New Siebel Composer feature and IP 2015 Vs IP 2014

Siebel Composer is an exciting new feature being introduced in Developer Preview mode in IP2015, the ability to develop Siebel in the browser and deploy changes in real-time is causing great excitement amongst Siebel customers.

Questions on the new Siebel Composer feature and IP 2015 Vs IP 2014

Q1) What are the changes from IP2015 vs. IP2014, with regard to GUI and OpenUI themes (Will “Aurora” still be there?)
A1) There are no significant changes in the GUI. Some bug fixes, a new theme (Simplified UI) and some new UI visualizations. Yes, Aurora is intact.

Q2) How stable are the OpenUI themes? (e.g. “tangerine“ and “grey“ were de-supported in IP2014)
A2) We’re not expected themes to change significantly until at least IP2016. Themes need to keep up with time, so expect some changes. Following the Siebel Open UI Best Practices for theme development/customization will minimize the impact of changes to OOTB themes. Siebel Open UI Deployment Guide (Doc ID: 1499842.1)

Q3) What’s the upgrade path for GUI customizations, e.g. are there changes in the CSS structure in IP2015?
A3) The class names themselves are mostly intact and we have backwards compatibility to IP2013 themes (even though we don’t ship the IP2013 themes), but Aurora is a brand new theme built from the ground up with Responsive Web Design in mind.

Q4) Can (GUI) customizations be easily transferred to IP2015 or will there be enhanced effort to rebuild that stuff?
A4) As long as Siebel Open UI Best Practices for CSS Customizations were followed, effort to apply to a future Open UI release should be minimal. Rebuild would not be needed in this case.

Q5) Regarding the existing use of OLE functionality and Siebel ActiveX components, because these will no longer be available with OpenUI, what alternatives are there?
A5) Browser based Java objects would be the best option for the short term. Note: most browsers are removing support for NPAPI later this year or with the next major release. So, java based/plugin based client side have a very short shelf life.

Q6) Can you give any indication about the volume of the changes in IP2015?
A6) IP2015 is a smaller release, hence IRM based content is much smaller going from IP2014 to IP2015. It’s hard to put an exact number on it, but it is certainly smaller than IP2013 to IP2014.

Q7) How are Workflows being edited in Siebel Composer in IP2015?
A7) Workflows remain in Tools for IP2015, Siebel Composer is only being released as a Developer Preview in IP2015 and not intending to be fully functional just yet.

Q8) How about Web Templates and Siebel Composer?
A8) Web Templates are migrated from SWT files to Tools metadata. Migration runs as part of the IRM process. Editing web templates in Siebel Composer in IP2015 is not recommended just yet, because it does not come with an intuitive facade, but in IP2016 this will be addressed when Siebel Composer is completely ready.

Q9) Will Siebel Tools still be enhanced?
A9) Focus is on Siebel Composer as the new development environment for Siebel. Hence Siebel Tools development will shrink over time as functionality from Siebel Tools is fully moved over to Siebel Composer.

Q10) What changes will happen to the SRF technology
A10) For the first couple of releases, the SRF mode will still be there, but it will support only the features that it supports today. All new features for Responsive Web Design, Deployment Agility, Siebel Composer, etc will be available in the no SRF mode.

Deleting multiple records using scripting in siebel

Below is small script that help you to delete multiple selected records by users-

function deleteSelectedRows(){

try{

var bExist = "";

bExist = this.BusComp().FirstSelected();

while(bExist){

this.InvokeMethod("DeleteRecord");

bExist = this.BusComp().NextSelected();

}

this.BusComp().WriteRecord();

return (CancelOperation);

}

catch(e){

throw e;

}

Change The Siebel Default/Vanilla Error Message In Custom/User-Friendly

Requirement:

The requirement is to throw a user-friendly message in place of the default/vanilla error message thrown by escript on the UI in Siebel.

for example, if we have the error message thrown on the UI as shown in screenshot below:

We need to replace this Siebel error message with a User-Friendly error message “Error Invoking the Business Service in Siebel”

Solution:

Follow the below steps to implement this requirement.
1. In Siebel Tools, place the try, catch and finally block

2. Configure the catch block in your script as below:

Notes:
Just add your Siebel error code in the str.indexOf(“<error code>”) in the catch block and throw a message as per your requirement.

3. Compile the changes in your SRF and launch the Siebel Client to see the above Siebel error message replaced with a user-friendly error message as below:

Writing an application level PR in Siebel Open UI

Here I am going to describe how to write a JS file in Open UI on application level means it will work for all applets or any view or screens.

Now first question arise in someone’s mind is why we need such a JS file as we can already implement applet level PM-PR files..?

Well in my case I need to implement accordion effect on 3 applets of a view. I need a JS file which is available on application level. 

How to register application level PR:

• Go to Manifest Administration,
• Query for TYPE=”Application”
• Result will be 2 entries, copy Platform Independent
• And register your general JS file in this object

How to call methods defined in this file:

We have to call these methods from postload.js file. So, here is the sample how postload.js looks like.

SIEBNS.DAT file gets CORRUPTED (Siebel Gateway)

SIEBNS.DAT file stores all parameters of servers, enterprise, components and others, configured at the time of installation or later.

When we change some parameters in the Siebel Server Administration and restart Enterprise or Siebel Server, the siebns.dat file gets corrupt and therefore, Siebel Server won’t start any more.
That behavior happens often, but not always. There can be many possible scenarios/cause for this.

In our case, We tried to disable server components. After restart Siebel Server, the siebns.dat files corrupt.

CAUSE

Possible reason behind this behavior is bad Configuration/ Setup

SOLUTION

Well you must have a backup of this file to replace it quickly. Then below are the root cause that the siebns.dat file became corrupt, so be careful next time.

1. The Siebel server was started too early after a shutdown of the server. Please make sure that the
server is completely shut down by verifying the status of the server through the server manager
command line utility (srvrmgr) and that all sieb* processes (such as siebsvc.exe, siebmtshmw.exe,
siebsess.exe, …) are exit for that specific server.

2. The gateway was stopped but still one Siebel server was running belonging to the environment.

To shut down a Siebel deployment please follow the correct sequence
– Shut down the Siebel Server service(s)
– shutdown the Resonate service if applicable
– Shut down the Siebel Gateway service
– Shut down the Database Server

IP 2014: How to set default Navigation Control in Aurora Theme

In Siebel Innovation Pack 2014, Oracle provides a default theme “AURORA”. And in most of the cases we don’t need much customization as we do in Open UI earlier versions.
For navigation controls (Menu Options), we got three below controls which can be easily changed by Users from Administration – Application -> User Prefrences -> Behavior

TAB

SIDE MENU

Side Menu Layout

TREE

TREE Explorer Layout

But we can’t ask all Users to choose their preferences (not recommended). So, we must have a option to set a default navigation control for all Users.

Set default Navigation Control as TAB:

If we remember, to enable Open UI we need to set a Server Parameter “EnableOpenUI = true”.

Same way to set default navigation control, we need to set a Server Parameter.

DefaultNavigation = NAVIGATION_TAB

Here, we can choose any of three options (NAVIGATION_TAB, NAVIGATION_SIDE, NAVIGATION_TREE).

To get this change on Local, we must add this line in CFG file as follows:

[InfraUIFramework]

DefaultNavigation = NAVIGATION_TAB

Hope this will help someone in need.

Oracle GOLDEN GATE Concept & Architecture

Oracle Golden Gate is a tool provided by oracle for transactional data replication among oracle databases and other RDBMS tools like Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, Ingres, MySQL etc.

What we can achieve with this tool:

• High Availability
• Data Integration
• Zero downtime upgrade and migration
• Live reporting database
• Clone Database

Oracle Golden Gate Architecture

Oracle Golden Gate server runs on both source and target server. Oracle Golden Gate is installed as an external component to the database and it won’t uses database resource, in turn it won’t affect database performance.

Golden gate Architecture

MANAGER

 The Manager process runs on both source and target systems and it is the heart or control process of Oracle Golden Gate. Manager must be up and running before you create EXTRACT or REPLICAT process. Manager performs Monitoring, restarting oracle golden gate process, report errors, report events, maintains trail files and logs etc.

EXTRACT:

Extract runs on the source system and it is the extraction mechanism for oracle Golden Gate (capture the changes which happens at the source database).

Extract process captures all the changes that are made to objects that are configured for synchronization.  Multiple Extract processes can operate on different objects at the same time. For example once process could continuously extract transactional data changes and stream those to a decision support database. while another process performs batch extracts for periodic reporting or, two extract processes could extract and transmit in parallel to two replicate processes ( with two trails) to minimize target latency when the databases are large.

DATAPUMP

 Data pump is the secondary extract process with in source oracle Golden Gate configuration. You can have the source oracle Golden Gate configured without Data pump process also, but in this case Extract process has to send the data to trail file at the target. If the Data pump is configured the primary extract process writes the data to the source trail file and Data pump will read this trail file and propagate the data over the network to target trail file.

REPLICAT

 Replicate process runs on the target system. Replicate reads extracted transactional data changes and DDL changes (IF CONFIGURED) that are specified in the Replicate configuration, and then it replicates them to the target database.

 TRAILS OR EXTRACTS

 To support the continuous extraction and replication of source database changes, Oracle Golden Gate stores the captured changes temporarily on the disk in a series of files call a TRAIL. A trail can exist on the source or target system and even it can be in an intermediate system, depending on how the configuration is done. On the local system it is known as an EXTRACT TRAIL and on the remote system it is known as REMOTE TRAIL.

COLLECTOR

 Collector is a process that runs in the background on the target system. Collector receives extracted database changes that are sent across the TCP/IP network and it writes them to a trail or extract file.

(source: Oracle Golden Gate Administration Guide)