
to change selections.
Instead we have inserted educational alerts (accessibly by hovering over
the pink “Information” button) to highlight various aspects that NDC
enables.
Note: “Normal”, “Executive” and “Director” column titles refer to user
groups and associated rights defined in the Admin section of any
Corporate Booking Tool (cf. Section 6: Personas).
Mobile optimized admin view. As always, one can demonstrate this by simply reducing the browser size in terms of horizontal screen real estate.
Basic policies on fares and class and notice period
There are various parts to the admin configuration section. Essentially
each part deals with policy. The section labeled Policies is really about
traditional policies that corporates can specify. There is nothing there that
is NDC-specific.
Traditional policies on cost, class of travel, notice period and so forth. Nothing here is NDC-specific or enabled by NDC, but naturally an NDC
integration would support the enforcement of such policies.
Policies on access to rich content
In addition to the more traditional policies, there are some sections that
deal more specifically with NDC-enabled aspects. The first is the content
displayed to a user, as shown below.
Use an admin capability on content, one could configure the type of rich content that different users see.
Travel managers (or system administrators) can strengthen policy
enforcement and control the content displayed to users depending on
their profile and on their ancillary purchase rules. One thus has both rich
content and fine-grained control over who sees what.
In addition, one can control the level of personalization available to users
or only allow anonymous shopping.
Policies on ability to purchase optional ancillaries
An important set of policies is related to the types of ancillaries that
different users can book.
Note: Currently the demonstrator doesn’t support policy warning or
enforcement on these types of policies. It would be a very nice feature to
add in a mini-project as it would make for a powerful demo.
Policy configuration on the types of ancillaries that users can book, based on their role.
Policies on carrier usage
Another of the more traditional policies is that of which carriers one has
access to. This is not something that NDC either enables or hampers.
Policy configuration on preferred carriers and blacklisted carriers.
Policies on Distribution Channels
Travel managers (or system administrators) can control the channels used
to access various airline content. By controlling the source of the data
(GDS or Direct Connect or other Aggregators), travel managers have
some built-in redundancy (e.g. if a channel is down) as well as the ability
to choose the optimal channels and fulfillment partners per channel
(Airline, TMC, OTA/Aggregator).
Policy configuration on channels used to access content.
5. Reporting section
Ancillary service expenditure is made trackable thanks to NDC. This offers
advanced reporting capabilities opportunities.
Note: Many reporting and data visualization possibilities exist with NDC.
The ones shown in the Demonstrator are just a few of the possibilities
available. Exhaustive exploration of alternatives is a mini-project in itself.
Ancillary information report
This report is offers a detailed view of the purchase of optional ancillaries
(unbundled fares) as well as the most popular included ancillaries. Travel
buyers can use this information to negotiate with suppliers and adjust
policy where necessary.
Real-time reporting on all aspects of air travel is improved as well as card
reconciliation. This is true both for ancillaries booked beforehand as well
as for those booked on the road (e.g. on mobile device), since the latter
are linked to the main booking for reconciliation and reporting purposes.
Ancillary information report: booking of optional ancillaries.
Ancillary information report: popular ancillaries bundled into fares.
NDC educational alert highlighting enhanced ability to track ancillary spend.
An “export to Excel” capability is included (although not active) in order to demonstrate to travel buyers/travel managers that data can be exported
and reused for any type of financial reporting
Static ancillary spend dashboard
The ancillary dashboard allows one to monitor the purchase of bundled
versus unbundled fares and the types of ancillaries that travellers value.
Travel buyers are empowered with enhanced forecasting, since richer
reporting information is now available on the overall corporate travel
spend, due to the controlled and trackable purchase of ancillaries.
Ancillary dashboard providing enhanced reporting and visibility on total air spend.
NDC Educational alert highlighting enhanced ability for forecasting.
Dynamic ancillary spend dashboards
Dynamic reports empowered with NDC can be developed in the form of
data visualization, including forecasting such as the following.
[Ancillary dashboard 1] – Dashboard with data visualization showing actual and forecast on ancillaries expenditure per airline – line view
Selecting a color in the pie chart will show dynamically statistics of the
selected airline. The below example shows Demeter Air:
[Ancillary dashboard 2] – Dashboard with data visualization showing actual and forecast on ancillaries expenditure per airline – bar chart view
[Ancillary dashboard 3] – Dashboard with data visualization showing shares of ancillaries in terms of airlines and type of ancillary services.
In the last dashboard above, the visualization is very dynamic, particularly
if you hover over an ancillary type in the pie chart. It will dynamically filter
the booking count and spend charts.
If you want to select a particular ancillary in order to lock it down, just click on it in the pie chart. Unlock it by clicking it again.
6. Persona section
The Person section summarizes the types of user groups that exist and
provides an instance of each. The demonstrator is set up to support the
following type of users:
1. Normal users
2. Executives
3. Directors
4. Travel Managers
The Admin section summarizes the different rights for different user groups.
The Persona Section lets you to select a user group and experiment to see
the different levels of access to ancillaries that NDC enabled Corporate
Booking tools could provide (depending on settings set in Admin menu,
for details refer to 4. Admin section).
The Personas section shows different user groups and their associated rights.
Educational alert highlighting policy enforcement possible by Personas.
Normal user
Normal user roles and rights: Clicking on the Persona (anywhere in the rounded box) takes you to a search page.
Pre-population of Normal User Name and Role based on Persona Selection.
Demonstration of policy enforcement for Normal User. They are not allowed to access Personalized Search.
Search results error for normal user. Notice the subset of results, as more expensive ones are out of policy
Policy Violation when this type user clicks on an ancillary that is not included in the price.
Executives
The policy configuration for Executive users is summarized below.
Executive user roles and rights: Clicking on the Persona (anywhere in the rounded box) takes you to a search page.
If you click on the Persona it will take you to a Search request page, but
with the Persona pre-populated in the top right, as shown below.
Pre-population of Executive Name and Role based on Persona Selection.
In the search results, ancillary images are viewable and optional
ancillaries can be selected, as shown below.
Executive users can view ancillary images and select optional ancillaries.
Executive users also have access to Personalized search, as defined by Policy.
Directors
The policy configuration for Directors is summarized below.
Policy for Directors is configured to show all information and allow any flight (e.g. the ones exceeding the EUR 900 round trip threshold).
Clicking anywhere on the Persona box for a Director takes you to a
Search Request page, but now with their Persona adopted, as shown
below.
Pre-population of Director Name and Role based on Persona Selection.
Search results for directors now allows the Zeus Airways option, which exceeded the EUR 900 cap for other users.