Siebel Email Response Administration Guide > Completing Basic Setup Tasks >

Setting Up Communications Server for Siebel Email Response

Siebel Communications Server supports many communication channels used to communicate with customers through server components including Communications Inbound Receiver, Communications Inbound Processor, and Communications Outbound Manager.

NOTE:  If you ever need to change the number of tasks or threads for Communications Inbound Receiver, be aware that Maximum Tasks should always be greater than Maximum Threads.

Setting Up Communications Server for Real-Time Email Processing

When you use real-time email processing, you are only using one server component, the Communications Inbound Receiver, to receive and process email. The Communications Inbound Receiver monitors email accounts (email addresses) by using communications driver profiles to check for inbound messages. When an inbound email is detected, the Communications Inbound Receiver receives the email message and sends it through the Workflow Process Manager for processing. After the email has been processed and an activity created, the message is either stored in the database (if it is less than 16K) or the Siebel File System (if the email is larger than 16K). The role of the SRB Listener is to receive inbound requests from some other component. For example, when you submit profile or response group changes, the SRB executes these commands.

Setting Up Communications Server for Nonreal-Time Email Processing

When you use nonreal-time email processing, the Communications Inbound Receiver monitors email accounts (email addresses) by using communications driver profiles to check for inbound messages. When an inbound email is detected, Communications Inbound Receiver pulls the email from the email server, converts it into event data, and creates an SRM request to inform Communications Inbound Processor that a new event has been created. Communications Inbound Processor uses workflows to process and routes the event. Communications Outbound Manager uses communications driver profiles to handle outbound communications to customers.

You set up communications drivers and profiles to connect the communications server to your email server.

Communications drivers. Drivers specify the protocol used to access the email server, and driver parameters control the behavior of each driver. For example, the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server driver logs in to the POP3 server and checks for new mail at an interval set in the PollingInterval driver parameter.

You can use the same communications driver for different purposes. For example, you can associate the same communications driver to perform the following tasks:

• Monitor multiple email accounts (addresses).
• Monitor email addresses for other departments in your organization, such as an eMarketing outbound campaign.

NOTE:  Although you can use the same communications driver for multiple purposes, make sure that you set up a unique email address and response group for each group and purpose.

CAUTION:  Changes made to a communications driver's parameters affect everyone who uses that driver. Therefore, the person in your organization who maintains communications drivers should make or approve all changes. See Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide for more information.

Communications driver profile. A driver profile specifies a specific mailbox for monitoring and rules (profile parameter overrides) for the way the driver should behave while monitoring that mailbox.

Communications drivers and profiles used for Siebel Email Response allow Communications Inbound Receiver to monitor mailboxes for inbound messages. Other communications channels, such as voice use different communications drivers and profile types.

Each communications driver profile used by Siebel Email Response processes both incoming and outgoing email. Therefore, each driver profile should be configured for both.

To set up Communications Server for Siebel Email Response:

• Set up your communications driver parameters to establish defaults for all profiles using this driver.
• Create a communications driver profile for each email account that Siebel Email Response will monitor (includes creating profile parameter overrides).
• Create at least one response group (includes creating input arguments and associating a profile with a response group).

To accomplish these tasks, use this chapter and Siebel Communications Server Administration Guide.