Java integration to Siebel Webservice

 

A few weeks back we had this requirement to have a Java client connect to our Siebel Webservice and do various operations. In this model, the Siebel side was the backend, and a Java applet was the frontend to the system. I setup the inbound Webservice in Siebel in no time, using ASIs. But the Java folks were having problems in setting up a connection to the system. They even said there were problems in the WSDL and Webservice, and that they were getting various parser errors on their side. Guess they were too dependent on eclipse, and they could not find an import WSDL feature on it !!

Truth is, Java is one of those languages which understands webservices very well, and if properly used, could make the integration work easiest to implement. You don’ have to build the SOAP request by hand (though, that is one option) as is done in some scripting languages. You just have to figure out how to generate the stub file, or the necessary class files into the system.

Now there are two ways to import a WSDL into a  Java system, you would use the WSDLtoJava.bat file if you are using the apache axis framework. This is when a Java servlet on Tomcat/Apache is talking to another server. I preferred the easier way to using the wsimport command as this is a simple client talking to a Siebel server. I will be using the Service Request ASI WSDL from a previous post.

You need to have the Java SDK installed and the paths properly configured on your system. Open up a command prompt window and type in  “java  -version” or “javac” to see if the paths have been added correctly.

Go ahead and import the wsdl using the command wsimport SR_WSDL.wsdl. Here I am running the command from the root of C: drive. You will see the importer at work generating class files.

You can ignore any warnings you see as long as you don’t get any errors. wsimport would have created a nested folder structure with multiple class files. Here the path created is C:\com\siebel\xml\sm_servicerequest.

Now its time to start writing your main java file which will make an instance of these class files and trigger the integration to siebel. You will have to know which class represents the webservice, here it is SMServiceRequestWS_Service.class. You can also generate the actual java files to see how the class and methods under them have been defined. Inorder to do this, use the command wsimport –keep.

This time wsimport will create the java files for each class file.

Back to our main java file. Import the generated class files using:

import com.siebel.xml.sm_servicerequest.*;

As can be seen, this string is actually the path of the generated class files. This is what my final Client.java file looked like :

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

import com.siebel.xml.sm_servicerequest.*;

import java.io.Writer;

//the above namespace is from the generated code from the wsdl.

public class Client

{

static SMServiceRequestWS_Service service = new SMServiceRequestWS_Service();

public static void main(String[] args)

{

try

{

Client client = new Client();

client.doTest(args);

}

catch(Exception e)

{

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

public void doTest(String[] args)

{

try

{

SMServiceRequestWS pm = service.getSMServiceRequestWS();

// Building the Request hierachy

QueryPageSRInput req = new QueryPageSRInput();

req.setPageSize("10");

req.setViewMode("All");

req.setStartRowNum("0");

ListOfSmServicerequest list = new ListOfSmServicerequest();

ServiceRequest SR =new ServiceRequest();

list.getServiceRequest().add(SR);

req.setListOfSmServicerequest(list);

// Variable to store Response hierarchy

QueryPageSROutput res = new QueryPageSROutput();

// Invoke the service

System.out.println("Invoking the Webservice ");

res =pm.queryPageSR(req);

System.out.println(res.getLastPage());

for (int i = 0; i < res.getListOfSmServicerequest().getServiceRequest().size(); i++)

{

System.out.print(res.getListOfSmServicerequest().getServiceRequest().get(i).getStatus() + "\t");

System.out.print(res.getListOfSmServicerequest().getServiceRequest().get(i).getSRNumber() + "\t");

System.out.println(res.getListOfSmServicerequest().getServiceRequest().get(i).getOwner());

}

}

catch(Exception e)

{

e.printStackTrace();

}

}

}

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

All the information you need to build up the request and parse out the response is in the .java files created by wsimport. As can be seen, the final code does not have any variables for the URL,namespace or SOAPAction. These details are taken care of in the .java files.

Time to compile and run the Client.java file. Commands are:

javac Client.java

java Client

The client instance should connect to the Siebel Webservice now :

This code runs a  Query and prints out the Service Request Status, RowId and Owner details.

That’s it !! This is all you need to have a java client invoking a Siebel Webservice.

Inbound ASI–Keeping it simple

 

What is the easiest way to setup a new inbound web service in Siebel ? Well, a lot depends on the actual requirement, the complexity of the schema, error handling features etc. If the requirement is really simple, I try to go for an Application Service Interface or ASI. And specially if the requirement calls for multiple operations at a single web service, then ASI is the way to go.

An Application Services Interface (ASI) is a release-independent interface published by Oracle that allows you to integrate Siebel applications with external applications. An ASI is a collection of related methods; each method contains input and output parameters. The methods and parameters are listed on the business service definition. Simple method parameters (such as a string or number) are defined directly in the service definition. Hierarchical method parameters are defined using integration objects

Lets assume that the requirement here is to expose a query operation as a web service. The end point would invoke a Siebel web service which would extract data in a schema. Simple query operation. Here is how to do it in an ASI.

Step 1 : Define your schema. Decide upon an already present Integration Object or design a new IO from scratch. Here I’m choosing a custom Service Request IO, with attachments as the child IC. Don’t forget to decide upon the user keys and status keys.

 

Step 2: Define the ASI business service. Create a new business service, and set the class as CSSEAIDataSyncService. Define a method for this BS as QueryPage. Here I have added one more method for InsertOrUpdate.

 

Define the arguments of the methods. There has to be at least one argument of type Integration Object. Mention the IO name you had chosen in Step1

Two Business Service User properties are required.

Instead of creating the BS, an existing ASI can be simply cloned, in which case you would only need to change the IO name.

 

Step 3: Expose the BS as an Inbound web service.  Compile the IO and BS. On Siebel 8, simply right click the BS and choose deploy as web service. Or you could setup the service yourself.

In the application, go to Sitemap > Administration – Webservices > Inbound Webservice.

In service name, give any name and set the namespace. The namespace can be taken from the IO userproperties.

In Service Port, choose the newly created BS. Set the binding and transport values. Here I have chosen SOAP_DOC_LITERAL and HTTP Transport

In the Operations applet, the methods of the custom BS will be available. Set them up, and clear the cache.

That’s it, your done !!  You can generate the WSDL, and this can be consumed by the end point. The end system will get to see the various operations exposed under the service.

Here is how the WSDL looks when consumed in XML Spy:

And on choosing QueryPage method, XML Spy will generate this SOAP Request.

Regarding the different methods that can be exposed, there are six to choose from. And if needed, you can also provide datamappers for the request or response.

ASIs implement error handling in their own way and return SOAP fault codes back to the calling system.

Siebel ASIs are prebuilt and can be used immediately. ASIs provide a release-independent integration interface to the Siebel application, which remains unchanged with each upgrade to a new release. This is one of those few areas in Siebel where there is an upgrade-proof guarantee from Siebel/Oracle.

Scripting and Task Based UIs

Siebel 8's task based user interface (TBUI) is a nifty feature, but it still needs some more polishing though. A really simple looking requirement came up the other day, and I was surprised that there was no out of box feature I knew to support it.

The requirement was to conditionally disable tasks in the Task View pane applet. The Task Groups have to be associated with the triggering views, and when the logged in user enables the tasks by clicking on its button, an applet opens up in the UI on the left side, always showing all the tasks associated with the current opened view.

Now we wanted to conditionally disable certain tasks depending upon the user's position, and there was no way of achieving this. On searching on the bookshelf, I found a way to trigger the task  from script.

if (name == "Test")
{

var inputPropSet;
var outputPropSet;
var taskUIsvc;

inputPropSet = theApplication().NewPropertySet();

outputPropSet = theApplication().NewPropertySet();

taskUIsvc = theApplication().GetService("Task UI Service (SWE)");

inputPropSet.SetProperty("TaskName","Create a Contact");

the outputPropSet is created. outputPropSet is not used to send results back to the task UI--!>

taskUIsvc.InvokeMethod("LaunchTaskFromScript",inputPropSet,outputPropSet);

return ("CancelOperation");

}

So now, instead of showing the tasks in the task pane applet,  we trigger it from scripts behind buttons in the UI. We have buttons for different tasks, and the buttons themselves are enabled/disabled based on positions.

I'm hoping Siebel provides an vanilla way of achieving conditional task enabling/disabling in the UI soon.

SQL Spools in Siebel and Trace commands

We have all been there; at some point or other, Siebel starts throwing SQL errors, or the application slows down due to some long running SQL statements.

“An error has occurred executing a Sql statement. Please continue or ask your systems administrator to check your application configuration if the problem persists.(SBL-DBC-00105)”

The best way to figure out what went wrong is to spool out the actual SQL statement (could be query or insert/update or delete) which ran in the application.

You could turn on SQL spooling when the client starts using the /s option.

Or you could increase Log levels

Now both these options enables SQL spooling when the client itself starts; and the resulting file will contain every SQL statement which ran up until the error can be reproduced. Is there any way we can turn SQL logging on the fly, to spool up only the SQLs we want and ignore the rest ?

Turns out, there are script commands TraceOn and TraceOff, which can be used the spool out the SQL statements. Documentation can be found here.

We will have to start SQL tracing using script at the beginning of the even,and then stop it after the spooling is done. I found that these commands can also be used in COM controls.

So I have created a simple SQL instant spooler in Excel macros, which will do this for you, without the need for increasing log levels or writing scripts. I have tested it on Siebel 7.8 and Siebel 8.1 local and dedicated clients, and it works fine. All you need to do is

1) Open the Siebel local or dedicated client (does not work on the thin client)

2) Use the start and stop buttons on the sheet to enable SQL tracing.

3) The SQL which was run in Siebel between start and stop will be opened in notepad

You can download the SQL instant spooler here and try it out. You need to have Siebel installed properly and enable the macros on the excel when it is opened.

Cheerios !!

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Siebel 8.1 menu items not opening in IE 8.

Another issue I ran into in IE 8, regarding the Siebel 8.1 Mobile client. This issue was reproduceable on both debug and non-debug modes.

After the mobile client opened up fine, none of the menu items inside the UI framework would open. The menu items at each applet would not drop down, and even the Help->About View would not open up.

At first I thought the pop-up blockers were playing spoilsport again, but the problem persisted even after pop-up blockers were turned off.

Then , a colleague suggested making a change to the client CFG file. In my case, it was scomms.cfg.

1) Open the client CFG file.

2) Find this line :

               EnableFQDN               = FALSE

3) Change it to :

                EnableFQDN               = TRUE

And that fixed the problem !! I don't know what FQDN has to do with menu items, maybe its something wrong with the UI framework.

Siebel 8 debug mode problem with Internet Explorer 8 ?

The last few months have been some of the worse in my career so far. The hectic project schedule and huge amount of "last minute changes" left me very little time to relax. Hopefully, its all going to change soon.

I am working on Siebel 8.1, and had Internet explorer 7 running, which ran without any issues. After an upgrade to IE 8 (thanks to the IT guys), I found that the Siebel debug mode would no longer open. The IE window would open up and throw a  "page not found" error. But the Siebel client would open fine, when started via its own shortcut.

A little experimenting, and I found that inorder for the Siebel 8.1 debug mode to open up in IE, there should be no other instances of IE running. Just kill all other IE instances, and simulating the workflow should be fine.

Not sure if there is another way to fix this.