Transports and Interfaces: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume III > Interfacing with Microsoft BizTalk Server > Siebel BizTalk Interface Architecture >

Understanding Siebel BizTalk Server Adapter Through Scenarios


Siebel BizTalk adapter allows administrating, managing, and executing document exchange with various applications, without programming. There are many business scenarios where BizTalk Server can be used to integrate a Siebel application with other applications—including another Siebel application implementation—both internally and externally from an organization. In this communication process, you configure a Siebel application to be the sender, the receiver, or both. For example, if IBM's WebSphere Commerce Suite (WCS) sends information to a Siebel application to generate an order, the request will be in the form of an XML document that the Siebel application can understand because BizTalk Server acts as a communications bridge by mapping the data appropriately for both systems.

Suppose your partner needs to get an order to you. They initially send it as an ANSI X12 EDI document using WCS to BizTalk Server. BizTalk takes this XML document and converts it into an XML document for a Siebel application and sends it over HTTPS to the Siebel application. After the document has been accepted by the Siebel application, a workflow is triggered that processes the order and sends a response as an XML document back to BizTalk. There, BizTalk remaps the document from XML to EDI and ships it off to WCS, which, upon receiving it, performs the necessary actions.

In another scenario, say you need to get the same set information to a number of different trading partners. In order to accomplish such a Siebel application-to-multiple applications connection, you would first create a Distribution List using BizTalk Server's Management Desk. This allows a single document to be sent to multiple recipients, with personalized processing for each recipient. Each recipient can have its own channel, which defines recipient specific business rules, format, and transport protocols.

Here is how this would work. The Siebel application submits an XML document to BizTalk Server over HTTPS. BizTalk sends the business document to multiple recipients by invoking the channel associated with the distribution list. BizTalk server then uses the properties of each of the messaging ports within that distribution list to send the message to the destinations over the protocol specified in the corresponding ports.

There are also times when two Siebel applications need to exchange data. Because no external system is involved, typically no data transformation is required. Typically, this might be used for distributing information from a central repository to other global systems for exchanging of sales opportunities.

The first Siebel application sends a message to the second Siebel application to pass along sales opportunities. A new opportunity is created in the first Siebel application and is assigned to a partner. This new opportunity is sent using Siebel eAI to the second Siebel application. The second Siebel application receives the message and adds the new opportunity. Finally, the Product Catalog is updated in real time. The product information is added or changed on the Siebel application and the changed product information would then be sent to the Siebel application.

In one last scenario, the Siebel application sends an order in XML format to the IT group's BizTalk Server over the HTTP protocol (or by calling BizTalk Server Interchange COM interface). The IT group's BizTalk Server sends the order to SAP by first converting the XML order into an SAP IDOC and sending it by means of HTTP (or any other protocol as defined in BizTalk Port specifications) to SAP. SAP creates the order in SAP R/3 and sends back an Order Status in IDOC format to the IT group's BizTalk Server. The IT group's BizTalk Server converts the SAP IDOC into an XML Order Status document and the BizTalk Server sends the document by means of HTTP or AIC to the Siebel application, where the corresponding order is updated with the new order status.


 Transports and Interfaces: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume III 
 Published: 23 June 2003