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About Siebel Tools Configuration Tasks with Siebel Search

Siebel Tools is a declarative software development tool that allows you to configure the underlying data and data presentation of your Siebel application without making changes to the program source code. Standard Siebel applications provide a core set of search object definitions that you can use as a basis for your tailored application. There are no source code modifications, nor modifications to schema. Siebel Tools allows you to create and maintain a custom Siebel Repository file (.srf) to store your custom configurations.

Configuring Siebel Search Using Siebel Tools introduces and explains basic Siebel Tools object definitions, and outlines advanced configuration tasks that allow you to further customize your application. Some basic concepts, important for understanding how you use Siebel Tools to configure Search, are listed in the following topics.

About Find Objects

A Find object definition, which is set up in Siebel Tools, specifies what Find objects and fields are available when a user invokes a Find operation. Users have access to the Find objects that are associated to the application being used, depending on their responsibilities. You may also specify a default Find object for your Siebel application.

Each item in the Search Center's Find list identifies a business component whose records can be searched for matching values that have been entered in the Keywords text box. For instance, if a user searches one term against the Accounts field, the search engine will take the entry, add an asterisk character (*) at the end of the term, and send that information to the query engine. Find queries are case sensitive by default, but this setting may be changed. If multiple fields are entered in the Search Center text box, the entries will be connected with a Boolean AND.

NOTE:  You can enter the equal operator (=) before a query term, and the engine looks for an exact match instead of doing a Starts with (which appends a wildcard at the end of the query).

For more information on Find objects, see About Siebel Tools Find Objects.

About Search Objects

A Search Object is a logical entity that defines all search characteristics and behaviors for a chosen object. A Search Object includes in its definition attributes of a business component and fields to search upon, a drill down results view, a preview view, and records that may be associated with a particular result through the Attach function.

For more information on search objects, including standard and advanced Tools configuration of your Siebel Search operation, see Configuring Siebel Search Using Siebel Tools.