Integrating Siebel CRM with Microsoft SharePoint Server Enterprises usually have heterogeneous applications with key business data available to the users across the applications such as Siebel CRM, SAP, or Peoplesoft. This combination urges the need to have the key data available to users in a single interface. An integration solution between Microsoft SharePoint Server and Siebel CRM can be build using web services. After the integration, users can view key data from the various modules in a single interface. You can make use of some benefits from it like:

•  Siebel Features can be accessed easily from the Sharepoint Portal
•  There is no additional training for users since it is the same interface
•  Efficiency and service levels for Siebel data are improved with Sharepoint functionality features.
•  One interface for different data sources.

Siebel Collaboration

Siebel Collaboration integrates Microsoft SharePoint with Siebel Business Applications. It allows Siebel users to create SharePoint sites (called team spaces) from within the Siebel application. Each team space is based on a particular Siebel object record, such as an opportunity or service request. The team space dynamically displays data about the record in the Siebel Web Part. The team space contains other Web Parts such as discussion threads, online presence indicators, and documentposting areas. Siebel users can view and update team spaces associated with their records from within the Siebel application. Employees can also access the team spaces directly through their browser windows, in the same way that they access other SharePoint sites. Opportunity and service request objects are supported out-of-the-box. However, using Siebel Tools, you can configure your application so that you can create team spaces for other business objects, such as accounts or marketing campaigns.

Overview

Business Data Catalog (BDC), a new integration feature in the SharePoint Server, provides the means to integrate data directly to LOB applications through Web services. It enables users to retrieve and display key business data from LOB applications in sites, lists, and user profiles within SharePoint portal, without any custom coding. BDC also supports features like specific search, full text search, filtered data views etc. The connectivity between the BDC and Siebel is achieved using standard Web services. Business services in Siebel (back-end API), which query the data from the database, are exposed as web services to be consumed by external applications. SPS invokes the Web services using XML messages that conform to Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). The Siebel application is registered in the SPS using a metadata XML. This metadata XML defines the Web services methods implemented in Siebel; the business objects definitions (e.g. customer) and properties (e.g. name) that a SharePoint user can understand. SharePoint users log into the SPS Portal and select an entity to view the entity instance data. On selecting an entity, the BDC component on SPS invokes a web service on the Siebel server to fetch the entity information from the Siebel database. The queried data is handed back over to the BDC component, which displays this information on the SP portal in a Business Data List web part. SharePoint users can also select the ‗full text search‘ to display specific data or apply a filter criteria to the data displayed on the portal. We then build the BDC metadata XML that contains the list of entities, the contained fields, and the associations between the entities. Finally, we import the XML into BDC and configure web parts on the SPS, which invoke the web services on Siebel to retrieve data.

Configuring Siebel Web Services

Web Services were introduced in the Siebel product suite from version 7.5 onwards. In order to interact with the Siebel Web Services, there is some amount configuration required after the default Siebel installation. This section describes the configuration necessary to expose the Siebel Web Services. In order to configure the Siebel Web Services, we require the Siebel Tools and the Siebel Client.

Creating Siebel Object Definitions from Siebel Tools

The out-of-the-box integration object definitions in Siebel contain a super-set of all the integration components and fields available in any particular entity. These integration object definitions need to be customized as per individual business requirements. In the present context, we will create a copy of the built-in account integration object definition and inactivate the integration components and fields, which are of least use. We thus build a new integration object on top of the business object layer, which is later used while configuring the web services in Siebel.

Building the BDC Metadata XML

Next, we build the Business Data Catalog metadata XML for the Siebel application. The Business Data Catalog metadata XML describes the location and format of data within LOB systems in terms of entities and methods. The Business Data Catalog has a standardized method execution engine that is capable of reading this metadata and retrieving read-only data from LOB systems, which it then returns to Office SharePoint Server in a standard format. The definition of a BDC entity contains identifiers, properties, and methods. The methods define how the Business Data Catalog interacts with entry points exposed by the back-end system. For a back-end system that is accessible through Web services, methods define the names of the Web service operations and the parameters that are required to call them.

Conclusion With heterogeneous applications across multiple different business units, it becomes challenging for organizations to collate information. Therefore, integrating these systems can be a huge investment. However, such organizations now can choose to integrate such
applications easily by using industry standards.