NIK: Siebel Self-Service 8.1.1 Applications

The 8.1.1 version of Siebel Self-Service applications (ECommerce and ESupport) are rebuilt using the newer Application Development Framework (ADF) on top of a Siebel 8.1 business layer. These applications have very few things in common with their counter parts in the previous versions of Siebel (e.g. ECommerce replaces eSales), functionally and technically.

The ADF front-end is a native J2EE/JSF application that interfaces with the Siebel business layer exclusively using web-services. This combination has a lot of advantages including

• The rich interaction capabilities of ADF, the framework behind the future of Oracle’s applications.

• The loose coupling with the business layer, enabling a switch to Fusion CRM later

Since Self-Service 8.1 was developed at a time when ADF was maturing as a framework even within Oracle, the customization of these applications present unique challenges. Often an expert Siebel consultant is thrown off guard, now that a new technology stack (Oracle AS + ADF and JDeveloper in place of dear old Tools) has to be tackled – the closest you get to Java in the Siebel world is when you use browser scripts :-)

For an honest confession, the best customization options you can provide as a product engineer often fall short of a consultant’s requirements. I moved to Siebel consulting after being a product engineer at Oracle. Of late I am seeing my colleagues trying to figure out Self-Service applications and when I am involved I feel the need to have done consulting before I did product development. Some of you may call this a variant of the chicken-and-egg question.

I’ve thought of a few posts that would make a ADF-aware Siebel EAI Consultant’s life easier. I’ll try my best not to repeat things provided in the Oracle documentation, especially the Self-Service Developer’s Guide – unless I have an alternative to suggest. The official Oracle documentation on SelfService 8.1.1 is

Siebel E-Commerce Administration Guide
Siebel E-Support Administration Guide
Siebel SelfService 8.1.1 Deployment Guide
Siebel SelfService 8.1.1 Developer's Guide
Oracle SelfService 8.1 Forum

The rules of Fight Club are:

• You do not talk about Fight Club. :-)

• You have a good-enough hands-on knowledge of J2EE, ADF, JDeveloper 10g, and Siebel 8.0 EAI. I would type less then.

• I will desist from explaining the details of ‘how do I do it in Siebel’ since the focus is on the ADF customization, but if you know basics of Siebel EAI this is not hard to figure out

• I will make assumptions that I don’t know I’m making, so please feel free to point these out. I would be glad to clarify them.