Use

The fact base is an E-Mail Response Management System (ERMS) component that serves as a data container for any information that is related to an inbound e-mail and can be relevant during rule evaluation.

Integration

Fact gathering services gather data relevant to the inbound e-mail and add the data to the fact base.

The rule engine runtime retrieves data from the fact base and uses it for rule evaluation and processing.

For more information on these integration points, see automated processing Detailed View .

Features

The fact base stores information that is relevant for exactly one instance of an inbound e-mail. Such information may include e-mail content, business partner information, and the incoming e-mail address to which the e-mail was originally sent.

The fact base is organized as an XML document. Its structure is flexible to include any tree structure and content, depending upon your business requirements.

Updates and read access to the fact base occurs through XSL transformations (XSLT) and XPath queries. These standardized methods are platform- and programming-language independent. This provides maximum flexibility if you need to extend the fact base, for example, for data residing in legacy systems.