Scenario based Interview Questions - Part 1

Long ago an avid reader of the blog requested me to post some scenario based interview questions, and sent some good samples as well. I asked the same on siebel-developers slack community and got some really good answers. This is a three post series so stay tuned for next two posts.

If you like the questions and would like to see more like this, then please +1 this post on google, and don't forget to share your answer in comments below.

Question 1. What is the difference between join and link? 

Answer: Join is a way to fetch values from table other than base table in an BusComp, it is similar to join in SQL statement. And just like SQL joins, Siebel joins can be outer join or inner join. 

Link is way of creating parent child relationship of two bus comps, it specifies primary key and foreign key fields in two buscomps. Link can be 1: M or M:M

Question 2. Explain the difference b/n an Organization and division in Siebel?

Answer: 

Renjith replies:"

A Company can be divided into divisions representing departments, regions, Sector etc Example Samsung North America, Samsung China. 

Organizations are a special type of division used to restrict data access within that division. For Eg: All divisions belonging to same Organization share the same data access.

An Organisation is always a division but division is always not an organisation "

Haythems adds :  "Organisation is a business unit (exists in S_BU) which is not true for division."

Jim adds

• Account - [Internal Org Flag] = 'N', data gets populated in S_PARTY and S_ORG_EXT tables
• Division - [Internal Org Flag] = 'Y', data gets populated in S_PARTY and S_ORG_EXT tables
• Organization - - [Internal Org Flag] = 'Y' and [Organization Flag] = 'Y', data gets populated in S_PARTY,S_ORG_EXT, S_BU tables

Question 3:. We have Service Request (Parent BC) and Activities (Child BC) when all the activities are ‘Closed’ (status set as closed) Status of SR should automatically change to ‘Closed’. How do you achieve this.

Answer:There are many ways to achieve this functionality, one can write script on action buscomp to update service request or create run time event to do validate and update service request. DVMs can also update records if needed. Depending upon design patterns one should chose solution.

Question 4. Suppose we have a button on applet, if you click on applet which methods will trigger?

Answer:Every button control on applet have method invoke property which stores the name of the method which invoked in click. Code to handle that button can be at PreInvoke of applet or buscomp level. 

Question 5. What is Employee, user, contact in Siebel? Which entities relates to party. 

Answer:Employee, User and Contacts are party based components. Employee has additional information like position and responsibility as compared to user. All employees have record in S_USER and S_CONTACT not vice versa.

Question 6. If I update SR status to completed, then the child records related to parent should be read only, how do you achieve this?(this is tricky question, its a vanilla functionality no need to do anything) .

Answer: Parent read only field user property can control the readonly behaviour of child buscomp records.

Question 7: I want to display no of activities associated with account, how do you achieve? 

Answer:

1.  First we need to create MVL in Account BC based on Action BC, let say with name : "Action MVL"
2.  Then create a calculated field with calculation as : Count("Action MVL")
3.  Expose the calculated field on applet to display count of activities for the account.

Question 8: How will you configure a popup applet on click of a button? 

Answer:Best way to do this is by using out of the box control user property : Popup

Question 9. When do you go for Join & when do you go for Link? 

Answer: Join should be used when there is 1: 1 relationship exists between BusComp and the table. Link should be used when there 1: M or M:M relationship exists.

Question 10. Tell me some user properties you used in your current project? 

Answer:Please add user properties used in comments below.

Question 11. Can you explain 1 complex scenario which you implemented in your project? 

Answer: Please share your experiences in comments section below.

Question 12. Can you please explain, Named Method user property? 

Answer: Name method user property can be used to invoke business service or workflow on invocation of any method in siebel. It is actually easiest way to enable a button on applet and invoke business service on click.

Read other two parts :
Scenario based interview questions Config - Part 1 Scenario based interview questions Workflows - Part 2
Scenario based interview questions Scripting - Part 3

Please share your comments below.