Symbolic Url Integration In Siebel

Symbolic URL’s enable you to actually open external application inside Siebel Applets. For example it is possible for me to create a screen named Siebel Unleashed in Siebel and see my site inside Siebel application and we will do then when we get to hands on.

Most common use of Symbolic URL’s is to see Siebel Analytics Reports inside Siebel CRM application and it is used majorly in portal applications to display contents of external application.

There is no formal definition for Symbolic URL that I have come across but is quite effective and a novel way to integrate Siebel with external applications.

That’s enough of theory and now is the time for some practical. Here is a step by step tutorial on “How to configure Symbolic URL in Siebel?” and what will try to achieve is a new have a new Screen in Siebel that says Siebel Unleashed and when we click on it we should be able to see Siebel Unleashed in it.

The first thing that we need to do is define a Symbolic URL pointing to my website 

• Go to Administration Integration > WI Symbolic URL List view
• Click on Dropdown in list applet and select Host Administration
• Create a new host record and enter the following detail
  Name: siebelunleashed.com
  Virtual Name: SiebelUnleashed
• Click on the dropdown in List Applet and Select Symbolic URL Administration
• Create a new Symbolic URL Record and enter following details
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  URL: http://siebelunleashed.com
  Host Name: siebelunleashed.com [Name you had given in first Step]Fixup Name: Default [It determines how you URL will appear in application]SSO Disposition: IFrame
  As we just want to see static site so will not provide any arguments. Now our Symbolic URL is ready let us go to Siebel tools to do required configuration to display it in SiebelUnleashed Screen.
• Go to Business Component that you will base your applet upon. In this example I choose Account.
• Create a new calculated field and provide the following detail
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  Calculated: True
  Calculated Value: “SiebelUnleashed” [Name of the Symbolic URL we just created and don’t forget to put quotes around it]

Now we need to expose this on UI in an Applet. You can create a new Applet based on Account BO and expose just one field in that applet or you can copy an existing Applet such as “SSO Analytics Administration Applet” that is already configured with Symbolic URL and modify it to contain our newly created Symbolic URL. As I am doing in this example:

• Query for “SSO Analytics Administration Applet” under Applet Object
• Copy this Record and provide following detail
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  Business Component: Account
  Title: Siebel Unleashed
• Now go to list column section of this field and provide following details for a lone record that is available
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  Field: SiebelUnleashed
  Field Retrieval Type: Symbolic URL

Don’t forget to expose this field in Applet Web Layout and make sure you expose it in base mode.

Now Lets create a view that will have our applet. Again here you can use Wizard to create a new view or just copyexisting Analytics View.

The Web Template of the new view should be “Analytics View”. I am going to

• Copy an existing view “SSO Analytics Administration View” and provide the following details
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  Business Object: Account
  Visibility Applet: SiebelUnleashed
• In View Web Template Item object give the following details
  Name: SiebelUnleashed
  Applet: SiebelUnleashed
  Applet Mode: Base

The final step is to create a Screen which will contain this view.
- Add that screen to your Application
- Register the view in Application.
These are basic configuration steps. So I am not going to waste much of you time in writing anymore of it.

Compile the View, BC, Application, Screen, Applet objects that you just created or modified and the final result that you will get is shown below.