There are several alternatives for performing CRUD operations in Siebel besides using DataLoad, including COM, Java beans/JMS, web services, EIM, and eScript. Each option has advantages and disadvantages related to speed, ease of use, ease of configuration, and reliability. EIM is typically the fastest but most complex to set up, while DataLoad is easy to configure but unreliable and slow.

1. DataLoad
Some reasons for not using this tool
with Siebel*
*This presentation considers the freeware version of DataLoad Classic, more specifically version 5.4.1.0 build
40532

2. This is odd...
• Why only the Oracle Consulting would
recommend this tool?
Because the time to apply data changes during
a implementation usually needs to be short

3. The short time to use this tool is
it best quality
But there are drawbacks for it's regular
usage (which have low impact during a Siebel
project implementation)

4. Quick comparative table
Advantages Disadvantages
● Relative easy to configure ● The results of the process cannot be
trusted
● Time between configuration and ● Processing time is considerable long
usage is quite short
● Unnecessary computing resources
consumption from Siebel environment
● A computer must be completely
dedicated to it during execution
● It is hard to check results
● Limited access to the application
(depending on applets/views)

5. Unreliable results
• Sometimes the Siebel Web Client and/or Internet Explorer may fail to
capture the keyboard shortcuts and the operation sequence is
compromissed
• Besides not being able to change the values of the desired fields it is
possible that the data is modified in other, undesired, fields
• This kind of error is intermittent and happens (by experience of the
author) around 8 to 10% of the total of processed registries
• At the end of the process you might have to run everything again (or
at least what was not executed correctly in the first time).

6. Processing time is considerable long
• Compared to other alternatives, the performance of
DataLoad is bad
• And uses more computing resources than the other
alternatives

7. Example of execution
Yes, there is a sleep command here...
but is there another way to wait for commits?
What about callback functionality?

8. “Unnecessary” computing resources
consumption
• DataLoad works within the Siebel Visual Layer
• Therefore, to change a single field in a applet,
Siebel must recover information from all other
fields from the data base to build the screen
• The more complex is the screen, larger will be
the waste of computing resources in all Siebel
application layers.

9. Complete dedication of a computer
• DataLoad must have a Internet Explorer/Siebel
window opened all the time without changing
the mouse focus of it
• If mouse focus is lost, the application stops
working as expected
• The computer will not be able to run any
foreground application during the running time
of DataLoad

10. It is hard to check results
• How to do that? DataLoad does not have this feature.
• It is necessary to compare the desirable data to the
changed and systematically compare it with data
recovered after the DataLoad process is finished
• By “systematically” it is understandable that someone
will need to build such thing (even if it is only a MS Excel
with some formulas)
• Visual verifications are only applicable with really small
amount of data to be changed.

11. Limited access
• Since DataLoad uses the visual layer of
Siebel, any restriction applied to a
view/applet will also restricts what be be
accomplished by using those objects
• It might be necessary to temporary grant
different responsibilities to accomplish the
job (or even modify the applet/view/BC)

12. Alternatives?
• Siebel has different alternatives to CRUD
data
• Each one of them have their advantages
and disadvantages
• Therefore it is necessary to consider the
best scenario to apply them

13. What we have for today?
Siebel has the following alternatives to CRUD data:
• COM
• Java Beans/JMS
• Web services
• EIM
• eScript
All those alternatives should follow the default Siebel
development process but, by the other hand, they also have a lot
of features to debug and identify errors during the process.

14. COM
• Available in two “flavors”: COM Data Server and COM
Data Control
• It can be used by installing the thick Siebel Web Client
(Mobile or Dedicated)
• Available for any programming platform that supports
COM (including all applications from Microsoft,
including Excel)
• Complete access to the Business Layer of Siebel
through coding, being able to search, insert, update
and remove data

15. Java Data Beans/JMS
• Interesting for Java applications to be able to
access Siebel
• It also uses the Business Layer of Siebel,
allowing the Java application to search, insert,
update and remove data
• It requires programming in Java/J2EE

16. EIM
• The biggest champion in speed to execute CRUD operations in
Siebel
• It works exclusively in the Data Layer and that is one of the
reasons for it's great speed
• It works in batch, allowing the control of the batch sizes and
commits to the database
• It uses to be more time consuming to setup and the complexity of
the task is directly proportional to the complexity of the Business
Layer model that will be updated
• Besides it's own configuration it also requires the usage of ETL
tools, which are not provided by Siebel

17. eScript
• The default scripting language of Siebel, based on ECMAScript
• It also uses the Business Layer of Siebel, allowing the script to search,
insert, update and remove data
• Since it runs inside a Siebel Server, network communication may
have less impact in the overall performance
• Unfortunately there are not many functions and features as other
programming platforms as Java or those that supports COM
• It works better for CRUD operations and simple logic. Doing complex
operations (for example, creating MD5 hashes) are particularly slow.

18. Web Services
• Good opportunity to use an already available structure to
extend access to Siebel
• It is the best option to reduce coupling for integrations
• By the other hand, it is the slowest alternative when
compared to the others
• Doing manual invocation of web services are not really
intuitive unless a application is created or a generic one
(for example, SOAP UI) is used.

19. An empirical overview of available options
CRUD operations speed Usage ease* Configuration ease* Reliability
Data Loader 1 4 4 1
COM 3 3 3 3
eScript 3 2 3 3
EIM** 4 1 1 4
Java 3 2 2 3
Beans/JMS***
Web Services 2 3 3 3
* Bigger is better
** Complexity of configuration depends on the data model to be used
*** JMS could have better response time for being asynchronous