Nice quote..

“And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

Using multiple Siebel Repositories in local database

If you have multiple repositories in your server database and would like to have a few of them in your local database too then read on.

Scenario: Your Server database has 3 repositories. 1) Siebel Repository 2) Siebel Repository A 3) Siebel Repository B. You already have a local database (.dbf) file extracted with Siebel Repository. You would like to check out and check in from Siebel Repository A.

Login to Tools. Tools -> Check Out... One pop up window opens. The top line has Siebel Repository. In this dropdown you can see all other Siebel repositories. Do a get of Siebel Repository A. Now you will have Siebel Repository and Siebel Repository A in your local database. Login to Tools. Select File-> Open Repository.

Now, select the repository of your choice which in this case is - Siebel Repository A. After selecting this repository you can do a check in and check out of any objects from this repository.

Ever faced Siebel crashes??

I thought to share my experience of Siebel Crashes and also would like to know if you faced one and the corresponding fixes.

This behaviour came up while using scripting with Siebel. We had made a business service (BS) which was called from button clicks both from browser side and server side. When we called the BS from browser side went out of context, called it from server side went out of context and then again called from browser side.. boom .. Siebel crashed. Probably blame it on the Siebel architechture. There are two ways we tried to fix it. First approach was to make the design change and call the BS only once. Second approach was also design change and to do away with the browser scripts and we moved all the code to the server side and it worked fine.

Dynamic Labels/Controls in Siebel Form Applet

I got a requirement from business to make around 10 form applets and also give them access from some admin screen to make new applets on run-time. The applets are more of question and answers. So, we came up with dynamic labels/control on Siebel Form Applets.  Below is how it's done.

Create a new control (DynamicLabel) in the form applet with HTML type as PlainText.

This control is mapped to a field (Field A) on the BC. 

As there were 15 different applets in this case, so we had a field with 10 diffrent values which we had finalised and 5 more free values. (These values were from a picklist and let's call it Field B for now.)

Now, we made a calculated field Field A and based on the value of Field B we made caption A, caption B and so on (till 15 new captions) to a last value which was blank.

So to say, if Field B value was "Action" we would display "My Action" in the Field A and if Field B value was "Event" then we displayed "My Event" in Field A. If there were no matching values then as calculated field had a null value therefore, this label did not display on the Form Applet.

As for the Control, we used browser script to display or Hide the control based on the value of Field B. This control can be of Text or TextArea. Siebel has a limitation that browser script can only hide dynamically controls of type CheckBox, ComboBox, TextBox, TextArea, Label.

Using HTML type as Plain Text for the caption has the advantage that it is no longer dependent on the browser script to hide the control and in real time when the value is null then it does not display at all and feels like as if nothing is present at that location in the form applet.

I went to Harvard!!

Harvard Square

In and around Boston

Some of the pics I clicked while visiting Boston, MA. My first stop was the Aquarium.

New England Aquarium.

Penguins @ New England Aquarium. There were so many of them.

Shark just a feet away from me (though inside the aquarium glass)

I didn't note it's name but I like to call it the flower fish.

Eel - the electric fish

So many of them..

Don't they look beautiful.

Video of Aquarium

I could not resist taking the video of the beautiful fishes and the divers inside the aquarium.

Sea lion posing for the camera :)

USS Constitution

USS Constitution Museum

Goa Trip

    I love Goa and have visited it almost every year since last 8 years. This time again in April 2010, 4 of us planned to goto Goa on a long weekend of Good Friday. We started driving from my BTM layout house in Bangalore at 4:00 am in the morning and reached Goa at around 7:30 PM. It was a long drive but we had also taken break of around 3 hours and also got lost on NH4 near Bidi only to find mud road for around 18 kms to Khanapur. Apart from this the drive was wonderful specially around the ghats.

    Since it was off season we could find AC rooms for a rent of Rs 750 on the road connecting Calangute and Baga beach. At night after dinner we went for a stroll on Calangute beach and came back early to get some sleep after a long day behind the wheel.

    Though we had planned to watch sunrise but no body could get up early enough. After breakfast at the hotel we all went to Baga beach and enjoyed water sports like banana ride, bumpy ride, motor bike ride for around 3 hours. Baga and Calangute beaches are full of mostly Indian crowd with little less foreigners so typically you won't feel out of place if visiting with family.

    After enjoying the water rides we came back to our hotel for shower. We were planning to visit the famous "Dil Chahta hai" fort and visited fort Aguda. It was really hot and sunny afternoon. Aguda fort overlooks sea on one side and is a good place for taking photogaphs.

    We were just inquiring with hotel reception about casinos and markets that's when we heard about "Saturday Night Bazar". It's an amazing place. I visited it for the first time during my engineering days at MIT, Maniapl and had always gone there whenever I got a chance. It's mostly a market of handicraft materials and a lot of crowd is there. They also have karaoke and live band playing which is watched by large crowd in the market. I found the musical quotient better than the market ;)

    We also thought to visit the Riviera casino. Though it's not as big as the casinos in US but a good place with good facilities. I did not get my hands dirty at black jack or poker and thought to save my precious money. There are also quite a few good places like Cub Cubana, Tito's, Mambo's etc.

    On Sunday morning we had a choice between South Anjuna and Candolim beach and finally went to Candolim beach as it was on our way back to Bangalore. I have always found this beach full of old crowd whereas South Anjuna has young crowd.

    We started around 10:30 AM from Goa after refueling. Petrol was much cheaper in Goa than Bangalore. This time we took a different route and was mostly on state highway till we reached Dharwad and then to our previous route on NH4. We reached our home at 1:00 AM in the morning. My 1 year old Hyundai i10 was driven for around 1350 kilometers in 3 days and gave a mileage of 15.2 kms/liter with air-conditioner on for the entire trip. In all it was a great trip for 4 of us adults and the 1 year old baby.

Here I go again..

Here I go again.. back in my seat after a couple of years.

I have this bad habit to let it go to grab it all over again.. and it takes life out of me.. but it gives the biggest kick of all..tried it ever?

Anyway, so how are we looking today? Woke up early in the morning by maid's callbell, thought for two hours to go for jogging while half asleep, had enough time to get ready but still had to rush to get the cab. :)