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Portal Agent Restrictions

Portal Agents are meant to bring existing applications and content into the Siebel user interface without requiring additional modifications of the external application. However, this is not always possible due to the way HTML and Web browsers are designed. For example:

• The use of frames by an external application may not be amenable to inline aggregation methods.
• Specific frame references in the returned content referring to global frames (_NEW, _TOP, .parent()) may not be amenable to inline aggregation methods.
• Reliance on JavaScript functions defined in (assumed) external frames may not be amenable to inline aggregation methods.
• URLs that are created dynamically by JavaScript may not be amenable to any fixup techniques, as the URLs would not be easily parsed on the HTML content.

For these reasons, an Inline disposition type does not work often. However, if you control both the Siebel application instance as well as the external application, and can resolve some of these issues, you should be able to get the Inline disposition type to work correctly. For more information about the Inline disposition type, see Inline.

If you do not have control over the external application, the IFrame disposition type is the most likely method that will provide satisfactory results. It works with about 80% of the form-based application sites tested. For more information about the IFrame disposition type, see IFrame.