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Comparing Task UI with Alternative UI Technologies

When deciding whether Task UI is the appropriate technology for your business needs, consider Table 1, which provides a summary of the advantages and constraints of the various UI options.

As shown in Table 1, Task UI is the only technology that supports long-running transactions, and the one that best integrates with business processes (Siebel Workflow). Task UI cannot be used for customer-facing applications, however, because it requires a high-interactivity (HI) client with support for ActiveX.

The power of encapsulating business logic and a guided user interface also comes with a higher price in terms of performance and scalability overhead, when compared with a well-designed ad-hoc UI for power users. As such, Task UI is typically the best technology to use for tasks that are employee-facing, nontrivial, transactional, and which may require tight integration with business processes.

Just like Task UI, other Siebel UI technologies also provide trade-offs between the important features listed in Table 1. For example, SmartScript provides the best integration with Universal Inbox, at the cost of significant performance overhead, as well as the cost of developing and maintaining a scripted solution. For this reason, SmartScript might be a more appropriate technology than Task UI if used to implement simple, nontransactional tasks that require strong integration with Universal Inbox and that are performed rarely enough so as not to jeopardize the scalability of the whole system (for example, a task for review of expense reports might be a good candidate for SmartScript).

On the other end of the spectrum, the ad-hoc UI is the best technology for tasks that are frequently performed, but simpler in nature and performed primarily by power users. iHelp complements the ad-hoc UI nicely for frequently performed and simpler tasks worked on by novice and intermittent users. Web Channel is the preferred technology for implementations that require a customer-facing UI with a specific look and behavior.

Is Siebel Task UI Right for Your Implementation?

Siebel Task UI can provide a quick return on investment when applied to the appropriate business-use cases. Task UI is not a universal answer to every possible problem that your business faces. For this reason, be selective about when to implement it, considering all the trade-offs it entails, as well as the benefits it provides.