Debugging Siebel eScript - Write Property Set to file

This is one of the tricks that i use to debug Siebel scripts. It is really useful if you are working on the product configurator. As most of the events in configurator have property set as argument to it, and there is no debug window to see runtime property values for the events.

How to see the SADMIN / SIEBEL password un-encrypted!

Today i have seen a very strange data in Siebel database that actually shouldn't be there just as a un-encrypted free text. I think people from Siebel Admin would know that which table i am talking about.

In-process reentrance is NOT supported for JMS, MSMQ and MQ Series transports

Process re-entrance refers to calling of same method of the business service again before the first call has not been completed.

How to change default location of logs on Siebel Server !

Location of Siebel Server logs is set while installation of the server. And most of the time Administrator keeps it to the default location i.e.. sea77\siebsrvr\logs directory. But sometimes the installation location of siebel server is kept on very small and faster disk drives to improve performance, thus there is no or very less space is left on the drive for the extended log levels.

Date functions in Siebel eScript

If you have worked on any date field then you would be knowing that some of the standard date functions are not available in Siebel escript, like converting date from one format to another, adding number of business days to a particular date, comparing two dates etc.,

Here are some methods built in eScript that perform these operations.

Case Insensitive Query in Siebel by using LIKE operator !

I think most of the readers would know how to perform an case insensitive search/query in Siebel. Those who don't read on!

Case insensitive query in Siebel means to query the database records using the LIKE operator in SQL. This type of SQL tends to be slow as they return more records than the equal (=) operator.

Get Workflow Instance Id from the process property value!

Workflow Instance monitor is one of the best out of the box debugging techniques available in Siebel. But this also lacks in some aspects.

As most of developer would know that there is no way in instance monitor view to identify the workflow instance for specific object id or process property value.

Alternate use of List Of Values

Most common use of list of values comes in implementation of multilingual siebel applications. But its global presence all over the applications objects makes them extremely useful for writing switches in codes/workflows. I saw one great use in creating the stubs for the real time interfaces in Siebel EAI.

How to generate random number in Siebel eScript?

Recently I had a requirement to generate non-repetitive random numbers in siebel escript. I searched the siebel tools help and found Clib.rand() function to the rescue. And using it was also very simple.

Accessing Field in Siebel Browser Script

Accessing a field in browser script can a bit pain, for someone who is new to the browser scripting. There is no direct way to access the field in browser scripts that are not shown on the applet at run time.

This is because the browser script works on the DOM elements not the Siebel Objects. Siebel to support its syntax, publishes some of the objects and methods in the browser script.

There is a workaround to access field in the browser script:
1. Add a control in the applet with the required field.
2. Set the HTML Type of control to Hidden.
3. Add this control on the list applet as column or on the header (where buttons are placed) of the form applet.
4. Create usual script to GetFieldValue. Now you will be able to get the value inside the script.



There are also lots of restriction in the browser script as compared to Server Script, some of them being:

• TheApplication() in eScript is converted to theApplication() in JavaScript.
• We can not use theApplication().GetBusObject(), can only use theApplication().ActiveBusObject();
• Cannot Get and Set Field values that are not shown on the UI.
• Cannot use InvokeMethod("LookupValue") (this creates lots of troubles in developing multilingual prompts.)

Siebel Message Property Set

The Next buzz word that we hear in Siebel EAI is Siebel Message or IO Hierarchy. It appears to be very similar to XML hierarchy, but it is not!

Siebel Message or IO Hierarchy is an instance of an Integration Object in form of property set. It is mostly used in EAI workflows, but it can also be very useful in scripting and business processes.

What is Integration Object? : It is an structure that defines the Siebel Data that is needed to be integrated with Other applications.

An IO defines Business Object whose data will be integrated, BC whose fields will be updated, and the fields that will be used.

What is Integration Object Instance? :

When an Integration Object is used to query siebel database it results in an property set that contains the data in the structure represented in the Integration Object.

This output property set is called Siebel Message.

How Siebel Message is different from a Property Set?

Siebel Message is actually a property set whose type is set to "SiebelMessage".Most common method to create a Siebel Message is by calling Query Method of EAI Siebel Adapter Service.

This service creates the properties with Name specified in the Integration Components Fields.

On the other hand XML Hierarchy contains property name from the Integration Component XML Tag.

Mapping between Siebel Property Set and XML

I think first problem that we face in EAI is understanding the mapping between the Siebel Property Set and the XML. But once this mapping is clear Siebel EAI becomes lot more easier module to work on.



XML as we all know is the structured data trasfer language, and property set is set of variables contain values in form of string name value pairs. There are lots of vanilla services available in siebel tools that converts the property set in to an XML or write the property set to a file.


Let see how the property set is converted into an XML.

A Property set contains four parts which we can get and set by eScript methods.

Note : A property set can contain child elements , which can themselves be a Property Set, and can have Type , Property and a Value.

Similarly an XML contains:



Siebel converts
Type of property set to XML Element ,
Properties are added as Attrbutes,
Value is kept as Value of the Element
and child properties are added as child elements in XML.


This can be demonstrated by following code:


It will produce an XML output like this:

Workflow Revision Failed : SBL-DAT-00393: An end of file error has occurred.

Recently I faced a strange bug in my Siebel Tools. Whenever i tried to revise an workflow, i was getting this error :

An end of file error has occurred. Please continue or ask your system administrator to check your application configuration if the problem persists. (SBL-DAT-00393).

And after i press Ok button, tools hangs and every time i have to restart the tools.

Even when i tried to connect directly to the database server the error was re-occurring. And this was happening with a specific workflow only. I was very much bugged up at that time.

I searched support web but still couldn't find any reason behind this in Siebel Tools.

Then one of colleague suggested me to delete excess versions of workflows in tools to get it done.

At first i thought it wouldn't help, but yes it worked!!

I must say, Siebel has got mind of his own! Thanks to Manuj, who helped me to get this thing done.

Extending Column in Siebel : Video Tutorial

I haven't came across any siebel implementation till yet, that doesn't requires extension of siebel base tables. 

This usually required when siebel table doesn't have any column that can support the required data type or when there is additional data required at the business layer.

Although it can be achieved by using the extension table, but it is recommended that fields that are shown on UI or used frequently in the script should exists in the base column. 

This is because that extension column requires an additional join in the sql query. And every time BC based on the base table will be queried, extension table will also be called into the memory. 

Here is one video from you tube that explain the whole process of extending column as a screen cast.

Tom Siebel at Stanford University: Glory Days Long Gone for I.T.?

Here are some videos of Entrepreneurial Thought Leader Lecture at Standford University by Tom Siebel who started siebel systems and sold it to oracle.

Have a look what he has to say to new entrepreneurs @ stanford. 



Description
Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, paints a picture of the dramatic explosion of the dot-com boom; an era, he recalls, where "risk was a business problem, and not an anathema." With a 17 percent growth rate - an increase unprecedented before or since, says Siebel - the business opportunities of the 1980's era appeared to be unlimited. Changes in technology were total replacements, rather than incremental, meaning that every client had to buy and keep buying or find themselves lagging into obsolescence. He credits this free market flow with conjuring a revolution in computing and communications.


Description
Most of the promise of post-industrial society has been realized, says Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, and all of the great technological advances and development of great companies are behind us. The tech sector is hovering around a mere three percent annual growth rate, says Siebel; keeping it just on par with the rate of current economic growth.



Description
The globe's human population is currently around six-and-a-half billion, and it is slated to reach nine billion people in the next twenty years. Tom Siebel, Chairman of First Virtual Group, points out that this sharp increase will propel a worldwide demand for food, water, energy, and healthcare. And, he adds, the business opportunities in providing these essentials are unparalleled.



Description
Facing the likelihood of carbon reporting and carbon tracking that will be necessary with upcoming cap and trade legislation, Tom Siebel, First Virtual Group Chairman, announces a new initiative to help reduce the cost of reporting on an enterprise's carbon footprint - a tool that he foresees will serve a $3 trillion market in 2020.



Description
Forward-thinking entrepreneurs should consider government restrictions in their long-term business planning, says First Virtual Group's Chairman Tom Siebel. They should also be aware of the opportunities that exist through population growth and a growing demographic of the aged. And they should be thinking about solving the energy problem, and the provision of clean food and water for the planet.

Adding Button on Applet – Part 2

In part one of this post I have discussed how we can enable a button on applet and call workflow or service from it using scripting.

But Siebel user properties provides us the way to achieve the same behaviour without scripting. There are two or more solutions to it.

Solution 1 : Using CanInvokeMethod User Property

1. Create control on applet with method invoke property set to required method name.

2. Create an applet user property “CanInvokeMethod” to activate this button conditionally.

3. Add an “NamedMethod” User Property on BusComp or Applet to invoke Business Service or Workflow of your choice.

Solution 2 : Using EventMethodMethodName User Property

1. Create Control applet with method invoke property as : EventMethodMethodName. Where Method Name is your orignal method.

2. Add “EventMethod Enabled” user property on Buscomp to conditionally activate the button.

3. Create a runtime event on PreInvoke of the Buscomp to invoke service or workflow.

Both of these solutions are suitable for our basic requirement of adding buttons on Siebel Applets. 

Please note that these user properties works on CSSBCBase BusComp class and CSSFrameListBase applet class. These are not defualt classes when you create new objects.

How to restrict length of an attribute - Part 2

In Continuation of my earlier post, for constraining the length of attribute, in this post i am explaining what other solution is available in out of the box Siebel application for this problem.
Attribute selected is an event which gets triggered before any attribute's value is updated, this events sends the information of the attribute and the value as property set argument.

XML representation of property set would look something like :

*from bookshelf

Now if this property set is available as argument then i think writing script to constrain its value is not a big task.

I have created this snippet, it worked in my case hope it works for others also.

function Cfg_AttributeSelected (SelectedAttribute)
{
 var temp = SelectedAttribute.GetChild(0);
 var sStr =  temp.GetProperty("NewVal");
 TheApplication().RaiseErrorText("Error");
}

Siebel Product Configurator: How to restrict attribute length?

Requirement

We have one requirement in our project, that we need to restrict the value of one attribute to five characters only.

In Siebel vanilla application we tried to implement this without doing scripting, but failed.

Solution we used:

This requirement can be achieved in two ways:

1. By Scripting in Attribute Selected event. update or 

2. Creating Custom User Properties for product configurator.

I will be discussing the second solution in this post. It will involve editing of cfgui.js . For more info my older posts 

1. Find the following code in cfgui file.

try to find text: function showtextbox.

Updated Section:

2. Replace the code with :

3. Create user property on the root product like:

and you are done!

Now clear cache of browser and restart the client.

Attribute on which you have defined the property will automatically be constrained by the number of characters that you have provided in property.

Hope its is understandable.

For more info how it worked, look at the maxlength property here.

Read only Siebel Product Configurator.

Requirement:
Requirement is to make the Configurator session read only conditionally, so that user should not be able to edit the product configuration but he should be able to view the configuration inside the configurator.

Solution
This requirement can be implemented by editing vanilla/custom JavaScript libraries of the Product Configurator. The most of the work in showing the UI is done by cfgui.jsfile.

Cfgui.js is a javascript library that converts the swe tags to the HTML tags that shows up as UI in siebel application.

For Example:

Here is one code in the swe template :
< id="swe:IncPAId+853" cfgfieldname="AttValue" cfghtmltype="CfgTextBox" forcerefresh="Y" cfgjsshow="showTextBox" cfgjsupdateselection="updateSelectionInfoForAttribute" >


now in cfgui this swe code is converted in to HTML like this:

innerHTML = " < input type=\"teext\" " + "value=\"" + displayValue + "\" " + "id=\"GRPITEM" + _pipe + grpItemId + _underscore + "ATTTYPE" + _pipe + "TEXT" +"\"" + " onchange='processInput(\"GRPITEM" + _pipe + grpItemId + _underscore + "ATTTYPE" + _pipe + "TEXT" +"\", \"\", \"text\")' />";

now when you closely go through the code, you will create the following string at the output:

< type="”text”" value="”Somevalue" id="”generated" onchange="”processInput(“Some arguments") >


and that looks like very basic html snipet, which can be edited to make control read only by adding disabled=true in the js code tag.

To make it work conditionally, we can check for the some profile attribute inside the js file like this:

var readonly = top.theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ReadOnly");
top.theApplication().SetProfileAttr("ReadOnly","N");

if (readOnly == "Y")
innerHTML = "";

else
innerHTML = "";

Siebel: Adding Button on Applet - Part 1

This is one of the basic thing that we do in our siebel application. And every developer prefer his own way of configuring it.

From my past experience there are two basic requirement for custom buttons :

1. It should invoke a Workflow or Business Service.

2. It should become Active/Inactive  based on certain condition.

Based on these requirements first solution that come to our mind is with a script in Pre_CanInvoke of applet, but there are lot more options available in Siebel for this requirement.

First lets see how a scripting can solve this problem

Solution1: Scripting Applet and BC

1. Create Control in Form or List Applet, Set its method invoke to name of the method.

2. Place it on the web layout of applet.

3. Write following script on applet pre can invoke event:

4. Write the actual code to call service or workflow in Applet pre invoke or BusComp PreInvoke.

This trick work always irrespective of the application or interactivity of the application or the applet type.

But there are options available in Siebel that can be used to  achieve this functionality without use of scripting. We will examine other options in my next post!

Debugging Siebel - Creatng custom logs using Clib.fputs

When it comes to debugging Siebel application, no one beats the Siebel vanilla logs (events logs governed by environmental variables), but every developer use his own techniques to debug his configuration.

In this post I am discussing the way I debug my things.

I add following piece of code at every event that I want to monitor, and add my required parameters to it, and then just compile all the objects and run the scenario.

var date = new Date();

var fp = Clib.fopen("d:\\log.txt","a");

Clib.fputs("\n" + " BCPreInvokeMethod" + " " + date,fp);

Clib.fclose(fp);

In above code first line creates a date object that give the timestamp that will be written in the log file. Second line creates a file pointer that opens file/creates file in write mode. In next line Clib.fputs function writes string to the file.

We can now simply alter string according to our requirement, and get the exact output.

This way i get exact view of events and parameters in a flat file, that makes it really easy to understand the actual problem. If you are trying this code then you will get output something like :

PreInvokeMethod SetAspectSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreInvokeMethod SetAspectSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreInvokeMethod SetDefaultDurationSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod DeleteRecordSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod ShowQueryAssistantSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod ToggleListRowCountSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod ExecuteQuerySun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod GotoNextSetSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod GotoPreviousSetSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod NewQuerySun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod NewRecordSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod PositionOnRowSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod UndoQuerySun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod UndoRecordSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod WriteRecordSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod ShowPopupSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod GetBookmarkURLSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod FileSendMailSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod FileSendFaxSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

PreCanInvokeMethod FileSendPageSun Aug 02 2009 01:52:19

It can be really helpful if you working on a new siebel application and doesn't know how things work.

Although it takes longer time to get the output, but it really helps when all other options fails.

Siebel Shortcuts!

I prefer most of the things to be automated on my machine and same thing as with siebel. I think most of developers prefer it that way.

In this post i am sharing how we can automate Siebel on our machine and some easy to use shortcuts that can be really helpfull if used.

1. Using automated log in to Siebel Tools and Web client.

It is very boring to enter our same credentials every time we open our Siebel Tools or web client. By using the command line switches provided by siebel we can automate this login process.

See the screen shot showing how we can automate SADIN login to siebel tools for sample database.

Similarly for Web client we can have similat auto login. This way you can create mulple icons for multple dbf's .. These icons when clicked will take direclty tools or web client without any need to log in.

2. Automated login to Siebel Thin Client
Usually most of developer adds thin client URL in IE's favourites. We can also customise this URL to take us direclty to the aplication without showing the loging screen.

Just Add following string after the Thin Client URL and save the as bookmark

start.swe?SWECmd=ExecuteLogin&SWEUserName=[User Name]&SWEPassword=[Password]

Next time you will click this bookmark ... Browser will automatically show the logged in screen.

3. Bookmarks

Siebel has provided feature in siebel tools very similar to favorites in Internet Explorer. We can bookmark any view that we have queried and drilled down in siebel tools, and later in future if we want to go back then we just have click on that bookmark and then tools will show the view exactly where we left it.

Bookmark works on every screen except Workflow Editor View and Script editor view.

4. Other Usefull Shortcuts:

Siebel Tools:

Cntrl +F7 --- Srf compile.

Cntrl+F10 -- Check In Object

Cntrl + E --- Hide Unhide Object viewer

Cntrl + Shift + F9 -- clears all the creak points

SIebel Client:

Alt+Q -- Query

Alt+R -- Refine Query

Cntrl + Shift +X -- -log out

Cntrl + Shift + A --- Go to Site Map

Cntrl + W -- Immediately Kills Active Window.(Use it when going back home :) )

F2 -- Open Pick applets and MVGs

Cntrl + Arrow Up -- Prev Record

Cntrl + Down -- Next Record

Alt + Down -- Next 20 records

Alt + Up --Prev 20 records

Cntrl + 8 -- When siebel client hangs this shortcuts brings back the control to IE, and then you can submit the new requests.

Coming up : Automation of daily siebel server admin tasks.

Editing conflict page of Siebel Product Configurator

Rquirement:To remove proceed button from the conflict page of Siebel Product Configurator.

Background 

Siebel Product Configurator throws and error page commonly known as Conflict page(see below) to the user when user tries to select wrong configuration inside the configurator.

In conflict page user have uption to undo his last action or proceed by removing the object that was constraining his last selection.

Some times objects are added by configurator scripts, and it is required that user should not be able to delete the products or attributes that are added from scripts. 

Solution

This problem can be solved by editing the cfgui.js javascript file .

This file constains javascript code that renders the whole UI of product configurator.The script in the file contains methods that convert the swe tags of the templates file to the HTML tags that shows up as UI.  You can find this file in the public\lang_code\siebel_bulid_number\SCRIPTS directory of siebel web client installation.

On the siebel server these files can be located in the SWSE\PUBLIC\lag_code\siebel_build_number\ SCRIPTS folder

To remove the Proceed button you need to edit the showConflict funtion in this file, to set the display property of proceed button to none.

from script:

switch (conflictType)

   {

      case "Conflict":   

         buttonObj = document.getElementById ("RemoveFailedRequests");

         if (buttonObj)

            buttonObj.style.display = "";

to :

   switch (conflictType)

   {

      case "Conflict":   

         buttonObj = document.getElementById ("RemoveFailedRequests");

         if (buttonObj)

buttonObj.style.display = "none"; 

After these changes, clear the cache of internet explorer and restart the client. Now on proceed button will not visible on the conflict page of the configurattor(see below).

Removing vanilla buttons from the Product Configurator UI

Requirement:

Remove vanilla buttons from the configurstor UI.

Solution:

Solution doesn't involve any configuration in Siebel tools or compilation, it requires editing of the confgirator vanilla template files directly.

Buttons like Done , verify, reprice etc are displayed on confgurator UI as a part of  eCfgTopLevelButtonsJS.swt  template file. 

Buttons in this file are displayed inside the table cells and luckily there not much of css style attached on them.  

So to remove the buttons we can define a style property for each cell that we want to remove. style="display:none"

For Example to remove the Save button from the UI, you need to change the code from :

<td nowrap>
<swe:control id="swe:Cancel" CfgUIControl="Cancel" CfgHtmlType="MiniButton" InvokeMethod="PrevView"/>
</td>

to:

<td nowrap style="display:none">
<swe:control id="swe:Save" CfgUIControl="Save" CfgHtmlType="MiniButton" InvokeMethod="SyncInstance"/>
</td>

Browser Script on fly!

This was almost a year ago, myself along with Neel and other team members were working on product configurator and found vulnerability in the siebel browser script.

Like other web applications, In Siebel also we can inject some javascript in page to extract details or modify some element.  But as siebel has provided access to the theApplication() object in the  browser script.  We could access it in script in address bar. 

Once this object was availble, we were able to set and get profile attribute at any view in the siebel session.

That's not all !!  Siebel script engine doesn't defferentiate between a browser script and server script. The only difference is that in browser script user can only work on the objects that are shown on the current UI.

This means that we can edit the read only fields, those fields that were made readonly at applet level.

I digged some more and uploaded some scripts that can be used readily in any application. 

Try one of the followings: 

(Open siebel application and copy paste the content in the address bar and click GO.) 

1. javascript:alert(theApplication().GetProfileAttr("ApplicationName"));

2. javascript:d=document;c=d.createElement('script');d.body.appendChild(c);c.src='http://siebel.limewebs.com/siebel.js';fields(0);void(0);

3. javascript:d=document;c=d.createElement('script');d.body.appendChild(c);c.src='http://siebel.limewebs.com/siebel.js';editprofile(0);void(0);

Receiving messages from JMS server

In JMS Integration, External System and Siebel doesn't send messages directly to each other. First the messages are placed on queues of the JMS Server, receiver system queries these queues for new messages when required.

For such and implementation siebel provides out of the box receiver server components, that are needed to be configured according to our requirements.

This receiver component executes the ReceiveDispatch or ReceiveDispatchSend method of EAI JMS Transport business service to get new message from queue.

These methods queries the JMS Server and checks in the queue for any new messages. If any message is found, this component invokes a workflow specified, and passes the received XML as input argument.

The name of the workflow is specified in the Data handling subsystem which is of type EAITransportDataHandlingSubsys.

Queue information is stored in Receiver Connection Subsystem that includes the queue name and the credentials.

Wrap up:

Receicver component (Type Enterprise Application Integration Receiver) requires:

1. Receiver Method Name (ReceiveDispatch/ReceiveDispatchSend)

2. Receiver Service Name (EAI JMS Transport)

3. Receiver Connection Subsystem (Contains queue name and credentials)

4. Receiver Data Handling Subsyst (Contains reveive workflow name.)

Setting up Siebel and JMS Integration!

Recently i attended a knowledge transfer session of EAI.  I learn few thing, that i think are worth sharing. In this project all the interfaces were built on JMS queues, provided by TIBCO.

One must not get confused with TIBCO Integration platform and JMS. TIBCO is a provider that have two products, one with JMS queues and other with TIBCO propriety protocol.

I am listing the tasks that are required to setup JMS queues so that your workflow can send /receive messages from the JMS server.

Steps required for sending asynchronous messages

1. Install JRE on all the siebel servers that runs object mangers and policy components.

2. Collect Api in from or jar files from the provider of JMS and place it in a shared location

3. JNDI properties file (this file contains the location and credentials of the JMS sever)

typical JNDI file will look like:

java.naming.factory.initial=com.tibco.tibjms.naming.TibjmsInitialContextFactory

java.naming.provider.url=tcp://ipaddress:port,tcp://fallback-ip address:port

java.naming.security.principal=

java.naming.security.credentials=

4. Java Named subsystem (type JVMSubSys)this information provides link between Siebel and the Java installed in the system.

Thus it requires information of the Java API that is java.dll. Which was installed as a part of Step 1.  And the location of the the jar files in the CLASSPATH parameter.Additionally for debugging purposses we can provide the log file path in VMOPTIONS parameter. 

After this much configuration in siebel you can use the EAI JMS Trasport business service only to send  messages accross the JMS server.(Dont forget to send queue information and credentials as arguments)

Coming up! Receiving messages from JMS server

Structure of Siebel Products

Before starting with the creation of siebel products , one should be familiar with the strucutre of products.

I have tried to depict it as a diagram. A product modelled in siebel is composed of Attributes (which are inherited from the product classes) and child products that have thier own set of attrbutes and can have their grand child products also.

This whole structure is created using products relationships and classes. Scripts and Constraints control the way the user can select the product and order it.

At first look it seems to be very simple. But it needs lots of configuration to show a product inside the configurator and enforce all the business rules in it.

I will take an example of an a dummy product and show how to configure it from modelling to Displaying it on UI in my coming posts.

Exploring Siebel Product Configurator

Siebel with version 7.x drastically changed Order Management and product Configurator by introducing a new GUI based Product Configurator and catalog management processes.

For those who are completely unaware of this new terminology should look at Neel’s Blog for a beautiful explanation. It is basically a tool that is built inside the Siebel that allows users to configure the product using graphical interface. It enables user to configure the products based on business rules and moreover the product compatibity rules.

For Example If a product is visible to a partner and hidden from other then it’s a business rule. But there are some rules specific to the products. For example if user is configuring a notebook computer then he must buy power supply compatible to the model selected, or if user have selected Windows Vista then computer must have at least 2 GB memory in it.

Product Configurator is closely coupled Siebel Pricing engine. It helps to show the price of the product inside the Configurator immediately on selection of any product in the Configurator.

Before going in to detail of configuration one can refer Neel’s blog part 2 on product configurator.

Few words of caution for new Product designers:
1. As divisions in Siebel, product are once created can’t be deleted in the Siebel although they can be made hidden in the application.
2. They are completely built inside the Siebel Client, not in Siebel tools.
3. They are migrated from one environment to other using Workspace import export utility.
4. To make any product visible in the system (visible in the pick applets), designer must release product once and end date of release should be valid.
5. There are several ways to make product hidden in the system, one of them being the orderable flag. If it is unchecked product won't be visible in the pick applet across the applications.



Next Post: How to create and configure products in Siebel?

Introduction to Siebel 8 Task Base UI

Task base UI is one the most talked about feature of Siebel 8.  In this presentation Scott Nash from oracle is explaining the need and the facilities that task UI Provides. 

Coming Up : Building Task UI in Siebel 8

How to use output of Business Service Simulator?

If you have ever developed business services and workflows you must have definitely gone to Business Service Simulator View, to test or simulate business services or workflows.

But have you ever wondered that can we use the output arguments of the simulation again as input to the next simulation?! Even i didn't really thought about this earlier, until in Acceptance test of our project i needed to reproduce the behavior of one my workflow in controlled manner.

At that time one of my colleague suggested me to use Move to Input in built functionality of the Siebel Business Service Simulator.

Lets see how it is done:

1. Go to Administration Business Service Screen and Simulate the first service.

In my case I first simulated EAI Siebel Adapter Service Query Method to generate Siebel message..

2. You will then see a record created in the grandchild Applet containing the output properties of the business service. Now if you want to use this output as input to another business service then there is one way to copy and paste value into the input or to use Move to Input button!!!

This button copies the output property set record to the input, and then these can be used to simulate another business service.see screenshot:

This is becomes very useful if our service is expecting derived inputs. By use of this we can simulate certain steps of workflow on the run.

Please let me know if it helps anyone. :)