Comparing Siebel Task UI with Other Technologies

Siebel Task UI is the only technology that supports a long-running transaction when compared to other UI technologies available in the Siebel CRM framework. Siebel Task UI is closely integrated with Siebel Workflow.

Siebel Task UI Technology

Siebel Task UI can provide a desirable return on investment if you use it to support a business process, but it is not a universal answer to every business process. It is important that you carefully consider the factors discussed that this book describes, including the trade-offs and benefits that a task provides.

A task incorporates business logic and a guided user interface, improving performance and scalability when compared to a standard view that is designed for the advanced user. Siebel Task UI is an appropriate technology to use to support a business process that includes any of the following requirements:

• Nontrivial

• Transactional

• Tight integration with a business process

Other UI Technologies

The following table compares features between Siebel Task UI and other UI technologies in the Siebel CRM framework.

This table describes trade offs between features for other Siebel technologies. For example, SmartScript provides better integration with Universal Inbox, but at the cost of significant performance overhead and the cost of developing and maintaining a scripted solution. For this reason, SmartScript might be a more appropriate technology than Siebel Task UI to support a user who must review an expense report. Reviewing an expense report requires simple, nontransactional tasks that demand tight integration with Universal Inbox and is performed rarely enough so as not to jeopardize scalability of the entire system.

The Siebel CRM UI is more appropriate to support a simple task that an experienced user frequently performs. iHelp supports the Siebel CRM UI for simple tasks, tasks that the user frequently performs, or tasks that a novice user performs or a user who only performs the task occasionally. Web Channel is the preferred technology for an implementation that requires a customer facing user interface that includes a specific look and behavior.

Feature	Siebel Open UI Client	Siebel Task UI	iHelp	Smart Script	Web Channel
Employee facing	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Not recommended
Customer facing	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Yes
Encapsulates business logic	Some	All	None	All	All
Integration with Siebel Workflow	Some	Full	None	Some	Limited
Integration with Universal Inbox	Some	Good	None	Good	Some
Support for long-running transaction	No	Yes	No	No	No
Performance and scalability overhead	None	Some	None	Large	Some