SIEBEL: Extract SIF file from SRF

This post is a response to one of my friend's question. Can we get a SIF file of an applet from a SRF file? 

Scenario: We have a customized SRF file, connection to server DB and sample DB. Now we know that the Contact list applet is customized and compiled onto this SRF. Now we want to get a SIF file of the SRF.

Solution: Most of the people I approached, said it is not possible. But there is a solution!!

If you have a SIF file, try opening it with Notepad++ and observe that the SIF file is a Structured XML.

This gave me the idea. If I can build an XML similar to the SIF and save it as .SIF file, I will have my SIF file ready.

Step 1: First I created a dummy applet with all the child entities like Applet Browser Script,Controls, Menu Items etc. This step is to make sure that you have a dummy XML with all the applet elements in it. Exported it as a SIF file. Open the file with notepad++ and copy the XML. Using any online source, convert this XML to XSD. (I used this). Create an Integration Object using this XSD (use EAI XSD Wizard). Now this is the structure we want to get a new SIF file. Name the IO as Siebel Information IO.

Step 2: Create a new Siebel BO based IO (EAI Siebel Wizard) using BO Repository Applet. This is a vanilla BO. Make sure to include all the child items (Applet Menu, Web template Item,Applet Server Script etc) while creation. Name it as Repository Applet IO.

Step 3: Create a new IO data mapper under Administration Integration with destination IO as Siebel Information IO and source as Repository Applet IO.
Make sure you map all the fields properly. Get the project and repository details from Repository Applet IC fields (Project Name, Repository Name etc) and map the same. Compile the changes to your custom srf.

Step 4: Create a workflow with first step to query Repository Applet IO using EAI Siebel Adapter. Provide the Applet name as Input to query. In second Step, map the Repository Applet IO to Siebel Information IO using EAI Data Transformation Engine service. In the subsequent steps, convert the EAI Siebel Message to XML (EAI XML Converter) and write the file (EAI XML Write to File) to a location with name "Contact Form Applet.sif". 

Simulate the Workflow in your application connecting to your DB after opening it using your custom SRF and voila!! you have your SIF file with object definitions from your custom SRF.

What I did was: identified how siebel stored information in sif files, identify how siebel repository BO stores the information, query a siebel BO based IO, map to sif structure and write to sif file.

Go ahead and try it. It is a time taking process but it is worth if you have this kind of requirement. We can extract SIFs like Business Components, Business Services etc using Repository Business Component, Repository Business Service IOs. We can do this for all the objects in tools.

Let me know your thoughts on this!!

Salesforce WSDL testing using Soap UI

In this post I am going to discuss about how to test Salesforce WSDL using Soap UI. This is pretty basic stuff but for beginners this might be helpful.

You need to download the WSDL from your application from Setup -> Develop -> API -> Generate Enterprise WSDL. 

Copy and save the WSDL into a .wsdl file.

Import this WSDL in Soap UI. It will import methods like Create, Convert Lead, login, update, upsert etc.

First we need to get a session Id to access data in salesforce. To get this, we need to call login method in the WSDL.

The login method input should look like this:

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:urn="urn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com">

   <soapenv:Header></soapenv:Header>

   <soapenv:Body>

      <urn:login>

          <!--Salesforce Username:-->

         <urn:username>khadar.pathan@gmail.com</urn:username>

           <!--password appended with session token:-->    <urn:password>NewPasswordc4w5ePZbF3dBokl1BrWr</urn:password>

      </urn:login>

   </soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope> 

You need to get the session token from below location in the application. 

This will send an email to your account with session token. You need to append your password and this token if you are trying to login to application from anything apart from a browser (like SOAP, Force.com IDE etc). 

You might get this error if you do not give session token "Invalid username, password, security token; or user locked out."

The output of above request gives server URL and session Id.

Using this session Id in Soap header and URL as service end point, you can create, delete, update, upsert or do any operation from the WSDL. If you do not change the service end point, you will get error "Destination URL not reset. The URL returned from login must be set in the SforceService".

In the below example, I have created a new Account. Sample Soap messages to create the data can be found at https://developer.salesforce.com/page/Sample_SOAP_Messages

Hope this helps!!