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Communications Drivers and Third-Party Systems

By means of communications drivers, Siebel applications can work with a variety of third-party CTI middleware and email servers. The communications infrastructure from Siebel Systems can work with several types of communications systems, in these scenarios:

• Siebel Systems provides several communications drivers to support Siebel communications modules or third-party communications systems. Some Siebel modules, such as Siebel CTI Connect incorporate third-party technologies.
• Third-party vendors write communications drivers, using the Adaptive Communications API, to support additional communications systems. (Alternatively, vendors can write a driver to extend a Siebel-provided communications driver.)

For updated information about third-party products supported by Siebel Systems, see:

• System Requirements and Supported Platforms on Siebel SupportWeb
• Release Notes on Siebel SupportWeb

For information about third-party communications solutions validated by Siebel Alliances, see the Alliances section of the Web site for Siebel Systems.

NOTE:  For detailed requirements and procedures for installing and configuring third-party products, refer to your third-party vendor documentation.

The capabilities of your communications system (such as CTI middleware and switch combination) partly determine which functionality you can implement. For example, some switches do not support automatic call forwarding. In addition, some features supported in the communications system may not be supported in the corresponding Siebel communications driver. Consequently, information in this guide about certain features may not apply to your implementation. Consult your vendor documentation for information about supported functionality and features.

About Error Messages Related to Communications

For agents using session-based communications such as Siebel CTI, the Siebel client may sometimes receive error messages relating to communications functionality.

Some messages may originate from CTI middleware or from the communications driver. Messages are presented without modification, whether they originate from external communications systems or from Siebel modules. Such messages are prefaced with Communication: and appear at the top of the application area in the browser, to the right of the application-level menus. For more information, see Menu Commands for Displaying Error Messages.

The same error messages may also be logged, if logging is set for the Communications Session Manager component. For more information, see Parameters for Communications Session Manager.

Siebel-Validated CTI Middleware/Switches

Siebel Systems provides a communications driver and provides communications configurations that are validated to work with Intel NetMerge CTI middleware.

Siebel CTI Connect, available from Siebel Systems, Inc., includes Intel NetMerge Call Processing Software and Intel NetMerge Call Information Manager. Siebel CTI Connect also includes the Siebel communications driver for Intel NetMerge and sample Siebel communications configuration data.

For information about installing and configuring Siebel CTI Connect and about configuring Siebel Communications Server to work with this module, including applicable driver parameters, events and commands, see Using Siebel CTI Connect.

For more information about currently supported third-party CTI middleware and telephony switches, see System Requirements and Supported Platforms on Siebel SupportWeb.

Siebel-Validated Email Servers

Siebel Systems provides the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server communications driver, which has been validated to work with several third-party email servers.

The Internet SMTP/POP3 Server communications driver is compliant with the following RFC standards:

• 1894: delivery status notification
• 1939: POP3
• 2045 - 2049: MIME
• 2821: SMTP
• 2822: text message syntax
• 3207: SMTP session encryption using SSL

NOTE:  Configure your email servers appropriately to work with Siebel applications. For example, for security reasons, your SMTP server may restrict from which originating machines outbound email messages can be relayed. In this case, you must configure the SMTP server to allow messages to be relayed from the Siebel Server machines running the Outbound Communications Manager server component.

For more information about currently supported third-party email servers and related products, see System Requirements and Supported Platforms on Siebel SupportWeb. Also see your third-party vendor documentation.

For information about using the Internet SMTP/POP3 Server driver to integrate Siebel Communications Server with email servers, see Interfacing with Email and Fax Servers.

Nonsupported Communications Systems

If your existing communications system is not supported by the communications drivers provided with Siebel Communications Server, consider the following options for custom communications drivers:

• Use a communications driver developed, using the Siebel Adaptive Communications API, by a third party—such as a CTI middleware vendor. For information about third-party communications solutions validated by Siebel Alliances, see the Alliances section of the Web site for Siebel Systems.
• Develop your own communications driver, using the Siebel Adaptive Communications API, to work with your communications system.

NOTE:  Communications drivers developed by customers or third parties are not supported by Siebel Systems, Inc., but by their respective developers or providers.

A Siebel Communications Server implementation using a custom communications driver developed using the Siebel Adaptive Communications API can take full advantage of standard features such as the communications toolbar, screen pops, communications commands, automatic creation of activities and logs, and user interface for administration and configuration.

A communications driver can be created that is to be used with an existing driver. Such a driver, known as an aggregate driver, extends the capabilities of the existing driver, enabling additional functionality. For more information, see Developing a Communications Driver.