In Siebel User Authorization can happen in two ways

• WSSE (Web Service Security) Headers in SOAP Request
• SOAP Headers

WSSE Soap headers are automatically added by Siebel in case if you give Username and Password as input while calling web service as explained in Secure Web Services Post.

In my case it was a Session based Web Service and Siebel Application was expecting SessionType, Username and Password in SOAP Headers as shown below:

These are custom SOAP headers that are needed in case if you implement Session based web services in Siebel. For initial testing we used SoapUI and it is easy to set any custom headers in it, but how to set these headers in Siebel was mystery. I was not able to find any information on net about this (I have habit of searching net before going to oracle support)

Then I searched oracle my support and was able to find a SR ID 979139.1 explaining the process of adding custom headers to a SOAP request using SOAP Filter services.

Using the information given in the SR I was able to add Custom Headers in SOAP request. Below are the steps that you need to perform to achieve this.

• Create a New Business Service and use Code provided in SR ID 979139.1 to add custom headers
• Go to Administration – Web Services –> Outbound Web Services
• Query for your Outbound Web Service Record
• Select the method for which you want to Add Custom Headers
• In Request Filter Service Display Field select the BS record that you just created
• In Request Filter Method Display Field select the corresponding method name
  

Now, whenever you invoke this web service the final SOAP request will be passed to this business service as an property set before being sent to target system. You can add custom headers using standard scripting functions such as AddChild, SetType, SetProperty to this property set.

The code provided in SR is self explanatory but for people who don’t have access to My Oracle Support I am providing a sample code snippet to achieve the same thing:

if(MethodName == “Add Custom SOAP Headers”)
{
if(Inputs.GetChildCount() > 0)
{
// creating the SOAP header hierarchy with the desired data
soapHeader = TheApplication().NewPropertySet();
soapHeader.SetType("SOAP-ENV:Header");
soapHeader.SetProperty("xmlns:SOAP-ENV", "http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/");
//Adding Session Type header
sessionTypePS = TheApplication().NewPropertySet();
sessionTypePS.SetType("web:SessionType");
sessionTypePS.SetValue("Stateless");
sessionTypePS.SetProperty("xmlns:web","http://siebel.com/webservices");
// Add Username and Password in a similar way
// adding the data to the SOAP header
soapHeader.AddChild(sessionTypePS);
// getting the SOAP envelope from the SOAP hierarchy
soapEnv = Inputs.GetChild(0);
// Add the header to the SOAP Envelope
soapEnv.InsertChildAt(soapHeader, 0);
Outputs.InsertChildAt(soapEnv, 0);
}
}

Solution suggested by Jeevan:

• Format data in calculated field using HTML (BR Tag) to have new line:
  

  [Field 1] + ‘</BR>’ + [Field 2] + ‘</BR>’ + [Field 3] + ‘</BR>’ + [Field 4]

On Applet change one of the following properties:

• HTML Display Mode: DontEncodeData
  OR
  Field Retrieval Type: Field Data

Limitations:

1. It doesn’t work on List Applets
2. Field is displayed as Label

• At the Application_Start event set a profile attribute:

TheApplication().SetProfileAttr(“CR”, “\n”);

• In the Calculated field use the following expression;

[Field 1] + GetProfileAttr(“CR”) + [Field 2] + GetProfileAttr(“CR”) + [Field 3] + GetProfileAttr(“CR”) + [Field 4]

Limitation:

This solution did not work in some of the our environments (I am not sure why), also this solution is little vulnerable to errors. For example just imagine down the line somebody set a Profile Attribute with same name in some other event (I am pretty sure that we are not going to go and check all the events to make sure that name you are using is not being used anywhere else)

The solution we implemented calls a business service from calculated field and uses communication template to get newline character in a field. Then  we use this New Line Field to insert Line Break in calculated field. You can follow below given steps to actually achieve the solution:

• Go To Administration Communication –> All Templates
• Create a New Template with following details
  Name: Line Break Template
  Channel Type: Email
  Language: ENU
  Locale: ENU
• Hit Enter key Once (Just make sure there is only one line break, not multiple)
• Save the template.
• In the Business Component create a new calculated field with following details
  Name: New Line
  Calculated Value: InvokeServiceMethod(“Inbound E-mail Database Operations”, “FindRecord”, “BusObj=’Comm Template’, BusComp=’Comm Template’, Name=’Line Break Template’, QueryFields=’Name’, ValueFields=’Template Text’”, “Template Text”)
• Create another calculated field with following details
  Name: Main Address
  Calculated Value: [Field 1] + [New Line] + [Field 2] + [New Line] + [Field 3] + [New Line] + [Field 4]

Limitations:

1. Additional overhead of calling business service for each record.

P.S: I will discuss this approach of calling business service through calculated field in detail in next few posts.

While trying to import Business Component SIF exported from Siebel 8.1 Tools to Siebel 7.8 Tools and encountered a error message as shown below:

“UI_FREEZE is not an attribute of type PROJECT. This input SIF file is in wrong format (SBL-DEV-00386)”

Solution:

To resolve this error I opened SIF file in WordPad in the PROJECT tag deleted the UI_FREEZE attribute.

SIF before Modification

SIF After Modification

I tried to import SIF again but again received error:

“TYPE  is not an attribute of type BUSINESS_COMPONENT. The input SIF file is in wrong format (SBL-DEV-00386)

Solution:

Finally I had to remove below given attributes from the SIF before I could import it successfully.

PROJECT Section
UI_FREEZE=”N”

BUSINESS_COMPONENT Section
TYPE=”Non-Transient”

FIELD Section
DISABLE_SEARCH=”N”
DISABLE_SORT=”N”
MESSAGE_DISPLAY_MODE=”User Msg with Error Code Only”

It seems like Siebel added some additional fields at Project, Business Component and Field level that are not present in Siebel 7.x version. You need to remove this attributes before you can import his SIF.

P.S: There might be different attributes for different entities that you might to remove for import. I have mentioned only for Business Components.

I was trying to simulate a workflow yesterday which had just one step of “PRM ANI Utility Service” with “CreateEmptyPropSet” method. While simulating the workflow I received a really strange error message box (Screenshot shown below).

“Watch Window” displayed error message given below:

“– GetReadBuffer was called on WfProperty for incorrect datatype.(SBL-BPR-00255)”

Solution:

The problem was with the type of process property I had used for output argument. “CreateEmptyPropSet” method gives Hierarchy (Siebel Message) as output type and when I created new process property to store the output I forgot to change it’s type to hierarchy (string is the default type).

When I changed the type of process property to “Hierarchy” everything started working fine.

Field 1: Orange County, is a good place.   Field 2: Link Road, SW, is the address.  Field 3: Cincinnati Ohio, is the city and state. Field 4: Please see the above address!

This should appear in a single field in following manner:

Orange County, is a good place

Link Road, SW, is the address

Cincinnati Ohio, is the city and state

Please see the above address!

I know it seems a pretty simple requirement but it is not as easy as it seems. You need pretty smart thinking to actually pull this off.

I would like to hear from you about the solution for this requirement before I actually put the solution that we used. I will providing my solution on Thursday so, you have two days to figure out the solution.