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Extended Pick Processing in Siebel Handheld

The handheld is used to capture and record transactions entered by the handheld user. During synchronization, these transactions are processed on the server. A situation may arise in which a transaction fails when it is applied to the Siebel server (through Direct Server Sync). For example, a Siebel Handheld user creates a professional call activity for one of his contacts. However, since he last synchronized with the server, the contact involved in this transaction was deleted from the server database. When he tries to synchronize his handheld, the server does not find his contact, and the call activity for the contact cannot be inserted into the server database. To generalize this example, any transaction that involves data selected through picklists or pick applets fails on the server if that pick data is not present at the time of synchronization.

With many handheld users synchronizing with Siebel server and modifying data at different times, this scenario is not uncommon.

The following describes how a pick transaction is recorded on the handheld device and processed on the server during synchronization. Assume that the handheld user wants to create a new call activity for the contact. In order to do this, the user inserts a new record in the Professional Call screen and "picks" the desired contact. When the contact is selected on the handheld, the Row Id of the contact (Contact Id) is recorded. However, on the handheld, the application does not record any of the pick map fields associated with the contact; only the Contact Id is recorded. When the user synchronizes his handheld, that Contact Id is used to locate the contact record in the server database. The Contact Id is then used to retrieve all of the fields used in the pick map for the Contact Id (Last Name, First Name, Middle Initial, Address, City, State, Zip Code, and so on).

In order to minimize pick processing failures, the handheld must record the pick row Id and all of the pick map data that is required for a successful transaction. This data must be recorded at the time of the pick, so that it can be passed to the server for processing. This enhanced functionality is called Extended Pick processing. Now, when the user synchronizes, the transaction is processed on the server as follows:

• The synchronization process first looks for the pick record on the server database. For example, to add an activity it looks for the contact and, if it finds the contact, it retrieves the necessary data and adds the activity. This is the default behavior.
• If the server does not find the pick map record in the database and extended pick processing is enabled, it retrieves the pick record Id and pick map data from the handheld transaction and applies the data directly to the server.