Bookshelf v7.7: About the Incorporate Custom Layout (ICL) Upgrade Option

Upgrade Guide for DB2 UDB for z/OS and OS/390 > Performing the Siebel Tools Repository Merge >

About the Incorporate Custom Layout (ICL) Upgrade Option

Upgrades: Release 7.x using ICL.

Environments: Development environment only.

If you are upgrading from Siebel 7.x, you can choose to preserve the layout of applets and views. This reduces the workload required to reconfigure customized UI objects after upgrading to a new release that has significant UI changes.

For example, if you are upgrading from Release 7.0.x, you can preserve Release 7.0.x layouts when you upgrade. If you are upgrading from Release 7.5.x, you can preserve Release 7.5.x layouts when you upgrade.

An ICL upgrade preserves the layouts of both standard and customized UI objects.

When to Use ICL

To determine when to use ICL, assess both your current implementation and your future implementation plans.

Use the following factors to assess your current implementation:

The higher the number of customizations of standard UI objects, the greater the benefit from choosing ICL.
If you have customized only a few standard UI objects, choosing ICL may not be cost effective.
If you have customized many standard UI objects but these objects are in applications that do not support ICL, performing an ICL upgrade may not be cost effective.

It is important to assess your future development plans because you can select ICL for only every other upgrade. This means you should choose ICL for upgrades where your customizations are heaviest.

For example, your current release has a moderate number of customized standard UI objects. At the next release, you plan to make heavy customizations of standard UI objects. Consider not choosing ICL when upgrading your current release. This enables you to choose ICL at the next release, when your customizations will be heavier.

You Can Preserve Layouts for Only One Upgrade

You can preserve a release's layouts for only one upgrade.

If you select ICL for an upgrade, then at the following upgrade, the repository merge process requires that you do the following:

Before the repository merge, you must upgrade the UI objects preserved in the prior ICL upgrade to the standard objects for the release from which you are upgrading. This brings your UI forward to the installed release.
Perform the repository merge for the new release. Selecting ICL for this merge is not recommended. If you select ICL, you must review all UI objects to verify that they correctly preserve the layout of the release from which you are upgrading. You must also reconfigure customized applets. If you do not select ICL, you only need to reconfigure customized applets.
After the upgrade to the new release, you must reconfigure customized layouts for applets, views, and screens.

How Layouts Are Preserved

When you select ICL during a repository merge:

The layout of applets in the Prior Customer Repository is preserved.
The location of controls in applets is preserved.
The association of applets to views is preserved.
The layout of views is preserved.
The association views to screens is preserved.
View locations and groupings within screens are similar but not identical.
Changes to navigation in the release you are upgrading to are implemented.
For example, in Release 7.7, a new navigation scheme was introduced. If you are upgrading from a release prior to 7.7, this navigation scheme is implemented during upgrade regardless of whether you choose ICL. If controls in applets conflict with the new navigation scheme, they are handled as described later in this topic.

How the Repository Manages an ICL Upgrade

Repository objects are affected as follows during an ICL merge:

View and applet Web templates, including some child objects, in the New Customer Repository are inactivated and made read-only. Their names are appended with the string -UPG. You cannot delete these objects from the repository or change their modification time.
The inactivated Web templates and child objects are replaced with corresponding records from the Prior Customer Repository. This preserves the layout of the release from which you are upgrading.

What Happens at the Next Release

At the next release, before performing the repository merge, you must reverse the ICL changes by running a Siebel Tools utility that does the following:

Removes the active Web templates and child objects in the repository. (These are the objects that were preserved from the Prior Customer Repository.)
Activates the Web templates and child objects with the -UPG suffix and removes the suffix. This reverses the effect of ICL and upgrades your UI to the standard layouts.

If you do not select ICL, the applet and view Web templates in the New Customer repository replace uncustomized applet and view Web templates in the Prior Customer Repository. This upgrades the UI directly to the new release.

If you select ICL again, the newly activated objects from the Prior Customer Repository would replace their counterparts in the New Customer Repository during the merge. Since you have not previously reviewed the newly activated objects, you would have to review the entire UI after the merge, which would require additional reconfiguration. This is why selecting ICL again is not beneficial.

The Tools utility provides a method for defining a filter to identify Web templates and child objects that have been customized since the prior upgrade. If an object has been customized, it is not replaced by the standard object. You must manually reconfigure these objects after the merge.

The ICL Option Does Not Affect All Objects

In Release 7.7, Siebel Tools objects have a new, read-only property called Upgrade Behavior:

If this property is set to NULL or Preserved and ICL is selected during repository merge, ICL preserves the layout of the previous release.
If this property is set to ADMIN, then ICL does not attempt to preserve the layout of the previous release. Layouts in the current release are applied to the object.

The following types of objects have the Upgrade Behavior property set to ADMIN. The layout of these objects is not preserved even if ICL is selected during the repository merge:

Siebel administrative views and applets where core functionality must be upgraded to include feature enhancements. In some cases, these enhancements have such a large impact on the user interface that preserving layouts from a prior release is not practical.
Siebel Employee Relationship Management (ERM) and Siebel Marketing applets and views, since they have been significantly enhanced for this release.

How ICL Affects Specific UI Objects

When you select the ICL option, you use a new set of Web templates and certain child objects that preserve the layout of the release you are upgrading from. This affects UI objects in the ways listed below.

General UI

The following characteristics apply to uncustomized and customized UI objects when you choose an ICL upgrade:

Layouts are preserved.
Attributes defined on Web templates are preserved. This includes relative positioning of fields and layouts.
Properties of controls or list columns are not preserved. For example, height, width, caption, and pop-up icons are not preserved.
ICL preserves existing controls. No controls are removed. Location of controls is also preserved.
System pages such as Help, About View, About Record, and Technical Support are not preserved.
Font style, color, text size, and object alignment are not preserved.
Stylesheets are not preserved. Web template files are approximations of their 7.x counterparts.

Applets

The following characteristics apply to uncustomized and customized applets when you choose an ICL upgrade:

Associations to views are preserved.
The upgrade converts certain form-based applets to grid layout. If ICL is selected, the postmerge utilities converts them back to flow-based.
Applet drilldown child objects are preserved.
Applet-level and application-level menus are not preserved.
For flow-based applets, field labels are placed on top as in 7.0x and 7.5x. However, you can choose to put the labels on the left as part of setting up the merge.
Release 7.7 added two buttons in attachment applets—New File and New URL. If you select ICL, these buttons will not be added to applets.
As of Release 7.7, MVG dialog boxes display only an OK button to close them. If you select ICL, MVG dialog applets will have both OK and Cancel buttons.
Release 7.7 added a UI feature, Query Assistant. If you select ICL, it will not be added to applets.
Release 7.7 applets have three default buttons—New, Delete, and Query. If you select ICL, applets will keep their existing default buttons.
In Release 7.7, the Reset button was removed from applets. If you select ICL, applets will keep the Reset button.
In Release 7.7, Pick and Association applets support in-line queries. This new feature is implemented regardless of whether or not you choose ICL.

Views

The following characteristics apply to uncustomized and customized applets when you choose an ICL upgrade:

Applets appear in the views they reference.
Their location in the view is preserved.
View Web template child objects are preserved.
On parent list views, detail tabs display in a row near the middle of the view as they do in 7.0x and 7.5x.

Screens

The following characteristics apply to uncustomized and customized screens when you choose an ICL upgrade:

Screens contain the views they reference.
The view locations and groupings will be similar but not identical.

Navigation

A new navigation method, introduced in Siebel 7.7, is applied to the UI regardless of whether or not you select ICL during the repository merge.

How ICL Works with the Upgrade Ancestor Property

The postmerge utilities implement the ICL changes to objects in the New Customer Repository. These utilities do not consider the setting of the Upgrade Ancestor property when making changes to Web templates or child objects. If the postmerge utilities change to Object A, they do not propagate the changes to objects that specify Object A as the upgrade ancestor.

Repository Merges that Do Not Use ICL

For upgrades from Release 7.x that do not use ICL, new Siebel objects, usability enhancements, and layout changes are applied. This modifies the layout of applets, views, and screens and attempts to merge rather than preserve customizations.

After the upgrade, you will need to identify those areas of the upgraded interface where you want to reapply customizations.