What is the feasibility of synchronising data between the CRM
applications Siebel v.6.x and Siebel v.7.x in an organisation?

What methods have been used to synchronise data between two instances
of the Siebel applications, and what pitfalls have been found in
undertaking this data synchronisation.

I haven't tried using v6 and v7 concurrently, but here are my
thoughts, for whatever they're worth:

 - A lot will depend on how much data you want to synchronise, how
often you want to synchronise it, and whether you want one-way or
two-way synchronisation. If you're wanting to synchronise only a few
things (e.g. Contacts and Accounts) on, say, a daily basis, it
shouldn't be too bad (unless you have a LOT of contacts and accounts).
If you're wanting to keep the entire DB in synch it's going to be a
lot harder.

 - You'll need to use EIM for the actual updates. One approach would
be to do an EIM export, manipulate the data as required, and do an EIM
import in the other database; the manipulation could be either in the
source DB via a PL/SQL or other stored procedure, or external (e.g. in
Excel). Another approach would be to use a stored procedure to extract
and manipulate the data, writing it directly to the target database's
EIM tables. Whether you can do this probably depends on what database
you're running Siebel on, and of course whether you have people with
the required skills.

 - As I understand it EIM has changed quite a bit between v6 and v7
(and of course all the tables have been renamed from X_IF to EIM_X).
You should be able to get around this, but you'll need to familiarise
yourself with the changes. A lot will depend here on whether you're
updating v7 with v6 data, updating v6 with v7 data, or both.

 - You'll definitely have trouble with any element whose user keys
have changed between the two versions; EIM may not be able to reliably
match one to the other. You'll need to check the EIM user keys for
everything you want to synchronise.

 - You should be able to use a repeating component request to run an
EIM job every night (or whenever), and you should be able to set up an
.ifb file that runs each required process (TYPE=SHELL). At least in
v7; I don't know if this functionality is included in v6 EIM. If not,
v7->v6 sync might require running a whole bunch of separate EIM
requests. If you need to do pre- or post-processing you can set up a
workflow to do the whole lot.

That's about all I can think of off the top of my head, and without
knowing more details about what you need to achieve (and more about
v6). Hope this is helpful to you.

Cheers, manuka-ga

Thanks for that. We use Webmethods as our ESB. I guess I was looking
for somewhere that Siebel 6 to Siebel 7 synching has been undertaken
and how they have done it.

I don't think that EIM would be suitable for our organisation.
However, I appreciate your comments.

Thanks very much.