Setting Up Custom Siebel Anywhere Upgrade Components

This topic contains information about creating custom components. An upgrade component is a required infrastructure element for the successful creation and deployment of an upgrade kit.

Siebel Business Applications provide many predefined upgrade components, but you can create additional components if you need them. For example, it would be possible to create an upgrade component to run a batch program in the form of a BAT file.

Siebel Anywhere can upgrade custom components, just as it does the predefined components provided with Siebel Business Applications. For correct operation, however, you must define how Siebel Anywhere will monitor and verify the version number for any custom component.

This task is a step in "Process of Planning and Preparing to Create Upgrade Kits".

This topic contains the following information:

"About Monitoring and Verifying Siebel Anywhere Version Numbers"
"Creating a Custom Component"

About Monitoring and Verifying Siebel Anywhere Version Numbers

Siebel Anywhere uses information from the Locate Method, Locate Information, Version Method, and Version Information settings to determine how it must check the version of a component. Depending on the component, Siebel Anywhere uses some or all of these settings.

This topic is part of "Setting Up Custom Siebel Anywhere Upgrade Components".

For more information about when a version check occurs for each type of subscriber, see Table 2-2.

The following information describes how the Locate Method and Version Method settings are used, along with the Locate Information and Version Information settings. An example follows.

Locate Method

The purpose of Locate Method is to build a path to a file or other location, such as a registry. This value is then passed to Version Method to read version information. Table 3-7 describes some available values for Locate Method, each of which specifies a different way to locate version information. For some values, you must specify additional information for Location Information.

Table 3-7 Locate Method Values

Value	Comments
Siebel Root/Siebel Home	Determines the location based on the client's Siebel root directory. Locate Information is ignored in this case. For example, use this method for Siebel Upgrade Wizard components. Both server and client use Locate Method to retrieve the value of Siebel Root.
Registry	Determines the location based on information in the Microsoft Windows registry. Locate Information would contain the path to read in the registry. For example, use this method for Third Party - Microsoft Word components.
Environment	Determines the location on the client by reading an environment variable. Locate Information would contain the name of the environment variable to read.
CCF	Determines the location on the server from a set of common core facility (CCF) parameters. Locate Information would contain the value from the CCF program context. For example, use this method for a Siebel Server Customer Revisions component.
CFG	Determines the location based on reading the client's active CFG file. Locate Information would contain the section and entry to read from the CFG file, plus an optional value to append to the value read from the CFG file. For example, use this method for a Siebel Client Customer Revisions component.

Version Method

This setting provides additional information that is used in conjunction with Locate Method to read the version of a file. Table 3-8 describes the available values for Version Method, each of which specifies a different way to determine the version of the component. For some values, you must specify additional information for Version Information.

Table 3-8 Version Method Values

Value	Comments
File Version	Determines the version based on reading the version of a file. Version Information would contain the name of the file to version check.
Registry	Determines the version based on reading the version from the registry. Version Information would contain the path to read in the registry.
DLL	Determines the version based on executing an entry point in a DLL file. Version Information would contain the name of the DLL file and the name of the entry point. For example, the value BIN\sslcver.dll,VersionString executes the function VersionString in the file `BIN\sslcver.dll`.
Database	Determines the version based on reading the Siebel database schema. Version Information is ignored in this case.
CFG	Determines the version based on reading the client's active CFG file. Version Information would contain the section and entry to read from the CFG file, plus an optional value to append to the value read from the CFG file. For example, use this method for a Siebel Client Customer Revisions component.
SRF	Determines the version based on reading the SRF file. Version Information would contain the section name and the entry name from the active CFG file to be read to determine the name of the SRF file.

Example: How Siebel Anywhere Uses Locate Method and Version Method

The following example shows how Siebel Anywhere checks component versions using the Locate Method and Version Method settings. Table 3-9 shows information that appears in the Upgrade Components list for the Siebel Client Customer Revisions__ENU component, along with comments explaining how each setting is used.

Table 3-9 Example of Locate Method and Version Method Values

Field Name	Value	Comments
Name	Siebel Client Customer Revisions__ENU	The name of the component.
Locate Method	CFG	Information about the location of component version information is stored in the client's active CFG file.
Locate Information	Siebel,ClientRootDir	Information about the location of component version information is stored in the ClientRootDir entry in the [Siebel] section of the client's CFG file. For example, the value of ClientRootDir might be `C:\Siebel\8.1\Client_1` or `C:\Siebel\8.2.2.0.0\Client_1`. (These were the default installation paths for Siebel CRM version 8.1.1 and version 8.2.2, which might apply if you had originally installed those versions.)
Version Method	CFG	The version information is stored in the CFG file specified by the Locate Method and Locate Information settings.
Version Information	Siebel,Version	The version information is stored in the Version entry in the [Siebel] section of the specified CFG file.

Creating a Custom Component

Siebel Anywhere functionality allows you to define your own custom components, if necessary.

This topic is part of "Setting Up Custom Siebel Anywhere Upgrade Components".

The Siebel administrator must define how Siebel Anywhere will monitor and verify the version number for a custom upgrade component. Siebel Anywhere maintains an individual version number for each upgrade component. The version number must be maintained on a Siebel Anywhere subscriber to compare it to the version number in the database. The Siebel administrator can maintain the version number in the application, in a file, or in the Windows registry. For more information, see "About Monitoring and Verifying Siebel Anywhere Version Numbers".

Caution:

It is strongly recommended that you use the Copy Record functionality to copy existing upgrade components and simply rename the new upgrade component so that the correct parameters are used for the new upgrade component. This method is described in the following procedure. Make sure that you also update the Locate and Version columns appropriately.

To create a custom component

Navigate to the Administration - Siebel Anywhere screen, then the Upgrade Component List view.
In the Upgrade Components list, select an existing component that is similar to the component you want to create, and then click the menu button and select Copy Record.

A highlighted copy of the record that you selected appears.
Modify the fields in the copied record to meet your requirements.

Use a meaningful name to describe the function of the component. Make sure that the Min Version and Max Version fields are blank. This information is filled in when the upgrade kits are applied.

Caution:
Limit the value of the Name field to 91 characters or fewer. Exceeding this limit causes synchronization to fail.
For any configuration that you will upgrade using your new custom component, you must specify that the component is a related component for the configuration.

For more information, see "Adding Components to a Configuration".