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About Cross-Channel Support Using Web Services

The Web services provided with Siebel In-Memory Next Best Action enable the information that is requested by the calling application to be packaged in a format that can be used by different types of applications, such as mobile applications, Web applications, and point-of-sale applications. The Web services deliver valid responses along with the recommendations so that the calling application can provide accurate, flexible, and relevant responses. The Web services also enable a quicker response capture and a faster response time. If a recommendation is rejected, the Web service methods enable external applications to capture and send additional information so that better recommendations can be provided for future transactions. Finally, the Web service methods save the entire transaction: the recommendations provided, the responses, and any additional information that the customer provides.

Siebel In-Memory Next Best Action provides the following Web services methods to generate recommendations:

• CallInformant. This method enables external applications to send contextual information to Oracle Real-Time Decisions Server, such as the customer's name, contact ID, the details about the account, or the Web page that the customer was viewing. The CallInformant method passes messages that contain information about a specific unit in a business process to the RTD Informant inline service.
• CallAdvisor. This method enables external applications to request recommendations. It makes an Advisor call to the Oracle Real-Time Decisions Server, which processes input from a customer and returns recommendations based on that input. This method provides the available response choices for each recommendation type so that the application can display this information as buttons or in drop-down lists. This method also provides an image URL for each recommendation to be able to provide a picture of the product that is being recommended.
• ProcessResponseAction. This method enables external applications to send responses against the recommendations that the CallAdvisor Web service previously provided. It performs the following operations:
  • Updates the Recommendation History record with the selected response
  • Makes an RTD Informant call about the selected response
  • Performs any predefined actions for the selected response

Figure 2 shows how the Web service methods pass information between Siebel Business Applications and Oracle Real-Time Decisions.

Figure 2. Siebel In-Memory Next Best Action Web Service Methods

External applications can call the Web services using their own logic and timing, which provides flexibility for the applications to control the customer interactions. For more information about the Web services provided for Siebel In-Memory Next Best Action, see Siebel CRM Web Services Reference.