Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Tools Bleg

Don't get me wrong. I love Siebel Tools. Compared to other enterprise systems where development for the most part involves modifying script, Siebel has a very elegant development platform. OK, all that being said, after developing in Tools for over eleven years (odd writing that), there are some things I would love to do better to make my development experience more efficient. So to that end I thought I would put some thoughts out into the cloud to see if anyone has thought of a workaround for any of these items:
  • Column Preferences. Is it just me or does the Tools client not save preferences the way the Siebel client does. Rearranging columns usually works, but changing widths do not seem to save.
  • PDQs. The idea of Bookmarks is nice but I hate the fact that drilling down or using them loses the context of my exporer pane when I go back. PDQs on every object like within the Siebel Client (and the ability to set default PDQs for each view) would do wonders.
  • Drilldowns. Speaking of drilldowns, is it really necessary for drilling down to collapse the rest of my explorer pane, hence refreshing all the queries on other objects?
  • Expose Tab Order on Applets. I am tempted to try this one out myself one day because it seems doable. Who knows.
  • Applet Wizard. Not for creating a new one. That is ok. But to synchronize with a BC down the road when I want to add a new column. A wizard would just be a much easier way to add a new column rather than adding a control or list column, then adding it to the web template.
  • Allow sync of Meta Data needed by Tools without Remote Sync. This might be a bit more out there but I find it annoying that Users (Help about record) and LOVs cannot be synced with a 'Get'. I know you can get them with a remote sync, but more and more, a lot of client's do not use Remote or use it so infrequently that it is not emphasized and it is a pain to keep my remote client in sync with the server in a development environment anyway. This might sound minor, but like I said, it annoys me.
I have mainly limited this list to just applying functionality that already exists in the Siebel Client or to exposing data which I am pretty sure is there to be exposed. Not really trying to create a forum for adding "New" features. I may add to this list in the future, but feel free to add your own wishes/solutions in comments.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Mik, have you got any success in changing tools srf?

    I was thinking to create some new views for tools, do you think it is possible? any thoughts?

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  2. I do believe it is possible and have made some minor changes to the tools SRF in the past, mainly at the prompting of Siebel supportweb. If I recall correctly, I needed to compile some business object changes to make them available for something to do with workflow but I do not remember the details. I do not see any reason you could not add columns to applets and such. I am not sure whether new views would automatically be exposed but would be interested to hear if it is possible.

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  3. Lot of useful points are there. Its really keeps me updated.
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