MS Office Integration for Siebel CRM Part 2

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1 MS Office Integration for Siebel CRM Part 2 In the previous post of this mini-series we introduced the socalled SFA web servcies for Microsoft Office integration with Siebel CRM. These templates are provided for MS Excel (discussed in the previous post) and MS Word. They contain macros which connect to Siebel CRM using web services over http provided by the Siebel Server infrastructure. Today I would like to show how to use the MS Word mail merge template to create personalized letters or s to customers and write back activities to Siebel CRM. As we discussed how to download the templates in the last post, we ll start right away and open the Word template file (allowing macro execution). 1. Get Siebel Data In the toolbar (or ribbon in MS Office 2007) that is generated by the code in the template, we can select the Get Siebel Data option. The following objects are supported in the current version: Contacts Opportunities Accounts Service Requests

2 You will be prompted for username and password and the connection to the Siebel web server will be established. We can then apply filters and select fields. 2. Select Data The retrieved data is stored as a separate.doc file on the disk and can be opened offline. We can repeat the data retrieval process and refresh the list file. From the local file we can select all or individual records.

3 and insert merge fields 3. Create the document The next step is very similar to working with the MS Word merge functionality. We can put placeholder fields in the text which are to be replaced with the data during the merge. Below we see the result when we click the Preview button. Guest Customer is the first and last name of a contact. 4. Merge the document Also in a well known manner we can generate the merged document, save it, print it or it. 5. Create activities in Siebel CRM An even more interesting part of the MS Word integration is that we can create activities (one for each contact) in the Siebel CRM database. In order to do so, we select Log as Siebel activity and specify key fields for the future

4 activity records. When you click Save, an activity for each contact in the list is generated with the content specified in the form. Summary Both the Excel and Word templates provide an entry point of using predefined web services for integrating Siebel with MS Office. Personally, I consider them being worth evaluating and maybe building on top of the integration strategy. But I would also not expect too much in terms of performance. have a nice MS Office Integration for Siebel CRM Part 1 Sometimes it s the tiny features that best show off an application s ability to integrate into a service-oriented architecture. In this and the next post we ll talk about the Microsoft Office Web Service Integration (for Excel now and

5 Word later) which is a nice example for integrating the desktop world of MS Office with Siebel CRM using web services. To demonstrate or evaluate the MS Office integration we have to copy the.saf files to the Siebel File System and download the templates fire up the Siebel Server and EAI Object Manager Configure the Excel and Word templates Let s discuss this step by step 1. Copy the SFA SAF files (no typo) and download the templates In your Siebel server installation folder locate the temp/sfa folder and copy all.saf files to the ATT folder of your Siebel File System. In the Siebel Web Client, navigate to Administration Documents Literature and query for the seed records for the MS Office templates. The Excel Reports and Analysis document is an.xls file with macro code that will establish a connection to the Siebel Server using web services. The Word Integration for MailMerge.dot document is a.dot file (with macros as well) that will be discussed in a future post.

6 Download the templates to your local drive. 2. Engage the EAI Object Manager If not already done, enable the EAI component group on your Siebel Server and ensure that the EAI object manager is online. 3. Configure the Excel Template Open the template in MS Excel (allowing macro execution) and navigate to the advanced custom file properties. Set the SFAServer property to server_host-or-ip/eai_language. The two other properties starting with SFA should be ok. If not, change them as well. SFA stands for Sales Force Automation which is the flintstonian name for Siebel Sales.

7 Click OK and save your changes. You can now make copies of the.xls file and distribute to the end users. Using the MS Excel Template The macros in the Excel file use the Siebel Web Service integration to get metadata information on integration objects and the data itself. If you re into it you can open the macros in the debugger and have a ball First we have to connect to the Siebel environment by clicking Configure Siebel Report in the toolbar (or ribbon if you have Office 2007). After logging in, the dialog allows you to select an object such as Opportunity. We can create a new report definition specifying filters and fields. When we run the report, data is fetched (under full access control for the user) and the spreadsheets are populated. Now we can for example create charts or functions for analysis.

8 The screenshot shows an existing report in the background and the dialog for field selection in the foreground. The Excel file can be saved and opened later again. To refresh the data from Siebel, we use the Refresh Siebel Report button. Summary The web-service based MS Excel integration for Siebel is a good showcase for creating a custom UI on top of Siebel OOB (out-of-the-box) web services. Of course it can t compete with Oracle Business Intelligence EE (OBI EE) but because of the refresh capability it s way better than just downloading data from the Siebel Client. have a nice BI Office Integration

9 BI Office Integration I am often engaged in discussions how the Excel users or Office users should participate in an Oracle BI EE project. This user group is often characterized as not needing Oracle BI, wanting to stick to their beloved spreadsheets and not willing to switch to more advanced BI technologies. Sometimes an argument for continuing to use Excel is the mere fact that Excel supports more chart types than Oracle BI (which is true, for example for the Pie of Pie chart see image below -, one that was on a list of required chart formats once). Many people have been exposed to slick demos of BI for Office which is of course a very sophisticated and useful solution. But some project teams don t want to install additional software on the client PCs. To please them, I have compiled a list of options that you have even with older versions such as Siebel Analytics 7.8. In order to solidify the discussion, I have created a small, maybe incomplete compilation of options that we have to integrate office suites (not necessarily limited to MS Office) with Oracle BI. Just to prepare you: Might be a lot more than you expected.

10 the file Click here to download