Overview of Customizing Siebel Open UI for Siebel Mobile Disconnected

This topic describes an overview of customizing Siebel Open UI for Siebel Mobile disconnected. It includes the following information:

• "Operations You Can Customize When Clients Are Offline"

• "Operations You Cannot Customize When Clients Are Offline"

• "Process of Customizing Siebel Open UI for Siebel Mobile Disconnected"

Operations You Can Customize When Clients Are Offline

You can customize the following operations when the client is offline:

• Create, read, update, and delete parent objects and child objects.

• Modify user interface behavior according to data characteristics, such as read only, required, and can invoke. Siebel Open UI uses the IsReadonly, IsRequired, and CanInvoke methods to achieve this behavior.

You can customize the following items when the client is offline:

• Association applets

• Applet menu and applet menu items

• Pick applets

• Picklists

• Static picklists

• Error statuses

• Static drill downs

• Expressions

• Searches

Operations You Cannot Customize When Clients Are Offline

You cannot customize the following operations when the client is offline:

• Multivalue fields.

• Multivalue groups.

• Dynamic controls. A dynamic control is a type of control that Siebel Open UI creates dynamically at run time. The Siebel repository does not specify a dynamic control. For example, a view might contain a placeholder for a control that Siebel Open UI dynamically creates and displays at run time.

• Dynamic drilldowns.

• Toggle applets.

• Language-dependent code conversion to language-independent code. The Siebel Server does this conversion during synchronization.

• Custom layout modification.

• Effective dating. The Siebel EAI Adapter allows Siebel Open UI to access effective dating data. Effective dating data is data that identifies the start date and the end date for a field or link. A third-party application can request and receive effective dating data from the Siebel application. For more information about effective dating, see Overview: Siebel Enterprise Application Integration and Siebel Public Sector Guide.

• Siebel Application Response Measurement (SARM) usage.

• Siebel eScript or Siebel Visual Basic usage. Scripts that reside on the Siebel Server do not work in an offline client, so you must migrate them to JavaScript that resides on the client. Business service scripts do work in offline clients.

• Drilldown visibility. Siebel Open UI comes predefined to use the visibility that the drill down definition specifies. If this definition does not exist, or if it contains no values, then Siebel Open UI uses the view to determine drilldown behavior. If the view does not specify drilldown behavior, then Siebel Open UI uses business component visibility in the following order to determine drilldown behavior:

  • SalesRep

  • Personal

  • Org

• Numeric totals in applets. Some applets display the total for a series of numbers that reside in a column in a list applet or for all records. Siebel Open UI cannot display these totals while the client is offline.

• COM object usage, such as runtime events, data maps, or variable maps.

• Cascade delete.

• Search specification on a link.

• Sort specification that includes a date field.

• User properties for various objects except for the user properties associated with items described in "Operations You Can Customize When Clients Are Offline".

• Default applet menu items.

• Workflow processes.

• CreateRecord method.

• New record creation from an association popup applet. Siebel Open UI comes predefined to disable this creation. You can customize Siebel Open UI to enable it.

Note the following offline behaviors:

• Siebel Open UI displays only the data that it downloads during a full download for any business component field that it populates through a join that joins different tables.

• If more than one business component references the same table, and if Siebel Open UI modifies a business component record for one of these business components, then it does not populate this modification to the other business components until the user goes online and synchronizes the client with the Siebel Server.

• If the Owner Delete property of a business component is set to TRUE, then the user cannot delete a record in this business component even if this user owns or creates this record. This user must go online to the delete the record. For more information about this property, see Siebel Object Types Reference.

Process of Customizing Siebel Open UI for Siebel Mobile Disconnected

It is recommended that you use the sequence of steps that this topic describes to customize Siebel Open UI to use a Siebel application in a Disconnected client. Siebel Pharma and Siebel Service are each an example of a Siebel application. To view examples that use these steps, see "Customizing Siebel Pharma for Siebel Mobile Disconnected Clients" and "Customizing Siebel Service for Siebel Mobile Disconnected Clients".

To customize Siebel Open UI for Siebel Mobile Disconnected 

1. Configure the manifest, if necessary.

   For more information, see "Modifying Manifest Files for Siebel Mobile Disconnected".

2. Create a new JavaScript file or copy an existing one.

   You must place all custom presentation models and physical renderers in a custom folder. For more information about this folder, see "Organizing Files That You Customize".

3. Register your custom JavaScript method or Siebel business service.

   For more information, see "Using Siebel Business Services or JavaScript Services to Customize Siebel CRM Objects".

4. Add your custom code:

   1. Declare your variables.

   2. Use the CanInvokeMethod method to make sure Siebel Open UI can call your custom method or business service.

   3. Specify the logic for your custom JavaScript method or Siebel business service.

   4. Use InvokeMethod to call your custom JavaScript method or Siebel business service.

   For more information, see "Using Custom JavaScript Methods".

5. Test your modifications.