Column Extension in Siebel– Best practices

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Many of us must have extended a column due to a requirement in Siebel. For those who are new to Siebel “extending a column” means creating a new column in a table at database level.

When we have to extend a column we have to make decision weather to extend the column in Base Table or Extension Table.Now the big question is:

How do you make this decision? What do you think before you make the decision?

This post is going to answer exactly that. What should our decision be based upon?

These tips have been shared by Chandan Chandwani a friend of mine working in Siebel for past 7 years

Here are the points to keep in mind which making decision for columns extension

• If your requirement is to store additional data that should always be displayed when the base record is displayed, the recommended approach is to extend the base table to store this data.  By doing this you avoid the extra join to the extension table.
• If that column is going to store a foreign key then it is recommended to create that column on base table as it avoids an extra join.
• If that column is going to be part of certain docking rules then also it is recommended to create it on Base table

In conditions, other than mentioned above a column can be created in Extension Table

Here are some more things that you should keep in mind while extending a column:

• When creating a new extension column, never copy the column from existing vanilla column.   Undesired properties from the existing column are often carried forward from the copied from column.  It is best to just use the “New Record” functionality.  In creating a new column, you should only modify the Name, Physical Type, Length, and Comments attributes.
• When creating a new extension column, a corresponding EIM column should also be created and mapped to the new column. 
• All Boolean extension columns should be defined as type CHAR.