About Siebel Open UI

To respond to the need for broad support of clients and devices for Siebel Business Applications, to ease the application deployment process, and to improve the application user's experience, Oracle provides a standards-based, open client, called Siebel Open UI.

This topic contains the following information:

"Characteristics and Features of Siebel Open UI"
"Siebel Business Applications That You Can Deploy Using Siebel Open UI"
"Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI"

Related Topics

"About This Guide"

Chapter 3, "Deploying Siebel Open UI for Siebel Business Applications"

Chapter 4, "Features of Siebel Open UI"

Characteristics and Features of Siebel Open UI

Siebel Open UI is a standards-based, open client for Siebel Business Applications. Siebel Open UI provides a rich user interface experience, like the high interactivity client, but it supports any modern browser, like the standard interactivity client. Siebel Open UI is an alternative to these traditional clients and presents many advantages over both.

The following are some of the characteristics and features of Siebel Open UI:

Based on Web client standards. The Siebel Open UI client is an open client based on Web client standards and is a type of rich Internet application. This client runs on any modern standards-compliant browser available on any computing device, but works best on personal computers or laptops. The application layout of tabs, forms, and other user interface elements is determined by the form factor of the browser and the computing device. Using recent browser versions is strongly recommended for optimal functionality and performance.

Applications using Siebel Open UI are optimized for a broad variety of devices, including mobile devices and desktop computers. See also "Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI".

Siebel Open UI uses versions of HTML, CSS (cascading style sheets), and JavaScript that are supported by recent versions of modern browsers. For more information, see"Siebel Open UI Client Requirements" and related topics.

Siebel Open UI does not use ActiveX or Java Runtime Environment, which are used in the high interactivity client. Siebel Open UI requires no browser configuration or special deployment steps on the client computer.

Native browser features in the Siebel Open UI client include browser history, print and print preview, zoom, email links, find, and save page. For more information about the features of Siebel Open UI, see Chapter 4, "Features of Siebel Open UI."
Easy to use and configurable by users. Many aspects of the user interface have been redesigned in Siebel Open UI. Overall, however, the user experience for Siebel Open UI is similar to that for the traditional Siebel clients, particularly the high interactivity client. Several configuration and personalization options are available for users, including user preferences for left-hand navigation, tab navigation, and visual themes. For more information about using Siebel Open UI, see Siebel Fundamentals for Siebel Open UI.
Accessible. Siebel Open UI supports Web client standards that are intended to make Web content and Web applications more accessible for people with disabilities and easier to use for all users. Accessibility is supported by keyboard shortcuts and navigation options. The accessibility features are available for any user, where the browser supports the necessary standards. For more information about accessibility for Siebel Open UI, see Siebel Fundamentals for Siebel Open UI.
Easy to deploy on the client. Using the Siebel Open UI client requires only a suitable browser, a URL, and credentials to log in. No browser configuration or special deployment steps are required on the client computer.

Easy to deploy on the server. The deployment tasks on the server for Siebel Open UI are relatively easy. For new installations of the current release, you can enable Siebel Open UI during initial configuration for Siebel CRM applications.

To enable Siebel Open UI for existing applications, where necessary, you set parameters for the Application Object Manager component on the Siebel Server or set similar parameters for the Siebel Mobile Web Client. For existing applications that you are migrating to Siebel Open UI, some additional tasks might apply, depending on your deployment requirements.

Applications for Siebel Open UI can run on the same Siebel Server as any existing Siebel CRM applications. You can use the same Siebel Repository file (SRF), Siebel Web templates, and browser scripting for Siebel Business Applications that are deployed using Siebel Open UI, high interactivity, or standard interactivity. For more information about deploying Siebel Open UI, see Chapter 3, "Deploying Siebel Open UI for Siebel Business Applications."
Configurable by developers. You can configure Siebel Open UI by using the JavaScript application programming interface (API) or by customizing the cascading style sheets. You can still perform configuration tasks using Siebel Tools, customize Siebel Web templates, and use your existing browser scripts. The Siebel Open UI client can also simplify integrating Siebel CRM with other applications. For information about configuring Siebel Open UI, see Configuring Siebel Open UI.

For information about configuring Siebel Mobile applications, see Configuring Siebel Open UI, Siebel Mobile Guide: Connected, and Siebel Mobile Guide: Disconnected. See also "Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI".

In summary, the product changes for Siebel Open UI improve the usability, deployment, development, and integration options for Siebel CRM. You can expect many benefits by deploying Siebel CRM with Siebel Open UI. For more information, visit this site:

http://my.oracle.com/go/Siebel

This topic is part of "About Siebel Open UI".

"Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI"

Siebel Business Applications That You Can Deploy Using Siebel Open UI

Siebel Open UI provides a single framework to meet the needs that are associated with a variety of use cases for Siebel Business Applications. You can deploy Siebel Open UI for the following types of Siebel Business Applications:

Employee applications. Siebel Open UI is an alternative for the employee applications that in prior releases were provided for the high interactivity client, such as Siebel Call Center. Some newer applications, such as the Siebel Mobile applications, were built for Siebel Open UI.
Customer applications. Siebel Open UI is an alternative for the customer applications that are currently provided for the standard interactivity client, such as Siebel eSales. However, converting such applications to Siebel Open UI requires manual configuration and migration tasks. A new customer application, Siebel Self Service Portal, was built for Siebel Open UI.
Partner applications. Siebel Open UI is an alternative for partner applications. A new partner application, Siebel Partner Portal, was built for Siebel Open UI.

You can enable Siebel Open UI for the employee applications that support either Siebel Open UI or high interactivity. However, you must confirm that the features that you require are available in the Siebel Open UI client.

If your deployment includes certain applications or features that are not yet available for Siebel Open UI, then you can still run applications that are deployed using high interactivity or standard interactivity, while also running applications that are deployed using Siebel Open UI.

For more information about the features available in Siebel Open UI, see Siebel Open UI Deployment Guide, 1499842.1 (Article ID) on My Oracle Support and see other relevant guides on the Siebel Bookshelf.

This topic is part of "About Siebel Open UI".

"Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI"

"Migration Tasks for Siebel Open UI"

Siebel Business Applications That Require Siebel Open UI

The following Siebel Business Applications require Siebel Open UI and use new Application Object Manager components on the Siebel Server and corresponding virtual directories on the Web server. Other applications besides these might also be available that were built for Siebel Open UI.

Siebel Self Service Portal for Siebel Open UI. For more information, see Siebel eService Administration Guide for Siebel Open UI. The features of this application are outside the scope of this guide.
Siebel Partner Portal for Siebel Open UI. For more information, see Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide. The features of this application are outside the scope of this guide.

Siebel Mobile applications. These applications are built for specific use cases and are optimized for touch-based mobile devices. For more information, see Siebel Mobile Guide: Connected and Siebel Mobile Guide: Disconnected. See also Configuring Siebel Open UI. The features of the Siebel Mobile applications are outside the scope of this guide.

In general, it is assumed that if you require new applications that were not available when you initially configured your existing deployment, then you will either install new instances of Siebel Servers and Siebel Web Server Extension (SWSE) or reconfigure your existing instances to add the new applications. For more information, see the applicable product-specific documentation and see the Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using.

This topic is part of "About Siebel Open UI".

"Siebel Business Applications That You Can Deploy Using Siebel Open UI"

Related Books

Siebel eService Administration Guide for Siebel Open UI

Siebel Partner Relationship Management Administration Guide

Siebel Mobile Guide: Connected

Siebel Mobile Guide: Disconnected

Siebel Installation Guide for the operating system you are using