Oracle Siebel CRM 8: Configuring Navigation

Understanding drilldown objects

In Siebel CRM, a drilldown is the activity of clicking on a hyperlink, which typically leads to a more detailed view of the record where the hyperlink originated. The standard Siebel CRM applications provide many examples for drilldown objects, which can mainly be found on list applets such as in the following screenshot that shows the Opportunity List Applet:

The Opportunity List Applet allows the end user to click on the opportunity name or the account name. Clicking on the Opportunity Name navigates to the Opportunity Detail - Contacts View in the same screen while clicking on the Account name navigates to the Account Detail - Contacts View on the Accounts screen.

Siebel CRM supports both static and dynamic drilldown destinations. The Opportunity List Applet (in Siebel Industry Applications) defines dynamic drilldown destinations for the opportunity name column depending on the name of the product line associated with the opportunity.

We can investigate this behavior by creating a test opportunity record and setting its Product Line field (in the More Info view) to Equity.

When we now drill down on the Opportunity Name, we observe that the FINCORP Deal Equity View is the new navigation target, allowing the end user to provide detailed equity information for the opportunity.

To test this behavior, we must use the Siebel Sample Database for Siebel Industry Applications (SIA) and log in as SADMIN.

We can now inspect the Opportunity List Applet in Siebel Tools. Every applet that provides drilldown functionality has at least one definition for the Drilldown Object child type. To view the Drilldown Object definitions for the Opportunity List Applet we can follow the following procedure:

1. Navigate to the Opportunity List Applet.
2. In the Object Explorer, expand the Applet type and select the Drilldown Objects type.
3. Inspect the list of Drilldown Object Definitions.

The following screenshot shows the drilldown object definitions for the Opportunity List Applet:

We can observe that a drilldown object defines a Hyperlink Field and a (target) View. These and other properties of drilldown objects are described in more detail later in this section. There are various instances of drilldown objects visible in the previous screenshot that reference the Name field. One instance—named Line of Business defines dynamic drilldown destinations that can be verified by expanding the Drilldown Object type in the Object Explorer and selecting the Dynamic Drilldown Destination type (with the Line of Business drilldown object selected).

The following screenshot shows the dynamic drilldown destination child object definitions for the Line of Business drilldown object:

The child list has been filtered to show only active records and the list is sorted by the Sequence property.

Dynamic Drilldown Destinations define a Field of the applet's underlying business component and a Value. The Siebel application verifies the Field and Value for the current record and—if a matching dynamic drilldown destination record is found—uses the Destination Drilldown Object to determine the target view for the navigation. When no match is found, the view in the parent drilldown object is used for navigation.

When we investigate the drilldown object named Primary Account, we learn that it defines a Source Field and a target business component, which is a necessity when the drilldown's target View uses a different business object than the View in which the applet is situated. In order to enable the Siebel application to retrieve the record in the target View, a source field that carries the ROW_ID of the target record and the business component to query must be specified.

The following table describes the most important properties of the Drilldown Object type:

The following table describes the most important properties for the Dynamic Drilldown Destination type:

Creating static drilldowns

In the following section, we will learn how to create static drilldowns from list and form applets.

Case study example: static drilldown from list applet

The AHA Customer Documents List Applet (Download code - Ch:9), which provides a unified view for all quotes, orders, opportunities, and so on, associated with an account. The applet should provide drilldown capability to the documents and the employee details of the responsible person.

In the following procedure, we describe how to create a static drilldown from the AHA Customer Documents List Applet to the Relationship Hierarchy View (Employee), which displays the reporting hierarchy and employee details:

1. Navigate to the AHA Customer Documents List Applet.
2. Check out or lock the applet if necessary.
3. In the Object Explorer, expand the Applet type, and select the Drilldown Object type.
4. In the Drilldown Objects list, create a new record and provide the following property values:
   • Name: Responsible Employee
   • Hyperlink Field: Responsible User Login Name
   • View: Relationship Hierarchy View (Employee)
   • Source Field: Responsible User Id
   • Business Component: Employee
   • Destination Field: Id
   • Visibility Type: All

5. Compile the AHA Customer Documents List Applet.

We will continue to work on the AHA Customer Documents List Applet later in this article.

Creating drilldown hyperlinks on form applets

Sometimes it is necessary to provide a drilldown hyperlink on a form applet. The following procedure describes how to accomplish this using the SIS Account Entry Applet as an example. The applet will provide a hyperlink that allows quick navigation to the Account Detail - Activities View:

1. Navigate to the Account business component.
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2. Check out or lock the business component if necessary.
3. Add a new field with the following properties:
   • Name: AHA Drilldown Field 1
   • Calculated: TRUE
   • Calculated Value: "Drilldown 1" (include the parentheses)

4. Compile the Account business component.

   Did you know?
   We should create a dummy field like in the previous example to avoid interference with standard fields when creating drilldowns on form applets. This field will be referenced in the drilldown object and control.

5. Navigate to the SIS Account Entry Applet.
6. Check out or lock the applet if necessary.
7. In the Object Explorer, expand the Applet type and select the Drilldown Object type.
8. Create a new entry in the Drilldown Objects list with the following properties:
   • Name: AHA Activity Drilldown
   • Hyperlink Field: AHA Drilldown Field 1
   • View: Account Detail - Activities View

9. In the Object Explorer, select the Control type.
10. In the Controls list, create a new record with the following properties:
    • Name: AHA Activity Drilldown
    • Caption: Go to Activities
    • Field: AHA Drilldown Field 1
    • HTML Type: Link
    • Method Invoked: Drilldown

11. Right-click the SIS Account Entry Applet in the top list and select Edit Web Layout to open the layout editor.
12. Drag the AHA Activities Drilldown control from the Controls | Columns window to the grid layout and drop it below the Zip Code text box.
13. Save the changes and close the web layout editor.
14. Compile the SIS Account Entry Applet.
15. Log in to the Siebel client and navigate to the Account List view.
16. Click on the Go to Activities link in the form applet and verify that the activities list is displayed for the selected account.

The following screenshot shows the result of the previous configuration procedure in the Siebel Web Client:

Clicking the Go to Activities hyperlink on the form applet will navigate the user to the activities list view for the current account.