January 19, 2020

How to calculate age from date of birth using calculated fields?

Hi Readers,

This is a new series, where I will show you how things are done in Siebel and how the same thing can be done in Salesforce. Will leave the decision upto you to tell me which one is easier and which one is better.

Step 1: Create first calculated field to output date in YYYYMMDD Field Type: DTYPE_NUMBER
    ToChar(Today(),’YYYY’) + ToChar(Today(),’MM’) + ToChar(Today(), ‘DD’)
Step 2: Create second calculated field to convert birth date field in YYYYMMDD  : Field Type: DTYPE_NUMBER
    ToChar([Date Of Birth], ‘YYYY’) + ToChar([Date Of Birth], ‘MM’) + ToChar([Date Of Birth], ‘DD’) 
Step 3 : Create another field to use the fields created above as : Field Type: DTYPE_TEXT
    The Under Age flag : IIf(([Step1] – [Step2]) < “180000”, “Y”, “N”)

We are doing these three steps mainly because :
  1. Siebel does not have good list of functions supported in calculated fields. 
  2. Siebel does not have data type conversion in calculated fields. 
Lets don't refer to invoke service method due to its own complication and performance issues it can cause.


In Salesforce if you have to do this activity, you just need one formula field with following calculation.

IF( NOT( ISBLANK( Birthdate ) ) ,
  IF( DATE( 2000 , MONTH( Birthdate ) , DAY( Birthdate ) ) <= DATE( 2000 , MONTH( TODAY() ) , DAY( TODAY() ) ),
     YEAR (Today()) - YEAR ( Birthdate ),
     YEAR (Today()) - YEAR ( Birthdate ) -1 ),
  null)


Learn more about list of functions available in Siebel here: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/B40099_02/books/ToolsDevRef/ToolsDevRef_Operators8.html

and Full list of salesforce functions are here: https://help.salesforce.com/articleView?id=customize_functions.htm&type=5


January 16, 2020

State of Siebel in 2020?

Hello Readers,

It has been a while since I have posted on this blog. I have moved on from Siebel the second time. Still see some of my friends working in Siebel and keep getting furious.

Just wondering what are my readers are doing in 2020? Please take some time out and let us know the actual state of Siebel this year.


Live results





Many things have happened since I last posted.
Siebel unleashed vanished :(

via GIPHY

No more posts on Impossible Siebel :(

via GIPHY

No more posts on Siebel Mantra :(

via GIPHY

And such a once a wonderful blogging community just vanished.

I have stopped reading siebelhub.com,  hope it is doing great. I hope you all are doing great. Would love to read your comments and connect.





 -Jim

December 21, 2016

Gift yourself salesforce skills this holiday season!

Either you are seasoned Siebel developer or just starting struggling with Siebel, I am sure learning salesforce would have crossed your mind. No doubt Siebel is the best full fledged CRM product out there, but there is no harm is learning new stuff.

I have set a challenge for myself to learn salesforce this holiday season and seriously try for salesforce consulting job roles in the new year. I want to invite all How To Siebel readers to join me in journey and learn salesforce together.
Salesforce Unleashed

I am going to learn salesforce by myself by going through trail head and online tutorials, and going to share my progress on my new blog
http://salesforce-unleashed.blogspot.com 

To make it easy please follow my latest posts :
How to get started with salesforce
Screen cast of earning first trail head badge.
Question and Answers

At last I will leave you with a quote from Dr Seuss



And recommend you to come and follow me on my new Salesforce Unleashed blog and keep up with my salesforce learning plan.

Override windows idle timeout!

As a Siebel Consultant you must have come across windows machines with extremely short idle timeout. I guess I am not the only one who hates to type in password again and again, situation becomes worst when machine logs off or gets powered off due to idle session timeout!!

Out of frustration, I started to hunt for a solution. Keep in mind I don't have privileges to change setting on the OS.

December 12, 2016

How to hide an applet conditionally in Siebel Open UI??

While working on Siebel Open UI - UX improvement projects numerous times we need to access data through PM and PR layer without showing data to user.
For such requirements you just wish if it was possible to have applet in view with all the required fields and methods you need, but just shouldn't show up on UI.


Well that is possible, there are two ways to handle this on the client side.