Introducing Oracle Siebel CRM
This article is written in order to give an idea of a rather specific software package that is used in many large enterprises around the world, but at the same time remains little known to a wide circle of IT specialists, even in comparison with similar products, such as SAP.
There is quite a bit of accessible literature on it, or it is so vague and confusing that it can be difficult for a person "from the street" to understand what it really is. Here we will try to clarify this issue.
I will call this whole complex simply Siebel, officially it is called Oracle Siebel CRM . The name Siebel is the name of the founder of the company (Thomas Siebel). In 2006, the company was sold to Oracle Corporation.
Siebel is primarily acustomer relationship management system (Customer Relationship Management - CRM). This system can be installed in a variety of out-of-the-box configurations, such as Siebel Call Center, Siebel Finance, Siebel Loyalty (with an engine for the customer loyalty program system), Siebel Hospitality (for the hotel business) and many others. Nevertheless, consumers of Siebel products (usually these are large enough companies working with at least tens of thousands of customers), as a rule, require sharpening the system to meet the needs of not only the industry, but also the specific enterprise. Therefore, the creators of the system tried to provide maximum flexibility for configuration and development.
From the point of view of the user (employee of the customer company) Siebel, as declared, is practically a zero-footprint application, that is, installation does not require the installation of any special client. Work with Siebel is carried out simply in the Internet Explorer window. In fact, the first time you access the server, the appropriate ActiveX components are installed that provide actions with controls.
Unfortunately, at the moment, other browsers (except IE) are not supported. It is easy to understand that this binds users to Windows (as for Siebel servers, they can work both under Windows and Linux, as well as Solaris, HP-UX, etc.).
The graphical user interface looks something like this:
Of course, support modules for many languages are available, including Russian.
The main object of the Siebel GUI is the so-called applet. This is the part of the screen that displays a table (list-applet) or data from a single record in the form of a form (form-applet). An applet usually contains menus and controls in the form of buttons on the screen. With their help, the user adds or deletes records, makes queries (query) and other actions, for example, launching a business process. As already mentioned, Siebel presents tremendous opportunities for customization, limited only by the imagination of the customer / developer. In the picture we can see one sheet applet and one form applet.
Here we cannot go into the intricacies of working with the GUI, it’s better to describe how all this is technically implemented.
As it has already become clear, Siebel, to a first approximation, is a kind of graphic add-in on a database that works like a web application. The base can be not only Oracle, but, for example, MS SQL Server or something else. When you install the system, a huge number of tables are automatically created - the creators tried to include in the kit everything that someone might need. However, you can always add custom tables and columns. The vast majority of Siebel’s configuration information (lists of GUI elements, custom scripts, relationships between objects) is also stored in the same database, and there can be many repositories (Siebel configuration versions) at once. However, the configuration that the server is actually using at the moment must be compiled into a special file with the .SRF extension.
Siebel servers are grouped into Enterprises. The enterprise is managed by a service called Siebel Gateway Name Server. This server is accessed by a web server (Oracle, IIS ..), equipped with special "extensions" (SWSE - Siebel Web Server Extensions). These are the basic elements of the Siebel environment.
The main tool of the Siebel developer is a program called Siebel Tools, which compiles.
In simple cases, development is carried out declaratively, by “dragging and dropping” the GUI control on the form and filling in the corresponding fields with data, similar to how a Windows Forms application is created in Visual Studio. To program more complex system behavior, either the built-in language is usually used (in fact, it is JScript or VBScript, at the choice of the developer), or the graphic Workflow Designer.
The main debugging tool is the Siebel Dedicated Web Client (in the jargon it is called the “thick client”, in contrast to the “thin client” that users of the working system work with). Despite the name, the “thick client” is a kind of Siebel mini-server, launched, like Siebel Tools, on the developer's machine. Typically, a developer’s work is a sequence of the following:
Of course, the description provided by Siebel is rather crude and in no way claims to be complete - we talked only about the most general things, not touching on either the Siebel data model, integrations with other systems, analytics, or even the main features provided by Siebel to the user.
There is quite a bit of accessible literature on it, or it is so vague and confusing that it can be difficult for a person "from the street" to understand what it really is. Here we will try to clarify this issue.
I will call this whole complex simply Siebel, officially it is called Oracle Siebel CRM . The name Siebel is the name of the founder of the company (Thomas Siebel). In 2006, the company was sold to Oracle Corporation.
Siebel is primarily acustomer relationship management system (Customer Relationship Management - CRM). This system can be installed in a variety of out-of-the-box configurations, such as Siebel Call Center, Siebel Finance, Siebel Loyalty (with an engine for the customer loyalty program system), Siebel Hospitality (for the hotel business) and many others. Nevertheless, consumers of Siebel products (usually these are large enough companies working with at least tens of thousands of customers), as a rule, require sharpening the system to meet the needs of not only the industry, but also the specific enterprise. Therefore, the creators of the system tried to provide maximum flexibility for configuration and development.
From the point of view of the user (employee of the customer company) Siebel, as declared, is practically a zero-footprint application, that is, installation does not require the installation of any special client. Work with Siebel is carried out simply in the Internet Explorer window. In fact, the first time you access the server, the appropriate ActiveX components are installed that provide actions with controls.
Unfortunately, at the moment, other browsers (except IE) are not supported. It is easy to understand that this binds users to Windows (as for Siebel servers, they can work both under Windows and Linux, as well as Solaris, HP-UX, etc.).
The graphical user interface looks something like this:
Of course, support modules for many languages are available, including Russian.
The main object of the Siebel GUI is the so-called applet. This is the part of the screen that displays a table (list-applet) or data from a single record in the form of a form (form-applet). An applet usually contains menus and controls in the form of buttons on the screen. With their help, the user adds or deletes records, makes queries (query) and other actions, for example, launching a business process. As already mentioned, Siebel presents tremendous opportunities for customization, limited only by the imagination of the customer / developer. In the picture we can see one sheet applet and one form applet.
Here we cannot go into the intricacies of working with the GUI, it’s better to describe how all this is technically implemented.
As it has already become clear, Siebel, to a first approximation, is a kind of graphic add-in on a database that works like a web application. The base can be not only Oracle, but, for example, MS SQL Server or something else. When you install the system, a huge number of tables are automatically created - the creators tried to include in the kit everything that someone might need. However, you can always add custom tables and columns. The vast majority of Siebel’s configuration information (lists of GUI elements, custom scripts, relationships between objects) is also stored in the same database, and there can be many repositories (Siebel configuration versions) at once. However, the configuration that the server is actually using at the moment must be compiled into a special file with the .SRF extension.
Siebel servers are grouped into Enterprises. The enterprise is managed by a service called Siebel Gateway Name Server. This server is accessed by a web server (Oracle, IIS ..), equipped with special "extensions" (SWSE - Siebel Web Server Extensions). These are the basic elements of the Siebel environment.
The main tool of the Siebel developer is a program called Siebel Tools, which compiles.
In simple cases, development is carried out declaratively, by “dragging and dropping” the GUI control on the form and filling in the corresponding fields with data, similar to how a Windows Forms application is created in Visual Studio. To program more complex system behavior, either the built-in language is usually used (in fact, it is JScript or VBScript, at the choice of the developer), or the graphic Workflow Designer.
The main debugging tool is the Siebel Dedicated Web Client (in the jargon it is called the “thick client”, in contrast to the “thin client” that users of the working system work with). Despite the name, the “thick client” is a kind of Siebel mini-server, launched, like Siebel Tools, on the developer's machine. Typically, a developer’s work is a sequence of the following:
- Siebel Tools is launched, which connects to the development environment database, it selects the desired Siebel repository
- A mutable object or a set of objects (project) is copied to the local developer database, and is protected from changes by other developers on the server database (check-out)
- On the developer's machine, work with these objects is performed, after which they are compiled into a local SRF file
- This starts the Dedicated Web Client connected to this SRF file
- If testing in the "thick client" is successful, the changed objects are written to the server database, after which the protection against changes is removed (check-in)
- At some point, the repository is compiled into the SRF server, after which the changes become available to users
Of course, the description provided by Siebel is rather crude and in no way claims to be complete - we talked only about the most general things, not touching on either the Siebel data model, integrations with other systems, analytics, or even the main features provided by Siebel to the user.