1/22/2011

Binocular Search

Long time no posts, but well now I am back. Had a lot of work past half year. So this time I will talk about binocular search. I stud upon this after my project decided to upgrade Siebel from 7.8 to 8.1.
As you my know or not know, binocular search is option to search entity based on various fields.
As you start application in Home screen (and any other screen) in top besides "Site Map" button you will see button with binocular. Clicking this button will open side screen with some options. You can select entity, enter values in fields and click "Go" and then in middle of screen you will see your search results. So how we can configure this search object?
  1. In Siebel Tools click "Find" object. There you can create new find object. For new object you need to define following properties:
    1. Name;
    2. Project;
    3. Applet - on which search will be based;
    4. Display Name - as user can read it in pick list after clicking binocular button;
    5. Drilldown View - view to drilldown after search is done and user click one of results;
  2. After that go to newly created "Find" object "Find Fields". There you can define on which fields you want to base your search, like account or contact name, or phone number or address;
  3. Then specify "Find Views". Those are views on which are applet that you defined in parent "Find" object. For example if you want to search accounts you can consider to search it only in "my account" or "all account" views or on both. Also add them a sequence; 
  4. When everything is OK go to "Application" object and choose application you use. For chosen application go to "Application Find" and add your newly created "Find" object;
  5.  Of course compile newly created "Find" object and modified "Application" object.
After that you can use your created object in application by clicking binocular button.
If you want to hear really my opinion on this tool, then I don't have one. I only stud upon on this when upgrading Siebel 7.8 to 8.1. Problem was that my college was going in guerrilla testing (just taping and clicking where ever possible), then he stud upon that in binocular search we have all in duplicates, like two account find objects, two contact find objects, two asset etc. We didn't actually know if users are using this functionality, but as good developer we wanted to fix this. So I started to learn about this search option.
What was my solution, I will tell another time, because that is one whole story.

Best regards,
Zh