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Overview

You can use EAI steps to interact with external applications so that iProcess procedures can integrate with other systems in your business process. For example, you can make updates to stock items in an external database or request an inventory via a web service. You could also integrate a document management system into the process and an existing legacy system.

EAI steps can send iProcess case data to external applications using whatever communication method is required. They can also pass data back from the application to iProcess.

If your applications are running in a transaction environment, you can set up the business process so that data updates are performed as a single transaction.

EAI steps are automatically processed by an iProcess background process (BG) instead of being sent to a iProcess user for completion. The EAI steps will be performed in-process, by the background, and can therefore participate in the business process transaction.

Therefore, EAI steps enable you to create automated business procedures that can be:

•	closely integrated with third-party applications such as databases and legacy systems.

•	designed to operate under transaction control.

•	processed with little or no user intervention so that procedures are processed quickly (known as Straight Through Processing or STP).

Different types of EAI step are available to communicate with different applications using their proprietary programming interface, for example:

•	Web Services - enables you to call a web service from your procedure passing iProcess data to it and optionally receiving data back from it. See TIBCO iProcess Web Services Plug-in User's Guide for more information.

•	SQL - enables communication with SQL stored procedures. See TIBCO iProcess SQL Plug-in User’s Guide for information about installing the plug-in and creating the SQL EAI step.

•	COM - enables communication with COM+ applications. See TIBCO iProces COM Plug-in User's Guide for information about installing the plug-in and creating the COM EAI step.

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