Siebel Mobile Web Client and Web Services

Image via Wikipedia As indicated in the first teaser post for the latest Siebel CRM Fix Pack 8.1.1.2, one of the more interesting features is the ability of the siebel.exe - the program engine behind the Siebel Mobile or Developer Web Client - to process incoming SOAP requests. In this article, I'd like to discuss the setup steps and then I'll show how to invoke a Siebel inbound web service on the local machine. Setting up web service support for the Mobile Web Client As the bookshelf guide (EAI2) has already been updated, we can follow the instructions here to enable web service support for Siebel 8.1.1.2 (of course after applying the patch). In short, you have to add two parameters to the [Siebel] section of the .cfg file you are using: EnableWebServices = TRUE WebServicesPort = 2330 You can choose any free port number. 2330 is the default port. The effect of these settings is as follows. When you start the mobile web client, a second instance of siebel.exe is started in the background (consuming the same amount of memory as the foreground instance) and starts listening on the specified port. You can also use a command line similar to the following to start only the background listener: C:\SIA81\CLIENT\BIN\siebel.exe /c C:\SIA81\CLIENT\bin\ENU\siebel.cfg /d sample /u SADMIN /p SADMIN /webservice 2330 Note the /webservice switch followed by the port number. If you run the siebel.exe in background mode, the parameter EnableWebServices is not needed in the .cfg file. Invoking an inbound web service against the mobile web client I always wanted to sniff out the BIP Data Service which comes along with the BI Publisher integration. It is used by BI Publisher to process scheduled reports. I am intrigued by this

service as it allows to specify any internal integration object name, view mode and search spec and retrieve data from Siebel CRM via web services. So it is a perfect target for a first test using good ol' soapUI. Get the WSDL file The following assumes that you have imported the XMLP Data Service business service (that's the name in Siebel Tools) and the accompanying inbound web service (BIPDataService). This is typically done on server environments during the BI Publisher setup for 8.1.1.x releases. Launch the mobile web client against the sample database and navigate to the Administration - Web Services | Inbound Web Services view. Locate the BIPDataService inbound web service, ensure that it is set to "Active" and change the port address to http://localhost:2330?SWEExtSource=WebService&SWEExtCmd=Execute&UserName=SADM IN&Password=SADMIN Click the Generate WSDL button and save the file locally. (Note: alternatively you can just download the file and change the endpoint address later in soapUI) Prepare the SOAP request This is not going into depth how to download, install or use soapUI. Creating a soapUI project for a WSDL file is straightforward. Once you have the sample request open, you see that the BIPDataService takes five input parameters. Carefully modify the input request and set the parameters similar to the below example. NamedSearchSpec = 0* LoginID = (leave empty) OutputIntObjectName = 12*Perf Account SearchSpec = 24*[Account.Name] LIKE "K*" ViewMode = 3*All

The interesting bit about the BIP Data Service is that it accepts only parameter values which are preceeded by the length of the parameter value followed by an asterisk (in a kinda "property set" fashion which is really unusual). For example to specify the "Sales Rep" view mode, you would have to enter9*Sales Rep as the value for the ViewMode parameter. (How to find that out? You can observe how BI Publisher scheduler sets these parameters in the list of executed reports in the BIP Administration console). Do it Now let's don't waste any more time and click the green arrow button in soapUI. Voil: Nice XML data returned back from the local siebel.exe.

Of course you can create additional test scenarios, for example with the Siebel Account ASI. Have fun! Summary Setting up web service support for Siebel Mobile or Developer Web Clients (version 8.1.1.2 and higher) is straightforward. The ability to invoke inbound web services on remote clients is not only beneficial for developers but it also has the potential to change the way clientside integration (for example with MS Excel) will be approached in the future. The BIPDataService is a splendid example how a single web service can serve as a query access point for any data stored in Siebel CRM.