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About High Interactivity and Standard Interactivity

The Siebel CRM applications run in the Web browser using one of three clients: Siebel Open UI, high interactivity, or standard interactivity. Traditionally, high interactivity has been used for employee applications and standard interactivity has been used for customer applications.

NOTE:  Siebel Open UI, a new user interface deployment option, is an alternative to the high interactivity client (for employee applications) or the standard interactivity client (for customer applications). Most of the information in this chapter pertains only to high interactivity or standard interactivity and has not been significantly updated. For more information about Siebel Open UI, see About Siebel Open UI.

For more information about the Siebel client types that use the user interface deployment options in this chapter, see About Siebel Client Types.

High interactivity is designed to provide Siebel application users with a user experience similar to that of traditional GUI-based Windows applications. High interactivity reduces the number of page refreshes (compared to standard interactivity) when a user interacts with the application, browses through records, and so on. This degree of interactivity is made possible by requesting data-only updates from the server. The application thus makes optimal use of network bandwidth.

For example, a high interactivity client does not require a page refresh for creating a new record. A user creates a new record by clicking New. A new row is created in a list dynamically, without a page refresh. The user enters the relevant data, then clicks outside of the record to implicitly commit the change, again without a page refresh.

Some of the features of the high interactivity framework are:

• Fewer page refreshes.
• Support for client-side scripting.
• Support for implicit commit. This feature enables automatic saving when a user steps off of a new or modified record.
• Other usability features, including:
  • Lists displayed in special applets
  • Drag-and-drop column reordering
  • Drag-and-drop file attachments
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Smart controls for calendar, calculator and currency
  • Applet scrollbars

The high interactivity framework requires the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser running in a Windows environment and uses both ActiveX controls and Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Deploying Siebel applications in high interactivity mode requires adhering to strict guidelines regarding the deployed operating system, Internet Explorer version and settings, and JRE.

High interactivity is available for use with Siebel employee applications. Standard interactivity is available for Siebel customer applications. For information about supported browser versions for high interactivity or standard interactivity, see My Oracle Support Certifications. For detailed browser configuration information for high interactivity and standard interactivity, see Siebel System Administration Guide.