Web Services (Siebel ASI based outbound integration)

An Application Services Interface (ASI) is a release-independent interface published by Siebel that lets you integrate Siebel applications with external applications; because ASIs provide a release-independent integration interface, the integration interface to the Siebel Application remains unchanged with each upgrade to new releases.

ASIs come pre-built using standard metadata format, which makes ASIs language-independent, so they return the same value type regardless of language setting minimizing globalization and localization costs.

These benefits mean easier integration between Siebel and external systems, and significantly reduce integration, maintenance, and upgrade costs.

NOTE: The one point of implementing Siebel ASI based integration is ability of the, being integrated, External Application to understand (receive and parse) the Siebel ASI formed SOAP request and generated (and send) the Siebel ASI formed SOAP response. This requirement is similar to the Siebel XML request/response based integration approach, known from Siebel Application version 6.

The example below illustrates how to perform the Siebel Sales Order bi-directional data exchange (imitated from Siebel Application side):
1. Tintegration can be based on the following standard (or slightly customized) business services:

1.1 'Siebel Order' - a data synchronization service, which is pre-defined to invoke the EAI Siebel Adapterto query/update the Siebel Application Database, using the 'Internal Order Interface' standard internal integration object definition (built on the 'Order Entry' standard Siebel Business Object).

1.2 'External Order' - an outbound Web Service proxy, which is pre-defined to invoke the outbound Web Service dispatcher for calling (in an external application) the 'External Order' Web Service with the predefined query/update methods, using the 'Order Interface' standard external integration object definition (built on the XML schema definition, which correspond the accordant structure of the 'Internal Order Interface' integration object);

2. On the Outbound Web Service Administration view (Siebel Client), modify the address (or other additional binding information) for the 'External Order' outbound Web Service registration to forward the SOAP exchange to accordant External Application Web Service server;

3. Design the Web Service outbound integration workflow process to perform following steps:

3.1 Call the 'Siebel Order' business service
method: 'QueryById' with:
input argument: 'Object Id' - a string value to refer particular Sales Order
record in Siebel Application Database;
output argument: 'SiebelMessage' - a hierarchical value to keep the obtained Order data in form of Siebel Integration message (know as Siebel Message);

3.2 Call the 'External Order' business service
method: 'QueryByExample' with:
input argument: 'SiebelMessage' - a hierarchical value to provide an External Application the obtained Order data in Siebel Message form;
output arguments: 'SiebelMessage' - a hierarchical value to keep the received from an External Application the Order data in Siebel Message form;

3.3 Call the 'Siebel Order' business service
method: 'Update' with:
input argument: 'SiebelMessage' - a hierarchical value to post the Order data change(s), provided from External Application response in Siebel Message form;