CRM Conundrum: 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.

CRM Conundrum

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Multiple File Attachments

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