e*Index Global Identifier TM

Enabling a Single Customer View

A SeeBeyond Whitepaper
November 2000

 2000 SeeBeyond Technology Corporation. All rights reserved. e*Gate and e*Way are registered trademarks or trademarksof SeeBeyond
Technology Corporation. All other products and company names mentioned in this document are the trademarks of their respective owners.
 e*Index Global Identifier – Enabling a Single Customer View

Table of Contents
Executive Summary............................................................................................................... 3
Introduction to a Single Customer View ............................................................................ 4
Challenges to a Single Customer View.................................................................................... 5
e*Index Application Overview ........................................................................................... 8
Global Person Database .................................................................................................. 9
Cross-Index of Identifiers ............................................................................................. 10
Real-Time Automated Matching Algorithm................................................................. 11
Quality Workstation for Customer Information Management ...................................... 13
Accessible from any Application.................................................................................. 14
Architectural Considerations ............................................................................................. 15
Passive Implementation ................................................................................................ 15
Active Implementation.................................................................................................. 16
Implementation Planning .................................................................................................. 17
Data Investigation......................................................................................................... 17
Algorithm Customization.............................................................................................. 17
Data Conversion............................................................................................................ 17
Integration Interface Setup ............................................................................................ 18
Application Configuration ............................................................................................ 18
Operations and Support................................................................................................. 18
The Benefits of e*Index.................................................................................................... 19
The Future of e*Index....................................................................................................... 19
About SeeBeyond ............................................................................................................. 19

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Executive Summary

Customers are a company’s greatest single asset and having consistent, reliable information about
these customers is essential for business success. In every industry, customers are increasingly
demanding higher levels of service over multiple delivery channels, and these customers are more
likely than ever before to change vendors when they see greater service or value offered
elsewhere. In today’s highly competitive market, poor customer service and inefficient customer
processes lead quickly to declines in revenue, profit, market share and market capitalization.

The challenge to creating a ‘customer focused’ organization resides in the fact that timely
customer information is often difficult to find, access and share across an enterprise since it is
often contained in many disparate information systems. This situation may be the result of
different information systems having been implemented to support different lines of business, the
presence of multiple systems for the same line of business following a merger or acquisition, or
simply the rapid pace of change leading to the expedient implementation of non-integrated
applications. Irrespective of the cause, e-Business and other enterprise initiatives frequently find
themselves thwarted by the lack of a single, integrated view of customers across the enterprise.
This white paper describes the business problem in general terms, identifies the key
characteristics of a successful solution, and illustrates how the e*Index Global Identifier
application solves this problem with a comprehensive, quickly implemented and proven solution.

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Introduction to a Single Customer View

To be successful in today’s technology driven environment, businesses must continuously

innovate both their product and service offerings and their customer facing business processes to
keep pace with rising customer expectations.

At any given moment, enterprises must be able to provide sales and service employees with an
accurate and comprehensive picture of each customer’s purchase history, current business and
anticipated needs. This customer visibility empowers the organization to effectively respond
during customer interactions to quickly answer questions, resolve problems and successfully
market targeted products and services.

Similarly, customers expect to resolve all their needs with a single point of contact, regardless of
whether that contact is via phone, fax, storefront, mail or the web. Providing these new levels of
service that customers expect across multiple channels is challenging, and it requires real time
visibility of all customer interactions across multiple IT systems and organizational divisions.

SeeBeyond terms this real time visibility the Single Customer View. Your business has a single
view of all of a customer’s relationships and interactions with your company across the entire
business cycle, and that customer has a single view into all of their business interactions with
your company over their preferred access channels. The target is to make the enterprise’s view of
the customer as complete as the customer’s view of the enterprise.

This concept of maintaining a 360° view of customers within the organization is always targeted
by Customer Relationship Management initiatives, but rarely is it effectively delivered on due to
many challenges. This first step in attaining this customer-centric view is to create a central
repository of customer information that is always up to date and readily accessible by employees.
This requires improving and increasing communication both internally across departments and
then externally to the customer where every point of contact must be consistently satisfying. The
goal is to make it demonstrably easier for your customers to do business with you.

The challenges in these initiatives escalate when you need to efficiently integrate all the
components of the CRM solution such as customer self-service applications, customer
management systems and analytical data warehouses to the actual back end operational systems
that own the customer information such as Manufacturing, Enterprise Resource Planning and
Financial systems.

As described in this paper, the e*Index Global Identifier application from SeeBeyond runs on the
e*Gate Integrator platform and is purpose built to provide the flexible architecture needed to
efficiently overcome these challenges to enable the seamless sharing of customer information.

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Challenges to a Single Customer View

In today’s business environment, vital customer information exists in many disparate systems
throughout the enterprise (e.g. - Customer Relationship Management, Web, eBusiness, Financial,
Enterprise Resource Planning systems, and countless others), and it must be accessible from
multiple customer touch points (e.g. – Web, Call Center, Fax, Store Front). These systems
typically evolve internally in isolated silos focused around product lines and departmental
functions rather than around customer needs, yet they each contain critical customer information.
Additional systems containing customer information are commonly acquired through mergers and
acquisitions.

Each of these systems typically assigns their own, independent customer identifier that makes it
extraordinarily difficult to share information to create a single, reliable view of the customer
across the enterprise. In the example below, information exists about Clare Smith in two
different systems, each of which using its own local identifiers. Information sharing requires
overcoming data quality problems such as name and address changes, transpositions and
phonetically similar names to be able to uniquely identify the same person across multiple
applications.

As a base rule, the sharing of customer information between disparate information systems
requires that each customer can be uniquely identified. Ideally, using a single customer identifier
across all systems from their inception is simply the most straightforward method to achieve this;
however, this is rarely possible or practical and alternatives must be considered:

• Replace the existing systems with a single information system architecture, which would
inherently assign a unique identifier to each customer

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• Remediate the existing applications and renumber existing customers to use common
identifiers then implement a system and/or procedures to coordinate new customer
number assignment in each system

• Build a custom application using a batch process to match customer information between
disparate applications

• Install a cross-indexing application to provide real-time matching of customers to enable

the seamless sharing of information in the background while allows existing systems to
continue to operate autonomously.

Although the wholesale replacement of systems is frequently the most technically eloquent
solution, it is also often the least practical approach. This is because of the time, cost, complexity
and risk associated with large enterprise projects are often in conflict with immediate business
goals. Furthermore, it will never be possible to replace all systems (both internal to the
organization and external with partners) that contain differently identified customer information,
thus the root problem still remains to some degree. A strategic acquisition or partnership will
reintroduce overlapping customer bases that will force you to confront this challenge again.

The second alternative that typically surfaces involves the perceived speed and minimal cost
associated with the “let’s just renumber everyone” concept. This requires analyzing the customer
data to match customers across systems, renumbering all customers with unique identifiers and
then remediating all the applications involved to use the new identifier scheme. Even cursory
analysis reveals that this is neither quick nor inexpensive, and would inevitably result in
compromised data quality.

The third approach sometimes evaluated may be to build a custom application utilizing a batch
process to match customer information from disparate systems. The first problem with this
approach is that utilizing any sort of batch process builds fixed time intervals into any business
process that involves uniquely identifying a customer, and this is the last thing you want to do
when you are trying to respond to a customer query in an accurate and timely manner. The next
problem is that custom application development is costly and time-consuming and involves an
inherent learning curve.

The optimal solution is clearly one where minimal time and investment is required to achieve the
desired business goal of enabling the real-time sharing of customer information across disparate
systems. Measured against these criteria, the e*Index system is the ideal solution. Using e*Index,
existing applications can be quickly leveraged to support the enterprise, allowing immediate
business benefit while also complementing any strategic direction an organization may make.

The foundation for sharing information between disparate information systems is a sound
integration infrastructure. This infrastructure must provide the ability to connect disparate
systems irrespective of the communications protocol or messaging standard, as well as provide
the ability to map and translate field values between systems. SeeBeyond is the established
leader in the integration field, with e*Gate providing the core functionality required to integrate
disparate systems. e*Index specifically complements this infrastructure by providing the ability
to share customer information between systems irrespective of the customer identifier and often
without requiring changes to the existing systems.

With e*Index in place, the challenges of sharing information between systems are neither
technically daunting nor prohibitively complex or costly. Once installed, e*Index can rapidly

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assimilate subsequent applications quickly and in a straightforward manner, repeatedly realizing

the cost benefits over other approaches. In an environment of increasing eBusiness initiatives, no
information infrastructure should be considered complete without a comprehensive cross-
indexing solution such as e*Index.

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e*Index Application Overview

The e*Index Global Identifier application is a relational database of persons records where each
record is automatically cross-indexed to the various local identifiers used for that person in local
systems. This is the mapping of a single global identifier to multiple local identifiers. The
following list describes e*Index’s high level components:

Global Person Database: e*Index manages sufficient demographic information about

persons in a relational database to facilitate e*Index’s automated matching process to find
the same person in multiple systems.

Cross-Index of Identifiers: e*Index manages a cross-index for persons to all of the local
identifiers representing them in systems throughout the enterprise.

Real-Time Automated Matching Algorithm: e*Index uses a sophisticated, real-time

matching algorithm to automatically build the cross-index.

Quality Workstation for Customer Information Management: e*Index provides the

Quality Workstation application to facilitate managing the information within the e*Index
application. Full edit functions are provided (add, update, delete, merge, unmerge, etc.) as
well as work-lists of potential duplicate records. The Quality Workstation functionally
protects information stored within the application and audits all changes to information by
both users and external systems.

Accessible from any Application: As an integral part of a robust e-Business Integration

(eBI) platform, e*Index can facilitate the sharing of information between any type of
systems using e*Gate’s extensive connectivity.

Key Components of the e*Index Application

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Global Person Database

e*Index uses a relational database to store the demographic customer information needed to
perform the matching of unique persons across systems. This central store of information can be
extended as needed to hold other operational information about your customers that can be
centralized within e*Index and then automatically published to other systems when updated from
any single system.

These extended values might include:

• Retail Banking – account numbers; account type & charges, fees, or fee waivers;
primary branch number; ATM locations accessed; assets by account type; credit rating;
etc.

• Insurance – policy types; consolidated billing information; demographic or geographic

"rating"

• Telecommunications and Utilities – product/service contract numbers; product

utilization by category (long distance vs. local vs. cellular etc.); customer valuation
ranking

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Cross-Index of Identifiers

Even the most basic implementation of e*Index supports a number of valuable activities,
including the identification and reconciliation of duplicate customer records, activity reporting,
unique customer identification for enterprise data warehousing efforts, etc.

Foremost in value, however, is the ability to facilitate “ID switching” in real time as transactions
flow from one information system to another. ID switching allows information systems to
exchange customer information with other systems without regard to differences in the local
customer ID used by each local system. This is accomplished by switching the customer ID in the
transaction as it passes through e*Gate.

As in the above diagram, a message can be sent from a customer facing eCommerce application
through e*Gate, destined for the backend ERP and CRM applications. During transit of the
message through e*Gate, the e*Index system is queried for the customer record using the
customer ID from the eCommerce system which is contained in the message. Once the
customer’s e*Index record is retrieved, the customer ID for the eCommerce system is replaced
with the customer’s ID for the ERP and CRM applications (which e*Gate knows to be the
destination systems), and the message continues on to the targeted applications.

Nowhere in this interaction are the communicating systems aware of the different customer IDs
being used, yet all the systems are able to seamlessly share information in real time. They key
point here is that often no changes are required to the connected systems to support this sharing.

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This capability to rapidly integrate information systems both internally and externally, even when
semantics are different and no common identifier is shared, is invaluable in rapidly integrating
business operations.

Real-Time Automated Matching Algorithm

The e*Index Global Identifier application employs a sophisticated matching algorithm to

determine the likelihood of match between two separate person records. This algorithm is
invoked in real time for each new incoming person record, such that the incoming record is
compared with records already in the database to determine if a record for the person already
exists within the e*Index database. This matching process has three objectives: the first is to
ensure records identified as duplicates across systems are in-fact duplicates, the second is make
sure no potential duplicate records are missed, and the third objective is to perform this automated
matching process quickly and efficiently.
TM

e*Index achieves the first objective by embedding the INTEGRITY Real Time matching engine
from Vality Technology, Inc. within the application. This matching technology has been proven
in some of the most demanding matching applications across multiple industries, and sets the
standard for matching versatility. In addition, e*Index offers the ability to tailor the fields used to
determine a match, the weights assigned to each field, as well as the actual high and low
thresholds for determining a match, thereby allowing clients to determine how best to match their
own records.

The two objectives of not missing any potentially duplicate records, while at the same time
ensuring adequate response time, are closely related and in-fact work at cross-purposes. The
optimal solution for not missing any potential duplicate records is to invoke the algorithm to
compare each incoming record with each and every record already in the database. While
perhaps practical for smaller databases, this approach becomes unwieldy as the database grows
larger with potentially millions of records to compare for each transaction. On the opposite end
of the spectrum, the best efficiency is gained by comparing the incoming record to as few records
in the database as possible, thereby minimizing the number of times the algorithm must be
invoked. The natural consequence of this approach is the likelihood of missing potentially
duplicate records increases as the number of records compared decreases.

The solution to this quandary is to accomplish the record comparisons in two steps. The first is to
perform a relatively broad database query to select the most likely records that could be a match.
These records are referred to as the “candidate set” of records. The incoming record is then
evaluated one-by-one against this smaller set of records to determine matched, unique, duplicate
and potentially duplicate records.

When configuring the matching algorithm during implementation, it is also important to carefully
select the appropriate data elements to include in the matching calculation. The greater the
number of elements used to calculate a match, the more time required to perform the calculation.
Equally important, however, is that although the inclusion of more data elements in the matching
calculation may increase confidence that identified duplicate records are in fact duplicates,
increasing the number of matched data elements will also increase the number of identified
potential duplicate records that need to be manually reviewed.

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The following clarifies the matching process in greater detail. This process occurs real-time
when a customer is first entered in a local system and the system informs e*Index of the new
entry.

To determine if a newly identified customer already exists in the customer database, e*Index
first queries the database to identify potential matches and include them in the candidate set.
An example candidate selection query for a banking customer, may retrieve persons with
similar first and last names, the same social security number (to catch full name changes), or
with a similar first name, date of birth and gender (to catch married name changes). For
names, the searching is phoneticized so that similar names (e.g. Robert and Bob) are
matched. The purpose of the query is to retrieve candidates that should be further tested
using more criteria to determine if they are similar enough to be deemed the same.

If no candidates are returned from the query, the new person is known to be unique and thus a
new record is created in e*Index.

When candidates are returned, e*Index compares each returned record with the new record to
generate a single numeric match weight stating the likelihood of match. This processes uses
a richly configurable probabilistic matching algorithm from Vality Technology. This
algorithm is based on complex statistical theory and is far superior to simple rule -based
matching approaches typically employed within applications.

Once the matching is complete, each weight returned is compared to a high and low threshold
set in the configuration.

If the match weight is above the high threshold, it is deemed a match and the new information
and local identifier are added to the current customer record.

If the match weight is below the low threshold, it is deemed not to be a match. If no matches
exist in the system then this new record is added for this new customer.

If the match weight is below the high threshold and above the low threshold, it is considered
to be a potential duplicate. It is added to the database as a new customer and flagged as a
potential duplicate that can be reconciled from a work-list in the Quality Workstation. A user
can look at the two potentially match records side-by-side and merge them together or
reconcile them as separate.

Note that if more than one unique record falls above the high threshold, then each of these is
treated as a potential duplicate and a new record is added to e*Index for the new customer.

Also, if a match is identified within the same local system, then the record is flagged as a
same system duplicate and created as a unique person. This is to ensure that transactions in
and out of the system are not sent to a single one of two possible identifiers until the problem
is deliberately resolved by merging them in both applications. e*Index can send a merge
transaction to external systems to facilitate this process.

The summary of this process is that a new customer record came into the system and was
automatically identified in real time as 1) an existing customer, 2) a new customer, or 3) a
new customer that is a potential match to an existing customer.

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Quality Workstation for Customer Information Management

The Quality Workstation is designed to be used by data administrators to access and manage the
quality of the information stored within the e*Index database. Without the Quality Workstation,
reconciliation of duplicates would be an entirely manual process using output reports generated
by the matching process. This application saves great time and cost by facilitating and
automating this reconciliation process in a secure and audited manner.

e*Index Global Identifier Customer Detail Screen

The following functionality is provided to support the data administrator’s needs:

Search: the Quality Workstation allows searching for individual records using the Universal ID
number, facility code (for the local system) and local identifier pair, social security number, or
combinations of first and last name, date of birth and gender. When more than one record meets
the search criteria, the records are returned in weighted order with the most likely (highest
weight) records displayed first.

Record Maintenance: the Quality Workstation supports all necessary features for record
maintenance. New records may be added, existing records may be viewed, updated or
deactivated, and new local identifiers may be added to existing records.

Potential Duplicate Work List: one of the most important features of the e*Index system is its
ability to match records and identify duplicates in real time. The potential duplicate records are
maintained in a work list that can be sorted either by the system sending the record, by the end-

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user who created the potential duplicate, or by the date and time the potential duplicate was
created (or any combination of these). From the work list, potential duplicates may be merged
together or reconciled as distinct persons.

Merge and Unmerge Records: When records displayed on the potential duplicate work list need
to be merged, the Quality Workstation provides the ability to display the two duplicate records
side-by-side, as well as highlighting the differences between the two records. Using this feature,
Quality Workstation users are able to individually select which record should be retained after
the merge, as well as individually select which fields from each record should be preserved in the
retained record.

Security: the e*Index system protects the information within the application by restricting access
to the Quality Workstation to logged in users and their allowed activities. Users must be granted
functional permissions such as view, update or merge to be able to perform these activities. For
ease of administration, the permissions can be granted to groups and users within the groups will
inherit the allowed permissions.

Auditing: the e*Index system provides a full history of all modifications made to each record,
beginning with the creation of the record. This audit trail is displayed as a series of before and
after views of the record, with the differences highlighted for easy reference. The source system
and type of transaction are captured for each modification, as well as the end-user of the source
system that generated the update transaction.

Application Reporting: The Quality Workstation provides a robust reporting capability,

allowing access to all of the transactions received by the e*Index system. For example, a
list of all “add new customer” transactions for a specific system or time period can be
created, with the Quality Workstation providing full drill-down capability to the actual
transaction detail.

e*Index provides a number of standard reports that can additionally be scheduled and
automatically delivered through a variety of means including email, fax, etc. For additional
reporting needs, the database is accessible using any commercially available ODBC
compliant third-party reporting tools.

Accessible from any Application

As an integral part of a robust e-Business Integration (eBI) platform, e*Index can facilitate the
sharing of information between any type of systems using e*Gate’s extensive connectivity.
SeeBeyond’s depth of experience gained deploying e*Gate to connect more than 600 different
types of applications over the past decade greatly speeds deployment and lowers the cost of the
complete ‘Single Customer View’ solution.

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Architectural Considerations

e*Index can be operated in a background mode (known as a passive implementation), or actively

integrated with end-user applications (known as an active implementation).

In either case, transactions are sent to the e*Index system in real time, evaluated by the embedded
matching logic for potential matches, and cross-indexed to existing records or added to the
database as new records. In the active mode, the functionality provided by e*Index is
incorporated into or accessed by existing applications.

Passive Implementation

The basic implementation for e*Index is a passive implementation. In this mode of operation,
transactions from the participating local systems are sent to e*Index in real time as they occur.
The person referenced in the transaction is identifie d as one of the following:

New Record: Each incoming record is evaluated against the e*Index database to determine if a
record for the same person already exists in the database. If a record for the person does not
already exist, and no potential duplicate records for the incoming person are identified, the
incoming record is assumed to represent a new person and a new record is added to the e*Index
database.

Duplicate Record: If the incoming record is determined to be a duplicate across systems, the
existing record is updated to reflect the new information contained in the incoming record, AND
the local identifier and sending system name are added to the cross-indexed local identifier table.

Potential Duplicate Record: If a record sent to e*Index is determined to be a potential duplicate

to an existing record, or records, the incoming record is added to the database as a new record
and a link established between the new record and any other potential duplicate records. Each
record pair is then available for subsequent review to determine if the records are in fact
duplicates.

Update to an Existing Record: An incoming record is identified as an existing record if the local
person identifier is already in the database. In this case, the existing record is updated to reflect
the new information contained in the incoming record.

The end result of a passive implementation of e*Index is a comprehensive database of unique

customer records, with each customer cross-indexed to all of their different identifiers used across
the enterprise. Once created, this database is also kept current by real time transaction feeds from
each information system, so that any time a customer record is updated in one system, the change
is made to the customer’s record in the e*Index database. As a result, the e*Index system
becomes the single, authoritative source for the most accurate and up-to-date customer
information throughout the enterprise.

Included in a passive implementation of e*Index is the ability to “broadcast” updated customer

information any time a record in the e*Index system is modified. In this manner, the most recent
information about a customer is available within any participating information systems that can
accept the updates. The e*Index system enables this by sending these updates to each
information system using the specific customer identifier for each receiving system.

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Active Implementation

Passive implementation of e*Index delivers real value to organizations. However, this value can
be increased dramatically by moving to an active implementation. In this mode of operation,
existing information systems are modified to query the e*Index database for customer
information, rather than their own internal customer databases. In this way, customers that have
been registered anywhere within the enterprise are available to every other information system,
improving both customer service and data quality. As an added benefit, the sophisticated
matching algorithm embedded in e*Index is then available at the point of customer data entry,
helping to reduce customer identification errors by displaying all customer information with the
most likely matches first.

e*Index supports active integration in a variety of ways. First, the e*Index API is directly
accessible to applications to provide access to all of the functions supported by the e*Index
application. This API supports C, Java, Monk and COM calls. Alternately, messages can be sent
through e*Gate which can then access the e*Index API to perform desired functions including
customer lookups, record updates or adds, etc.

Active integration using the e*Index API or through messaging with e*Gate is referred to as
“cooperative” active integration, since these approaches all require some level of cooperation
from the participating local systems. This cooperation can be in the form of pre-packaged
application functionality that allows working with an external customer database, or a willingness
to make system modifications, or access to source code that can be appropriately modified.
When these approaches are not possible, SeeBeyond has also developed several non-cooperative
strategies that do not require the cooperation of the local system.

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Implementation Planning

The implementation of an e*Index solution follows a well-established deployment methodology

with a history of on-time and on-budget implementations. This process includes the following
steps:

Data Investigation

The data investigation phase requires extracting a complete set of customer records from each
system that will be participating with the e*Index application. The extracts should contain all the
fields to be used for matching. The Vality INTEGRITY Data Re-engineering Environment is
then used to profile these records. This profiling process allows identification of default field
values, field-formatting inconsistencies, frequently unpopulated or incorrectly populated fields,
etc. Based upon these profiles, standard methods can be determined to either accept or correct the
variation that is found in the data in preparation for the next step, which is to determining the best
matching algorithm configuration for the specific fields available.

Algorithm Customization

Once the characteristics of the data have been determined, and any data formatting errors
corrected, it is time to configure the matching algorithm. The INTEGRITY Data Re-engineering
Environment allows any fields in the record to be considered as part of determining a match, with
the output result of the matching calculation being a single number indicating the likelihood of
match between two records. This likelihood of match can be based upon a purely statistical
computation determined by the relative frequency of different field values in the actual data
extracts, or can be customized to reflect desired field weights determined by the client. In either
case, the resulting algorithm, tailored for an individual client and their specific data, is then used
to created a callable library which is used by the e*Index system in real time. Another product of
this step is the creation of standard matching reports that identify duplicate records within each
system, as well as duplicate and potentially duplicate records between systems. These reports are
used to help determine the appropriate matching thresholds configured within the e*Index
system, as well as source documents for any duplicate cleanup planned within the local systems.

Data Conversion

A significant decision to be made during an e*Index implementation is whether or not to back

load customer data into the e*Index database (also known as a data conversion) prior to
production use of the system. If the decision is made to do a data conversion, then each of the
extracts from the participating systems are converted into the e*Index database using the identical
matching routine that will be employed in real time operation. The end result is a fully populated
e*Index database, with all cross-indexing accomplished and potential duplicates identified. For
large record sets (i.e. millions) this is a substantial effort and can require weeks of processing
time. An equally viable option in some circumstances is to put the e*Index system into
production with no conversion, and let real time transactions cross-index customers as they
present themselves. Similarly, you may only want to back load customers that have been active
in the past two years.

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Integration Interface Setup

Integral to every e*Index implementation is the creation of real time interfaces from the local
systems to the e*Index application. This step of implementation will include the implementation
of any id-switching functionality desired between systems, as well as development of any
approach to automatically send our customer demographic updates to selected systems. With the
flexibility inherent in the e*Gate architecture, the sky is the limit with regard to what can be done
here, since every feature, function and data element in the e*Index system is available in real time
through e*Gate.

Application Configuration

The e*Index application provides a wide array of configurable features that can be modified
during implementation. Perhaps foremost among these configurable items are the high and low
matching thresholds, but also configurable are the source system names, types of transactions
sent, and user security permissions along with a variety of other choices.

Operations and Support

The e*Index application requires minimal system administrator intervention beyond scheduled
backups and periodic review of the error logs. On the business operations side, however, the
value of e*Index is greatly enhanced when staff are tasked with reviewing and resolving
potentially duplicate records. While a significant number of records may be automatically
matched and cross-indexed by the e*Index system, the threshold values are typically set to avoid
incorrect matches. This means there will be potential duplicate records that must be reviewed and
manually resolved. It is important to note, however, that the e*Index system continues to
function and provide value, and no information is ever lost, even if potential duplicate records are
not promptly resolved. This is also an area where active integration can greatly decrease the
number of potential duplicates which must be reviewed retrospectively, since the user at the local
system is actually reconciling the customer with the records in the e*Index system in real time at
the point of customer interaction.

© 2000 SeeBeyond, All Rights Reserved

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 e*Index Global Identifier – Enabling a Single Customer View

The Benefits of e*Index

e*Index accelerates e-Business effectiveness by providing the flexible architecture to enable rapid
implementation of e-Business and CRM initiatives to quickly capitalize on opportunities. This
infrastructure also speeds the realization of benefits from corporate mergers, acquisitions and
strategic partnerships.

e*Index streamlines operations by enabling consistent customer information management across

the enterprise to improve customer satisfaction, all with minimal user effort and cost to maintain
data quality.

e*Index leverages existing IT investments by cost effectively extending and integrating legacy or
packaged applications into a customer-focused, strategic architecture.

In the larger picture, e*Index enables a single customer view across the enterprise that improves
customer satisfaction leading to greater customer retention and increased profits.

The Future of e*Index

e*Index is currently implemented for persons with plans to accommodate more generic items in
development.

The e*Index application will be flexibly able to address the cross-indexing and cross-referencing
data service needs of all types of information across otherwise semantically disparate applications
to enable rapid eBusiness integration.

About SeeBeyond

As a market leader in eBusiness solutions, SeeBeyond (Nasdaq: SBYN - news) provides the
platform to allow companies worldwide to eliminate the boundaries and simplify the complexities
of sharing information among applications, both within their enterprises and among their
suppliers, partners, and customers in real time.
TM
The SeeBeyond e*Xchange eBusiness Integration Suite provides an infrastructure that is
rapidly deployable and infinitely scalable to meet customers' growing needs. With more than 10
years of experience operating under the name SeeBeyond, SeeBeyond has successfully integrated
systems at more than 1,300 organizations worldwide, including ABN Amro, Barnes &
Noble.com, Bausch & Lomb, Daimler-Chrysler, Florida Power & Light, Fluor Daniel, Hewlett
Packard, PETsMART and Pfizer.

Key global business and technology consulting partners include Accenture, EDS,
Computer Sciences Corporation, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, KPMG Consulting and
PricewaterhouseCoopers. Software partners include Broadvision, Onyx Software, Oracle, SAP
and Siebel Systems.

SeeBeyond Technology Corporation has global headquarters in Monrovia, Calif. and sales and
marketing headquarters in Redwood City, Calif. Asia Pacific headquarters are located in Sydney,
Australia. For more information, please visit www.seebeyond.com.

© 2000 SeeBeyond, All Rights Reserved

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