Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume II > EAI Siebel Adapter >

Siebel eAI and Run-Time Events

The Siebel application allows triggering workflows based on run-time events or workflow policies.

Run-Time Events. Siebel eAI supports triggering workflows based on run-time events such as Write Record, which gets triggered whenever a record is written. If you use both EAI Siebel Adapter to import data into Siebel application and run-time events, you should pay attention to the following:

For EAI Siebel Adapter, one call to EAI Siebel Adapter with an input message is a transaction. Within a transaction, EAI Siebel Adapter makes multiple Write Record calls. At any point in the transaction, if EAI Siebel Adapter encounters a problem the transaction is rolled back entirely. However, if you have specified events to trigger at Write Record, such events are invoked as soon as EAI Siebel Adapter makes Write Record calls even though EAI Siebel Adapter may be in the middle of a transaction. If you have export data workflows triggered on such events, this may lead to exporting data from Siebel applications that is not committed in Siebel applications and may get rolled back. It is also possible that your events get triggered when the record is not completely populated, which leads to situations that are not handled by your specified event processing workflow.

To avoid the effects of this interaction between EAI Siebel Adapter and run-time events use the business service EAI Transaction Service to figure out if a transaction (typically, EAI Siebel Adapter) is in progress. You may then want to skip processing that is not desirable when EAI Siebel Adapter is in progress.

For example, suppose you have a workflow to export Orders from Siebel applications that is triggered whenever the Order record is written. You also import Orders into Siebel applications using EAI. In such a situation, you do not want to export Orders while they are being imported because the import may get aborted and rolled back. You achieve this using the business service EAI Transaction Service as the first step of the export workflow. If you find that a transaction is in process you can branch directly to the end step.

Workflow Policies. In addition to Run-Time Events, Siebel applications also support Workflow Policies as a triggering mechanism for workflows. You can use workflow policies instead of run-time events to avoid the situation discussed above. You should use Workflow Policies instead of Run-Time Events when possible.


 Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume II 
 Published: 18 July 2003