Siebel Briefings Administration Guide > Integrating External Content >

Content Agents and Requests to External Content Sources

Content agents specify the authentication, URL, and syntax parameters required to submit requests to an external content source. These parameters are defined using the three Administration - Integration screen views:

• Host Administration. This view allows you to specify the name of an external host, its virtual name, the authentication type, and the credentials that are used to access the host. You specify the credentials in the Authentication Value field as username:password.
• Symbolic URL Administration. This view allows you to define the names of symbolic URLs that are used to request information from external content hosts. Using this view, you can also define the syntax, arguments, and required arguments for the content search. The symbolic URL name is defined as the calculated value of the business component's field. See Configuring a Business Component to Allow External Data for Briefings.
• Fixup (Content) Administration. This view allows you to define the link target and the view that displays the link. For example, you can control how content is displayed, such as inside an applet. The Content Fixup Name updates a relative link with the server name and other necessary information.

How Business Components Map to Content Agents

Business components refer to content agents when making requests to external content sources, using the calculated value of the business component's field.

Figure 5 shows the fields and calculated values for the SI Account External business component. The CompanyNews field contains the calculated value AccountNews.

Figure 5. SI Account External Business Component Field Properties

As Figure 6 shows, the AccountNews is the same as the Symbolic URL name defined in the Administration - Integration screen > Symbolic URL Administration view. The calculated value of the business component's field matches the name of the symbolic URL. The Symbolic URL Administration view stores the information that the Web Integration Business service uses to build an HTTP request to an external content host.

Figure 6. Relationship Between Business Components and Content Agent