Webinar Report and Survey

If you weren't able to follow Bruce Daley's webinar "Where Do You Stand with Siebel", here is a quick recap:

Oracle Siebel CRM is a mature application showing both continued robustness and signs of age. With Oracle sending mixed messages about the product’s future, Bruce Daley, VP at Constellation Research has published a report which helps Oracle Siebel customers understand the real position Siebel technology holds in the market, why the conventional wisdom about the product is often wrong, and what trends are driving misconceptions in the market. It also offers pragmatic advice for taking Siebel implementations in different directions and how associated careers will be impacted

You can view the replay and download the slides here.

You can download the report with compliments of Rimini Street here.

State of Siebel 2013 Survey

Along with the report, Constellation Research and the Siebel Essentials blog are conducting a survey to feel the pulse of the Siebel community. If you are involved in a Siebel CRM project, please take some minutes to fill in the survey form.

Click here to access the survey.

Thanks again!!

Constellation Research to Host Webinar on Where You Stand with Siebel

This free 45 minute webinar will discuss what different directions Oracle Siebel professionals can take their Siebel implementation and their careers.

Who: J. Bruce Daley, Vice President and Principal Analyst Constellation Research

What: Webinar: "Where Do You Stand With Siebel”

When: Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at 9:30 a.m. US Pacific time

How: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/578393734

Constellation Research, Inc., the award-winning research and advisory firm focused on disruptive technologies is offering a free 45 minute webinar to introduce a new analyst, J. Bruce Daley, in one of his primary research areas - the standing, enhancement, and conversion of legacy enterprise class software technology.

His topic will be the different directions Oracle Siebel customers, partners, and consultants can take their Siebel implementation and their careers. This year marks the 20^th anniversary of Siebel technology and as a mature application it shows signs of both robustness and age. With Oracle sending mixed messages about the product’s future, this webinar helps people making a living with Siebel determine exactly where they stand.

“Clearly Siebel technology is not dead and plays an important role in the IT infrastructure of many of our clients” noted R “Ray” Wang, CEO of Constellation Research.  “Figuring out exactly where Siebel fits into the mix is challenging. We are excited that Bruce will bring his wealth of understand and experience to helping Siebel customers meet this challenge. ”

Daley was, for many years, the publisher of the Siebel Observer, the largest publication covering the CRM pioneer.  Later he co-founded a boutique advisory services firm that brokered the sale of system integrator Blue Hammock Inc. to GCI International (now called Collabera) and conducted over 250 consultations with mutual funds, hedge funds, and private equity funds. Widely quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Financial Times, Daley also founded the Enterprise Software Summit.

His first research paper for Constellation: “Seeing the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Legacy Applications: How to Attack or Defend an Installed Base by Understanding How to Qualify the Success of a Legacy Applications was published this week. This original research helps sales representatives and sales management determine how likely a legacy implementation is to be converted so they can qualify opportunities and threats more quickly. The report is available for purchase at http://www.constellationr.com/

His second research paper “The State of Siebel in the 2013 Market: Different Strategies for Moving Siebel Implementations Forward and Assessing Career Risk will be published next week. This research helps Oracle Siebel customers understand the real position Siebel technology holds in the market, why the conventional wisdom about the product is often wrong, and what the trends driving the misconceptions in the market. The report also offers pragmatic advice for taking different Siebel implementations in different directions and how they will impact different careers. The report will be available on the Constellation website Wednesday, September 18, 2013 at:

9:30 a.m. US Pacific time

10:30 a.m. US Mountain time

11:30 a.m. US Central time

12:30 a.m. US Eastern time

17:30 UK time

18:30 Central European time

Webinar Information: To register for this complimentary webinar, go to: https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/578393734

Multiple File Attachments

Necessity is mother of taking chances. In recent outrage by our business users, we were asked to provide option of selecting multiple file attachments. Unfortunately siebel doesn't provide option of creating multiple attachment in one go. Even drag and drop in High interactivity creates only one attachment. With Open UI there are options but with good old HI and SI mode this can be real tricky. However, With mix of HTML-Javascript-browserscript we were able to achieve a custom built html file with multiple file browse options. where user could select three files in one go.

Below custom file browse HTML was used . Name is as "MultiFileAttach.htm".

<html> <head> <script language=JavaScript> function returnFilePath() { var filectrl1 = document.getElementById("file1"); var filectrl2 = document.getElementById("file2"); var filectrl3 = document.getElementById("file3"); window.returnValue = filectrl1.value + ","+ filectrl2.value+ "," + filectrl3.value } </Script> </HEAD> <body onunload=returnFilePath();> <form action="" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" name="form1" id="form1"> <label>File1<input type="file" id="file1" /></label><br/> <label>File2<input type="file" id="file2" /></label><br/> <label>File3<input type="file" id="file3" /></label><br/><br/> <input type="button" onclick="javascript:window.close();" value="Submit"> </FORM> </BODY> </HTML>

Once the HTML page is ready, copy it in  Siebel\Client\PUBLIC\Enu and \siebsrvr\WEBMASTER\enu folders. I was not able to use Multiple attribute for file input type (food for thought for Javascript masters) so was forced to use three different file controls. The key here is returnValue property which returns the "," separated file paths, which we use in our browser script to parse and create attachments in siebel file system.Below is the browser side code.

  switch(name) { case "AttachmentTest": var sFullPath = theApplication().ShowModalDialog ("MultiFileAttach.htm", "", "dialogHeight:150px;dialogWidth:350px;dialogLeft:150px"); var sFileArr = sFullPath.split(","); for(i=0; i<sFileArr.length;i++) { var sFilePath = sFileArr[i]; if(sFilePath.length > 0) { //alert("In Loop" + sFilePath); var sBS = theApplication().GetService("FINS Industry BC Facility Service"); var sInputs = theApplication().NewPropertySet(); var sOutputs = theApplication().NewPropertySet(); sInputs.SetProperty("BusObjName","HLS Case"); sInputs.SetProperty("FileBusCompName","HLS Cases Attachment"); sInputs.SetProperty("RootBusCompName","HLS Case"); sInputs.SetProperty("RowId","2L-8D"); //Change the RowId accordingly sInputs.SetProperty("SourcePath",sFilePath); sInputs.SetProperty("FileNameField","HLSFileName"); sBS.InvokeMethod("CreateFile",sInputs,sOutputs); } } this.InvokeMethod("RefreshBusComp"); return ("CancelOperation"); break; default: return ("ContinueOperation"); break; }

We are invoking the custom "MultipleFileAttach.html" using ShowModalDialog method. Once we capture the path of attachments, "FINS Industry BC Facility Service" is used to create the attachments. In order to use this BS on browser side one must define this as part of user property on Application Level. One on Open UI can sleep well as there are lot of plugins available for Multiple File uploads. Java punters can propose alternate solutions to this approach, as usual your comments/inputs/suggestions are most welcome.

Happy Crunching!!

Warning: This piece is for demo purpose. Please test this solution thoroughly before you implement in your production systems.