Enhancing your Siebel CRM Self-Study Environment to 8.1.1.10

Dears,

Many of my dear readers have followed this popular article in order to install a Siebel 8.1.x self-study environment on their laptops or workstations. A self-study environment consists of the following:

• Siebel Developer (or 'Mobile') Web Client
• Siebel Tools
• Siebel Sample Database

It provides a lot of benefits for the ambitious Siebel professional. Having all "vanilla" applications along with plenty of sample data (iHelp, anyone?) at your fingertips makes learning, evaluating and prototyping so much easier.

Now the winds of change are in full force with Siebel 8.1.1.10 just having been released last week.

Today I would like to point out the major steps to "upgrade" your self-study environment to the latest release.

These are the steps:

1. Download and extract the installation archives
2. Create the installation image
3. Install the patch
4. Copy the new sample database and SRF files (optional)
5. Test

1. Download and extract the installation archives

Log on to Oracle's Software Delivery Cloud (aka E-Delivery) and accept the export restrictions. In the Search form, choose Siebel CRM as the Product Pack and Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) as the Platform. Then hit the Go button.

In the result list, locate the entry named "Siebel Business Applications (with Translations) Media Pack 8.1.1.10/8.1.1 for Microsoft Windows" and click on it.

Scroll down to the second list (below the language pack list) and download the following files:

• Siebel Industry Applications Version 8.1.1.10 Maintenance Release Guide
• Siebel Industry Applications Version 8.1.1.10 Siebel Client
• Siebel Industry Applications Version 8.1.1.10 Siebel Tools 
• Siebel Business Applications Version 8.1.1.10 Sample Database Files 
• Siebel Business Applications Version 8.1.1.10 Siebel Repository Files 
• Siebel Business Applications Version 8.1.1.10 ImageCreator Files 

Files to be downloaded from Oracle's Software Delivery Cloud for patching a Siebel CRM self-study environment to 8.1.1.10 are highlighted in red.

Extract the contents of the Client, Tools and ImageCreator archives into a single folder as usual. Keep the other archives for later use.

While on E-Delivery, you might want to download the Base and Thirdparty archives and any language pack you need for server installations as well but for the self-study environment you won't need them.

2. Create the installation image

If you haven't been involved in the last patches for Siebel CRM, you might be searching for the Siebel Network Image Creator executable a while. Since 8.1.1.8, we use the snic.batfile to invoke it.

Before you run the snic.bat file, ensure that the JAVA_HOME environment variable points to a valid Java SDK.

Proceed through the dialogues as usual, choosing the following options:

• Create a new image
• Create only a patch image
• Location: Choose a target directory
• Platform: Windows
• Products: Siebel Web Client and Siebel Tools
• Languages: ENU and any other you might need

When the wizard completes, you will find the Siebel installation image files in the target directory.

3. Install the patch

Befaure launching the patch installer, ensure that you have exited all instances of Siebel Developer/Mobile Web Client and Siebel Tools. Just to be on the safe side, close all instances of Internet Explorer too.

To install the patches, navigate to the installation image folder for the respective product and open the Disk1/install subdirectory. Launch the setup.bat file.

This will bring up Oracle Universal Installer. The only thing you need to watch out for is to select the proper Oracle Home and Oracle Location. If you have only one instance of Siebel 8.1.x client and tools on your machine, it'll be probably alright with the defaults.

The installer will back up the existing installation and then applies the patch. Wait for the installer to display a completion message.

4. Copy the new sample database and SRF files (optional)

A big difference to earlier maintenance releases is that the good people at Oracle have decided to create a new sample database which supports all enhancements of 8.1.1.10 (that is the repository contains all 'ACRs' since 8.1.1.1 and the database schema changes are applied).

In addition, you can also download a set of SRF files which match the content of the new vanilla repository with all cumulative enhancements.

So the good news is we can simply extract the Repository Files and Sample Database Files archives to a location of our choice and copy the SRF files (there's one for each language pack) to the respective /OBJECTS folder (don't forget to copy it to the Siebel Tools folder as well) and copy the new sse_samp.dbf file to the SAMPLE\UTF8 folder of the client installation directory.

In case you have done some prototyping in your "old" sample database, you might want to rename your previous versions of SRF and DBF files so you can still access them using a copy of your existing .cfg files.

As you might be aware, the new Incremental Repository Merge feature provides for a secure way to apply the innovation pack features into an existing customized repository but is for server databases only.

I tend to archive my prototypes as .sif files on a regular basis and so I can inject them into the new vanilla repository if need be.

5. Test

Launch your Siebel shortcuts to ensure that everything is in place. If you want to evaluateOpen UI or the new mobile applications you might need to set the parameterEnableOpenUI to TRUE in the .cfg file and use the /b switch in your shortcuts to open the Siebel Web Client in a browser of your choice.

Siebel 8.1.1.10 sample database on Open UI in full glory, complete with reports panel.

Reference :

 http://siebel-essentials.blogspot.in/2013/03/upgrading-your-siebel-crm-self-study.html?spref=bl

Best Regards 

DC*