How to setup a Communication Profile for sending email from Siebel ?

I was working on our Sandbox Env, that we have newly setup for some R&D purpose, and got the requirement to send an email from Siebel via F9 functionality. Since it is a new env, nothing has been setup on that from administration standpoint, so I need to start from the scratch to setup a communication profile. So let me tell you today what all you to do for this :

1. Navigate to "Administration - Communications -> Communication Profiles & Drivers" view.
2. Query for "Internet SMTP/POP3 Server" under Communications Drivers applet.
3. Create a new Profile. Lets say "Test Email Profile".
4. Under Profile Parameter Overrides applet, add the following parameters :
   ==> From Address : Any Email Address (Generally it should be Siebel Email box Id )
   ==> SMTP Server : Name of the SMTP Server which will send the email.
   ==> SMTP Server Port : 25
5. Click on "Menu" button on "Profiles" applet and click on "Submit Profile Changes".
6. Uptill this point you are ready to use this communication profile but before this need to check whether Server Component, responsible for executing the email request are running properly or not. So continue with the next step.
7. Navigate to "Administration-Configuration -> Enterprises -> Component Groups" and query for "Communications Management" under component groups applet and then query for "Communications Outbound Manager" component under "Components" applet. This is the component which is responsible for sending outgoing emails from Siebel.
8. Check if "Enabled on Server" flag is checked under "Component Group Assignments" applet. If not click on "Enable" button.
9. Navigate to "Administration-Configuration -> Enterprises -> Component Definitions" and query for "Communications Outbound Manager".
10. Set the following two parameters to "Test Email Profile" (Communication profile created in Step# 3)
    ==> Comm Profile Override
    ==> Communication Profile
11. Click on "Synchronize" button.
12. Now restart the Siebel server.
13. Navigate to Tools -> User Preferences -> Outbound Communications view and select "Siebel Email Client" in Email Client. Click on Save.

And you are done with the profile creation and hopefully it should work fine. Lets test it out.

Navigate to Service Request Screen -> My Service Requests view, Click F9 and system will give you the Popup form to send an email. Put your email address in "To" section and fill in the subject and body as per your wish and send it.

Check your Inbox, you will see the email in few minutes. Also drilldown on SR# field and navigate to "Activities" view, you will an activity of type "Email - Outbound" and the contents of the email in Comments field. This is Siebel OOB functionality of creating activity under Service Request whenever you send an email from Service Request record.

Troubleshooting :

Let me tell you about the error which is most likely to occur while sending emails from Siebel once you have setup a new Communication Profile. What happens is you followed above steps and still not received any email. Go to "Administration-Management" Drilldown on Component "Communications Oubound Manager" and check the log. You may see the error : "Client does not have permission to submit mail to this server".
This error most likely occur when there exist a firewall between your Siebel server and SMTP server, so what happens is Siebel Server is not able to create any email request on the SMTP server. Just talk to your network administrator and get the name of SMTP server without any firewall. It will work.

Hope this helps !!!!!

What you see is what you get @ Siebel

My colleague called me up this morning to show an amazing behaviour that he was observing while working on a Form Applet web layout. Actually he was creating a new applet : "Service Request Form Applet" and creating the web layout for that. He placed various field as per the requirement on the UI and it was lookinng good in Siebel Tools. To be on the safer side right clicked on the web layout of the applet and clicked on "preview" and applet was looking good. Then he asked me, "Eveything is looking fine?", I said, "yes absolutely" and he just smiled and compiled and SRF and showed me the applet in the application and I just got surpised to see that the UI was totally different what I just saw in the web layout of applet in Siebel Tools.

And my reaction was ...... hmmmmm, how it could had happen?? Isn't Siebel follow the "What you see is what you get" science?

I know, you must be thinking that whether we had exposed the correct "Applet Mode" in View Web Template Item or not. OR whether we are working on the applet's "Edit" layout or not. But don't worry, this was not the case :)

Well, both of us started scratching our heads and looking for the cause for it. Lot many things we tried, like a) deleted all controls from the UI b) Added some of the controls c) Changed the Web Layout by placing control on diff diff places...... but nothing worked. Still in the application UI, there is no change.

Lastly we found one OOB tools feature by which you can verify whether what you are placing on the UI is correct or not and most of you already must be knowing .... i.e. "Check Mappings".

So finally we right clicked on the web layout of the applet, clicked on "Check Mappings", and found there was many invalid mappings exists on the applet. System asked me to delete those and I just clicked "Yes" and now created the Web Layout again, compiled the SRF and wwwwooooooooooooo...... yes we were seeing what we were expecting.

We still believe, Siebel follow the "What you see is what you get" science. :)

.

Siebel @ Youtube........ Enjoy !!!!!!!!

Here is some important information for all of you and I don't think much of the Siebel guys know this, but there are some useful links of youtube which provides some unique capabilities of Siebel new versions. And the best part is these are Vedios available on youtube, we can actually see and observe the Siebel OOB capabilities and provide some good solutions for the customers.

Here you are :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyVzFSgXPhU

ENjoy !!!!!!!!!!!!

.