Siebel Open UI Training (Part 1): What is Siebel Open UI and its benefits

Welcome to Siebel Open UI training! Over the next 10 modules, we will discuss

1. What is Siebel Open UI and its Benefits
2. Siebel Open UI Architecture
3. Presentation Model Customization
4. Physical Render Customization
5. Manifest File
6. Siebel Open UI Theme
7. Siebel Open UI Debugging
8. Presentation Model Methods
9. Physical Renderer Methods
10. Siebel Open UI Configuration Best Practices

To watch Siebel Open UI training videos, click here: Siebel Open UI Tutorial

So lets start our Siebel Open UI training with a question – what is Siebel Open UI?

Siebel Open UI is a browser client for Siebel desktop and mobile application. To open prior version of Siebel Open UI application, you must have Internet Explorer installed in your system. But as per latest browser trends (Nov 2014-Nov 2015) done by StatCounter, Google Chrome has the largest market share (almost 50%) followed by IE and Firefox. So to give browser flexibility to users, Oracle introduces Siebel Open UI. Siebel Open UI is browser and device independent Siebel client. It does not use ActiveX control. Also it has highly optimized and smart UI for mobile devices.

Siebel Open UI Benefits:

1. Improved User Interface

Traditional Siebel user interface is driven by web template files (SWT) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Except SWT and CSS, Open UI supprots Javascript as well as JQuery. In Siebel Open UI, redesigned user interface has modern look and feel, new controls (such as MVG, Picklist, Calendar, Calculator), better tab navigation. Open UI supports internet browser functions also like Print, Zoom, Find, Bookmarking.

2. Device and Platform Independent

Siebel Open UI is completely device, platform and browser independent application. To run Siebel HI application, you have to have Internet Explorer installed with ActiveX. But Siebel Open UI does not need ActiveX. Also it can run on any modern browser like IE, Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari that supports JavaScript.

3. Mobility

Siebel Open UI has the capability to adjust screen length dynamically for different devices like tablets or smartphones. It has out of box integration with mobile functions like GPS, Email, Calendar sync, Calls, Multi touch gesturing.

4. Shorter Development Cycle

This is one of the major Siebel Open UI advantages over traditional Siebel application. Open UI supports client side customization on run time. It allows to add JavaScript for field validation, business service calling and application layout change. As JavaScript is client side customization, it does not need SRF compilation. You can use JavaScript APIs to manipulate Siebel data like display one field based upon another field value on run time. This repository independent development makes Siebel Open UI more interesting.

You can use browser tools like Inspector, Debugger to develop and test CSS and JavaScript. We will discuss more about browser tools in later module (Siebel Open UI theme).

All these enhanced features help developers to customize application quickly and more efficiently.

With Innovation Pack 2013, Oracle has introduced Incremental Repository Merge that accelerates repository upgradation process without going through major upgrade project.

IRM is not part of our Siebel Open UI training series. To read more about IRM, click here: Incremental Upgrade of Siebel Innovation Pack 2013

To read more about common errors during IRM, click here: Siebel Incremental Repository Merge – errors that we faced

5. Enhanced Out Of Box feature

Siebel Open UI comes with many built in features like

• escape key to undo
• disable right click to increase user experience
• less use of horizontal scrollbar
• supports GPS, Google Maps, Email

6. Support custom theme

By default open UI comes with two themes – Tabbed and Tree (Accordion). You can add custom theme or modify out of box themes as per requirement. Users can choose their favorite theme from Tools > User Preference.

So don’t get surprise if your boring Siebel application looks like Facebook from tomorrow! We will discuss about Siebel Open UI theme in later module.

Beside Siebel Open UI benefits, there are few limitations as well.

• It does not support automatic logout on closing the browser
• It does not do implicit commit on browser back button click
• It does not allow to edit attachment content on the fly. Users have to download the file, update, save and upload the modified file again.
• It does not support Standard Interactivity(SI) applet. Wherever SI Applet comes in the application, you will see a message box ‘Why can’t I see this applet‘.

To enable Siebel Open UI, parameters ‘EnableOpenUI‘ and ‘HighInteractivity‘ must be set to ‘True‘.

If you are using Web client, follow below steps to verify parameters’ values:

• Login into Siebel application as an Administrator
• Navigate to Application-Server Configuration and select the server on Servers view
• Query for the Application Object Manager (AOM) component on Component view for which you want to enable Open UI mode
  • EnableOpenUI = TRUE
  • HighInteractivity = TRUE
• In the Component Parameter view tab, query below two parameters and update values as ‘TRUE‘
• Logout from the application and restart Siebel Server

For dedicated client, add these two parameters in the client cfg file.

If your Siebel Open UI application is not properly configured, you may face this error – ‘Your version of the Siebel High Interactivity Framework for IE, required for use of this Siebel application, may not be current‘. This message pops up when your application is not running in Open UI mode.

Key takeaways from the first module of Siebel Open UI training series:

1) Siebel Open UI is device, platform and browser independent web application

2) It enables developers to do repository independent customization

3) Siebel Open UI benefits

• Improved User Interface
• Device and Platform Independent
• Mobility
• Shorter Development Cycle
• Enhanced Out Of Box feature
• Support custom theme

4) To enable Open UI mode, you must set below two parameters to TRUE

               EnableOpenUI = TRUE

               HighInteractivity = TRUE

If you have any question about Siebel Open UI training, Please feel free to comment below.

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                                                                                                 Module 2: Siebel Open UI Architecture >>

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