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Setting Siebel Domain-Level Synchronization

Domain-level synchronization establishes the highest allowable synchronization setting for all users and groups on the domain. You must set user-level and group-level synchronization to values that are equal to or lower than the domain-level synchronization. For more information about synchronization levels, see SSSE Synchronization Options.

To set domain synchronization

1. From the Siebel application menu, choose Navigate > Site Map > Administration - PIM Server Integration > Siebel Domains.
2. In the Siebel Domains list, select a record.
3. In the Domain Sync Support field, select a synchronization level for the domain.

   Table 29 describes the synchronization levels available for all Siebel domains, and Table 30 lists the default synchronization levels for each domain.

4. Repeat Step 2 and Step 3 for each Siebel domain.

NOTE:  Import Only synchronization level is not supported for any of the Siebel domains. For more information about this limitation, see About the Limitation Against Import Only Synchronization Level, later in this topic.

About the Limitation Against Import Only Synchronization Level

Import Only synchronization level is not supported for any of the Siebel domains. The reason for this limitation is that there are potential data integrity problems if data is imported only from Exchange to Siebel applications.

This hazard to data integrity arises from the different methods the two systems use to store data. Siebel applications use a relational database, but Exchange Servers maintain data using an individual data store for each Exchange user.

As an example of the kind of issue that could arise, a Business Contact record in a Siebel application can be shared between multiple people in a team. Any update that one user makes to the Business Contact record in Siebel is immediately visible to other users, because all users are accessing a single record in the relational database. However, in Exchange, each user has his or her own set of Contact records. An update made to one user's Contact record is not reflected in other users' Contact information. If data was only imported from Exchange into Siebel applications, an update made by one user could be lost when another user makes a conflicting update. The following paragraphs describe in more detail how an example Business Contact record would be handled for different synchronization levels:

• When the synchronization level is set to Full Sync, then if someone changes synchronized data in either the Siebel application or Exchange, that change is reflected for other users in both the Siebel application and Exchange. For example, one member of a sales team might learn that a Business Contact's phone number had changed. All members of the team would soon see the new phone number in both the Siebel application and Exchange, regardless of where the change was made. Within a short period of time after a data change occurs, all users are working from the same updated data.
• When the synchronization level is set to Export Only, then a data change made in the Siebel application is reflected for other users in both Siebel and Exchange, but changes made in Exchange are visible only to the user who made the change, until such time as a later data change in the Siebel application overwrites the data in Exchange. So, a Business Contact phone number changed in the Siebel application would be visible to all team members, in both the Siebel application and Exchange. However, a phone number changed in Exchange would be visible only to the team member who changed it, and only until the next synchronization overwrites it with the value from the Siebel database. Again, within a short period of time after a data change occurs, all users are working from the same updated data.
• If you were allowed to set the synchronization level to Import Only, then a data change made in either Exchange or the Siebel application would be briefly reflected for all team members in the Siebel application. However, the change would be visible in Exchange only for the user who made the change. The change in the Siebel application would persist only until another user made a conflicting update. So, a Business Contact phone number changed either in the Siebel application, or in Exchange would be visible in the Siebel application to all team members, but only until the next synchronization of a team member who had a different phone number for the Business Contact, such as the old phone number. It would be possible for the phone number in Siebel to change repeatedly between the values held by different Exchange users, and for the Exchange values to continue to differ, so that team members would not be working from the same data. For this reason, the Import Only synchronization level is not supported.

Related Topics

SSSE Synchronization Options