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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 is triggered whenever a record is written. If you use the EAI Siebel Adapter to import data into Siebel Business Applications, and use run-time events, then consider the following:

For the EAI Siebel Adapter, one call to the EAI Siebel Adapter with an input message is a transaction. Within a transaction, the EAI Siebel Adapter makes multiple Write Record calls. At any point in the transaction, if the 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 called as soon as the EAI Siebel Adapter makes Write Record calls even though the EAI Siebel Adapter might be in the middle of a transaction. If you have export data workflows triggered on such events, this might lead to exporting data from Siebel Business Applications that is not committed and might be rolled back. It is also possible that your events are 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 the EAI Siebel Adapter and run-time events use the business service EAI Transaction Service to figure out if a transaction (typically, the EAI Siebel Adapter) is in progress. You might then want to skip processing that is not desirable when the EAI Siebel Adapter is in progress.

For example, suppose you have a workflow to export orders from Siebel Business Applications, which is triggered whenever the order record is written. You also import orders into Siebel Business Applications using EAI. In such a situation, you do not want to export orders while they are being imported, because the import might be aborted and rolled back. You achieve this using the EAI Transaction Service business 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 Business 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 in this topic. Use Workflow Policies instead of Run-Time Events when possible.