BizTalk Integration Solution Reduces Costs and Simplifies IT Maintenance for Global Membership Organization
Project At a Glance
RDA developed a custom solution that integrated and automated the synchronization of information between our client’s Siebel CRM system and a customer-facing SharePoint extranet using Microsoft BizTalk. The integration solution enabled our client to realize a reduction of operational costs as well as a reduction in time and expense associated with maintenance activities. With a much cleaner, self service interface to their clients, they out-paced their competition and retained leadership in the financial analysis certification field. Our client noted, “Without automation, maintenance activities would probably have required two dedicated FTEs to handle the load. Add to that the other applications that have gone up since and that would have doubled by now.”
About Our Client
Our client is a worldwide institute that awards a financial analyst designation. In addition to administering the exam, the Institute publishes a journal and also operates a center for financial market integrity and a research foundation.
Background
Our client uses Siebel as their primary customer relationship management system. Prior to this project, much of the information maintained about a customer had to be called in or emailed to administrative personnel who would manually enter it into Siebel. Additionally, any opportunities for upselling or cross selling of products was stored in Siebel and could only be brought before a customer via a sales call. Our client also maintained a customer facing extranet running under Microsoft SharePoint that offered very limited services because of the time and cost associated with manually keeping it current with information in Siebel.
By integrating and automating the synchronization of information between the Siebel CRM system and the SharePoint membership portals, our client was seeking to:
- reduce operational costs and eliminate complexity in the ongoing support of systems for their IT teams;
- Reduce the amount of clerical support required, since customers could now update their own data and view more information related to their own account and additional services offered by the Institute;
- increase the flexibility they have when deploying new services to their membership portals since the maintenance cost would be reduced; and
- eliminate the need to hard code any cross-system integrations in .NET.
Solution Detail
RDA first built a proof of concept utilizing Microsoft BizTalk Server to integrate Microsoft SharePoint with Siebel.
After a successful POC, RDA moved on to the production phase of the project, which involved employing BizTalk as a broker to facilitate integration of user profile data between Seibel and SharePoint. This architecture prevents tight coupling between Siebel and SharePoint and provides flexibility to integrate additional systems in the future.
Phase 2 of this project involved delivering the additional scope required for the upcoming release of the Institute’s Customer Portal. Enhancements included:
- Integrating communications preferences via BizTalk, which allowed portal users to identify how they preferred to be contacted by our client.
- Increasing the amount of information provided by the registration process, which permits our client to better understand how to best serve the registrant.
- Integrating client profiles via a BizTalk orchestration between Siebel and SharePoint. This change gave our client the ability to suspend accounts from either interface when required.
- Providing custom modifications in BizTalk to implement a First-In-First-Out (FIFO) approach to error handling.
Benefits
The BizTalk integration solution enabled our client to realize a reduction of operational costs as well as a reduction in time and expense associated with maintenance activities. With a much cleaner, self service interface to their clients, they out-paced their competition and retained leadership in the financial analysis certification field.
Our client noted, “Without automation, maintenance activities would probably have required two dedicated FTEs to handle the load. Add to that the other applications that have gone up since and that would have doubled by now.”
Technically Speaking
The solution architecture for Siebel to SharePoint orchestrations required implementation of the following:
- A BizTalk hosted update web service that Siebel calls to notify BizTalk of updates.
- A BizTalk application (schemas, pipelines, maps, orchestrations, etc.) that processes the update web service calls, transforms data as necessary and invokes the SharePoint UpdateUserProfile web service to communicate the update to SharePoint.
The solution architecture for updates made in SharePoint required implementation of the following:
- A BizTalk hosted update web service that SharePoint calls to notify BizTalk of updates.
- A BizTalk application (schemas, pipelines, maps, orchestrations, etc.) that processes the update web service calls, transforms data as necessary and invokes the Siebel Update web service to communicate the update to Siebel.