The final post in this series looks at some of the “extras” that facilitate the integration of Oracle Policy Automation and Siebel Innovation Pack 16. By “extras” I mean other Web Services provided by Oracle Policy Automation, which will need to be taken into consideration when designing how these two applications can best work together but that are not directly related to the subject of getting the two applications to integrate using Applets, Integration Components, Workflow Processes and so on. Some of the content that follows is license-dependent, but should be of interest to any Oracle Policy Automation person.
Overview
Given that there are a number of different services to review, this post therefore is necessarily a mixture of many things. To summarise, there are
- Administrative Services : The REST API of Oracle Policy Automation allows the creation of users of all the main types (integration users as well as normal ones) and also for the automation of deployment, and retrieval of associated information.
- Execution Services : Assess, Interview and Answer (and the Server service, although it does not really need to be covered here).
- Batch Execution Service : The REST API for Batch Execution allows for batched execution of goal determination
Together these are referred to as the Determinations API. The API is version specific in the sense that features are constantly being added (for example, integration user management is new to release 18A) so make sure you are using the correct WSDL file. For specific Oracle Policy Automation rulebases you can download the WSDL easily and that is shown in the videos below.
Assess Service
The Assess Web Service is probably the most famous service from a Siebel developer perspective, since it allows Siebel Enterprise to call Oracle Policy Automation and obtain an XML response (in the manner of a typical SOAP Web Service). It is often used therefore when no user interface is required.
The above video provides a short overview of how to derive the necessary information from Oracle Policy Automation and to use it in standard Web Service fashion. Developers should note that the post-processing of the Response will most likely occur in a Siebel Workflow Process or Script, in order to parse the response and deal with it.
As such, accessing an Oracle Policy Automation rulebase with Assess can be done very simply indeed. If the Oracle Policy Automation rulebase you are working with has a Connection in it (to Siebel or anything else) then you may also wish to use the Answer Service (see below).
Interview Service
The Interview Web Service was heavily used in the Oracle Policy Automation and Siebel Innovation Pack 15 integration, in order to mimic the behavior of the standard Interview using the Siebel Open UI framework. This Service is best suited to applications needed to provide the Interview User Interface in another technology (a Java application, a Silverlight Client, a Visual Studio application or whatever). It has a number of specifics and developers must manage session control, as the short video below illustrates.
Answer Service
The Answer service is reserved for Projects where there is a Connection object in Oracle Policy Automation, and as such provides a SOAP-based tool to pass data sets to the Project and receive the response. Amongst other things, therefore, it can be used to test the behaviour of an Oracle Policy Automation project when the external application (for example Siebel Enterprise) is not available.
REST API Services
As outlined above, there are in fact two REST API areas of interest : the administrative platform and the Batch Assessment service. Both require OAuth2 authentication and session management.
What’s Left – Oracle Policy Automation and Siebel Innovation Pack 16
So what is there still to do, for the Siebel Developer who has followed all the different posts and videos in this series? Well of course it is not possible to show everything, so here are the main points that you will now need to finish on your own : but most of them are entirely non-specific to Oracle Policy Automation and Siebel Innovation Pack 16.
There are of course many different things that you might want to do with Oracle Policy Automation and Siebel Innovation Pack 16, so at the OPA Hub Website we are always happy to hear from our readers with comments and questions : all you have to do is post at the bottom of the article. We obviously cannot run your project from here (but if you want us to, just get in touch!) but you should feel free to contact us with questions, ideas for articles or anything else that is Oracle Policy Automation-related.
As Siebel Developers will know, Siebel Enterprise is now in version 17 and the next big thing, Siebel 18, is expected soon. The good news is that almost all of the steps shown here are completely identical in the newer version, since the changes are architectural rather than functional for the most part. If you come across anything completely different then, again, just let us know. We do plan on providing an update to this post series as and when the Siebel 18 is made generally available.
Finally
The OPA Hub hopes you all enjoyed the different posts in this series. For your bookmarks, here are the other posts in the series:
Hi Richard, Thanks for sharing this post. Very informative.
We have been using assess service of OPA version 10 with Siebel IP 14 and it was working fine. We are now upgrading to Siebel IP20, hence have to upgrade OPA to 12.x. We imported one of the rules files from OPA 10 to 12, deployed to hub and made few changes in the outbound web service in Siebel and sent request to OPA using native “Policy Automation Assess Workflow” in Siebel. But this is erroring out with below error. Not sure what we are missing here. Any help would be much appreciated.
Error invoking service ‘Policy Automation Determination Server’, method ‘Assess’ at step ‘Call Determination Server’.(SBL-BPR-00162)–Operation ‘Assess’ of Web Service ‘http://oracle.com/determinations/server/12.2.1/rulebase/assess/types.DeterminationServer’ at port ‘SupplierRecovery’ failed with the following explanation: “No action for ‘http://oracle.com/determinations/server/12.2.1/rulebase/assess/types’ exists in service ‘odsAssessServiceGeneric1221’.”.(SBL-EAI-04308)
Hi Anand. Many things could be at play here.
Are you calling this as an Outbound Web Service (imported into Siebel Tools with proxy business service and integration objects) or just as an HTTP outbound call? If the former, is the Outbound Web Service active and accessible (correct URL and so on).
Is authentication included in the call? Have you generated the Assess WSDL for the project? Can you import it into SoapUI and correctly call the service manually? Just to determine that it is accessible.
When you imported the WSDL into Siebel, did the import fail to generate the integration objects? Is the project enabled for Assess on the Hub?
I may be wrong, but I thought Policy Automation Assess Workflow was only for version 10 with the Siebel OPA Connector. And since you are in Siebel 20 / OPA 12, you cant be using the Connector. So the generic URL it is calling will not work.
Its a fresh install and ran IRM to bring in IP14 objects. Also when researched on this particular error, it was suggested to make change in Siebel determination server on weblogic server.
Ref link: https://community.oracle.com/thread/2317229
But I dont see Siebel determination server in OPA 12 anymore.
Hi Anand. This is kind of where I was pushing you : the OPA architecture in 12 when working with Siebel is different. There are several things you need to take into account 1) The connector is no longer used for the integration 2) There is no “siebel determination server” anymore, you use the generic determination server 3) There is no more IO mapping or BO mapping 4) OPA 12 uses a Connector architecture to connect to Siebel using a predefined WSDL with several operations which are exposed as Workflows in Siebel. If you are looking for a big picture overview, there is of course the documentation or you can have a look at this video series https://intelligent-advisor.com/main/oracle-policy-automation-and-siebel-16-1/ that we did a few years ago. The process is the same for Siebel 20, although a few minor things have changed like the URL format (eai/enu not eai_enu) and minor version changes. The solution is the same. And of course in respect of your issue, there is no custom Siebel determinations engine and Assess WSDLs are not the same. Feel free to reach out!