EIM Configuration File:
Using the EIM Configuration File to Define a Process:
- EIM reads a configuration file that specifies the EIM process (import, update, merge, delete, or export) to perform using the appropriate parameters.
- The EIM configuration file is an ASCII text file of extension type .IFB that resides in the Siebel Server/admin directory.
- Before running the EIM process, ifb file needs to be changes as per the requirement of the load.
- EIM accepts parameter values from three sources:
2. The Siebel Server Manager GUI
3. The configuration file specified, or default.ifb if none is specified
- Parameter value searches are performed according to a specific hierarchy: command line, component parameter, and configuration file.
- Command-line parameters thus override component parameters, and component parameters override configuration file parameters.
Defining EIM Configuration File Parameters:
1. Header section: Specifies global parameters that apply to all process sections.
2. Process Section: At least one process is required.
Header Section Parameters and their descriptions:
- CONNECT: The ODBC source name for connecting to the database server.
- LOG TRANSACTIONS TO FILE: Default is True. Transactions can be logged in a file or a table. By default, EIM logs transactions into files. Log files are saved in the file system’s EIM directory. If you do not want transactions to be logged in files, then setting this parameter to FALSE logs transactions to a table.
- PASSWORD: Database password. This parameter is inherited for the EIM component from the Gateway Name Server, so it should already be set. However, you can specify this in the IFB file if you are running EIM from the Siebel application (not the command line) and if you have not already set this value in the EIM Server Component parameters.
- PROCESS: Identifies the specific process to run during this invocation of EIM. The named process must be defined in the process section of the IFB file.
- [Siebel Interface Manager]: Header section must use this reserved name.
- TABLEOWNER: The database logon name that owns the tables to be operated on, used as the prefix for table names, defined during installation (generally SIEBEL).
- USERNAME: Database/employee logon name. This parameter is inherited for the EIM component from the Gateway Name Server, so it should already be set. However, you can specify this in the .IFB file if you are running EIM from the Siebel application (not the command line), and if you have not already set this value in the EIM Server Component parameters.
Process Section Parameters and their descriptions:
- BATCH: Required, Specifies a required batch number for the process to be run, gets stamped in IF_ROW_BATCH_NUM column, must be a positive integer between 0 and 2147483647. E.g. BATCH = 100-110 or BATCH = 100,103,106,110
- COMMIT EACH PASS: Optional, Commit after each EIM pass, Default is True.
- COMMIT EACH TABLE: Optional, Commit after each EIM pass, Default is True.
- IGNORE BASE TABLES: Optional, Do not process these tables.
- INCLUDE: Optional, Sub process to execute. INCLUDE names a process to be included as part of this process. More than one process may be included in another process. All included processes execute before the process itself.
- LOG TRANSACTIONS: Optional, Default value depends on system preference, controls the logging mode, if true EIM logs changes when mobile clients synchronize. If set to FALSE, changes are not logged. LOG TRANSACTIONS = TRUE operates in row-by-row mode. LOG TRANSACTIONS = FALSE operates in set-based mode.
- ONLY BASE TABLES: Optional, Process only base tables.
- ROLLBACK ON ERROR: Optional, Error rollback behavior, default is FALSE.
- SESSION SQL: Optional, Specifies a user-defined SQL statement to be sent to the database server before other SQL statements for this process. This string is sent directly to the database and must be a single SQL statement suitable for immediate processing. Only one SESSION SQL parameter can be used in each process section.
- SKIP BU_ID DEFAULT: Optional, Specifies whether the virtual null key is to be skipped for the BU_ID column. The default value is FALSE.
- TABLE: Required, Specifies the name of an EIM table used in this process. Multiple TABLE parameters may be used to define a process using more than one table.
- TRANSACTION SQL: Optional, Post-commit SQL statement. Specifies a user-defined SQL statement to be sent to the database before other SQL statements, and immediately after each commit or rollback operation during the process.
- TYPE: Required, specifies the type of process being defined (IMPORT, EXPORT, DELETE, MERGE, SHELL).
- USE ESSENTIAL INDEX HINTS: Optional, For MS SQL Server and Oracle databases only, default is TRUE, enables a subset of index hints for MS SQL Server.
- USE INDEX HINTS: Optional, For Oracle databases only. Controls whether EIM issues optimizer hints to the underlying database to improve performance and throughput, default is FALSE.
- USING SYNONYMS: Optional, Controls the queries of account synonyms during import processing. When set to FALSE, this parameter saves processing time because queries that look up synonyms are not used, default is TRUE.
Important points to remember while setting EIM IFB parameters:
- Lines in the default.ifb file that begin with a semicolon (;) are comment lines and are ignored.
- For multiline parameters definition, make certain that the backslash character (\) is the last character on the line.
- The backslash character denotes continuation.
- Do not combine comments (;) with new lines (/) because this format creates difficulties finding a comment in the middle of a line.
- If multiple lines have the backslash character (\) at the end, this means they are a single parameter line. So, if a semi-colon (comment character) is placed among these lines, EIM ignores the column with the semi-colon and all columns linked through the continuation character.
- PASSWORD and USERNAME values are generally not used for access authentication or as a security measure. EIM acquires access authentication from the component parameters.
- PASSWORD and USERNAME values in the .IFB file are only used if the parameters are not set at the enterprise or component level.