About Anonymous Browsing

This topic provides information about anonymous browsing. Several Siebel Business Applications allow anonymous browsing of views intended for public access as default functionality. Anonymous browsing typically applies to Siebel customer and partner applications, not employee applications. However, you can configure any Siebel application to either allow or disallow anonymous browsing.

Unregistered users gain access to application views and the database through the anonymous user. The anonymous user is a record in the Siebel database that also performs functions during user authentication and user self-registration. If you implement an external authentication system, then the anonymous user has a corresponding record in the user directory.

The anonymous user session caches information so any changes to data, for example, catalogs, is not updated until either the user logs in or the anonymous user session is restarted.

For information about the anonymous user's role in user authentication, see "Configuring the Anonymous User". For information on implementing anonymous browsing, see "Process of Implementing Anonymous Browsing".