The need for Open UI Mobile - Siebel CRM on any Device!

The recent studies show that the World is Getting Even More Mobile! See below trend analysis on business insider - Pretty soon Tables/Smartphone will out-sell PCs! 

Pretty soon Tablets/Smartphones will out-sell PCs! 

Take me and you! apart from your usual office hours - where do you spend most of your time - on your PC/laptop or on your tablets/smart phones? Let's face the reality, our users want information on their finger tips - where ever and which ever device they are using.

Oracle has innovated a brand new architecture to bring your Favourite Siebel which was bounded to your Internet Explorer 8 on Windows -  to a true device and browser independent platform - called Open UI!  

Siebel Open UI for sure is the next big thing in Siebel CRM world! Siebel Open UI is built on an open architecture that can run any Siebel business application on any Web browser that is compliant with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards. It can display data in Web browsers that support Web standards on various operating systems, such as Windows, Mac OS, or Linux. For example:

■ Internet Explorer 9 onwards
■ Google Chrome
■ Mozilla Firefox
■ Apple Safari and many more modern browsers

Please see my previous blogs to have more discussions on Open UI itself. 
- The need for Siebel Open UI
- Siebel upgrade Vs moving to cloud assessment

So, what is Open UI Mobile?
It's a Siebel mobile application which can work in connected or disconnected mode. This application is built on top of jQuery Mobile user interface system. jQuery Mobile is a HTML5-based user interface system designed to make responsive web sites and apps that are accessible on all smartphone, tablet and desktop devices.

What do you get with Open UI Mobile?
It's a device independent web based mobile application for Siebel. So you don't need to worry to build custom application for each device. It works on all modern tablets and smart phones seamlessly.

Your web application leverages all native device capabilities like 
- Camera integration
- Signature capturing
- making calls, sending text messages and emails directly from your Siebel Account or Contact
- native map integration to drive you to the customer location

Use all Native Device Capabilities on your mobile app!

Take a look at below variations of Open UI Mobile on ipad

Tablet: Out of the Box Open UI Example

Tablet: Custom, Tiles-based Example

So, what do you need to get Open UI mobile?
Step 1: Upgrade to the latest Siebel innovation pack 2014. 
It's 8.1.1.11 with PS7. Oracle is releasing patch sets almost every month to add more and more enhancements to the Open UI framework. Read my previous blogs for deciding on Siebel upgrade and making a business case. 
- The need for Siebel Open UI
- Siebel upgrade Vs moving to cloud assessment

Step 2: Enable Open UI Mobile
Oracle has shipped new Application (Siebel tools --> Application) objects for each CRM vertical.
>Siebel Sales Enterprise Mobile - The Siebel Sales Application for OpenUI Mobile
>Siebel Service for Mobile - The Siebel Service Application for OpenUI Mobile

You know that behind every Siebel HI application, there is an Object Manager component? For example, Siebel sales has SSEObjMgr_enu object manager. So, what Oracle has done is they have provided a set of component params to switch Open UI or Open UI Mobile on. 
EnableOpenUI - Setting to TRUE will true your existing Siebel HI into Open UI enabled
MobileApplication - Setting EnableOpenUI and to TRUE will enable Open UI Mobile.

To have Open UI enabled: 
> Clone your current Siebel HI Object Manager
> Update parameter EnableOpenUI to TRUE
> setup a new URL on your webserver to point to this new Object Manager
> Restart everything and see

To have Open UI Mobile enabled: 
> Clone your current Siebel HI Object Manager
> Update comp param EnableOpenUI to TRUE
> Update comp param MobileApplication to TRUE
> Update comp param ApplicationName to 'Siebel Sales for Mobile' or 'Siebel Service for Mobile' depending on which application you want to enable
> setup a new URL on your webserver to point to this new Object Manager
> Restart everything and see

And see the results on your ipad or any device you got! You will be amazed as to what you have achieved and how easily and quickly! I will share another blog to detail all the steps needed to achieve above and how you can test it.

Note that you will have to configure/customize your out of the box to meet your business needs. I will publish another blog on customization for Open UI Mobile in near future. See below screenshots for some of the customizations collated from various sources.

Till then, thanks for going though my blog! Keep reading! Keep sharing :)

Shiv