Siebel Consultant Diary of a Siebel Consultant

Hiding controls in query mode

This issue came up during a UAT phase when testers reported to see two buttons twice when they wanted to query. After investigating this issue, I found out that some controls stayed on the appled even when the applet was in Query Mode.

Problem:

This issue only occurs with controls that invoke a custom method.

Normally when you query in Siebel, you only see the Go, Cancel and Query Assistant buttons but for some reason, buttons that invoke a custom method are also showing on the applet after pressing Query.

In our case this was causing confusion since our custom buttons had the same caption.

Solution:

First I tried to find a solution on Metalink, but there I found the suggestion to use BrowserScripting to hide the buttons but that is like fighting fire with fire.

Then, I’ve noticed that the buttons are not showing in the Query Mode if they are disabled before you press the query button. So the solution is very simple. Set the CanInvoke for the method behind the button to false and the button will not show when you do a query.

To do so, start by setting a Profile Attribute to true on the WebApplet_PreInvokeMethode for the NewQuery method. This Profile Attribute has to be set back to false of course to avoid that you’re button stays disabled. The best place to do this is on the PreInvoke of the methods ExecuteQuery and CancelQuery.

function WebApplet_PreInvokeMethod (MethodName)
{
switch(MethodName){
case “NewQuery”:
TheApplication().SetProfileAttr(“QueryMode”, “TRUE”);
return (ContinueOperation);
break;
case “ExecuteQuery”:
case “CancelQuery”:
TheApplication().SetProfileAttr(“QueryModeBPG”, “FALSE”);
return (ContinueOperation);
break;
}
return (ContinueOperation);
}

Next, you test for this Profile Attribute in the WebApplet_PreCanInvokeMethod to set the CanInvoke for the method to true or false.

If the Profile Attribute is true the Query button is pressed and the button should become disabled so it’s not displayed on the applet. When the query is executed or cancelled, the Profile Attribute is false and the button can become enabled again if other conditions are met.

case ‘StartActivity’:
if( … ){
CanInvoke = ‘FALSE’;
}
else{
if(TheApplication().GetProfileAttr(“QueryMode”) == “TRUE”){
CanInvoke = “FALSE”;
return (CancelOperation);
}
else{
CanInvoke = ‘TRUE’;
return (CancelOperation);
}
}
break;

When you now query, you see that the buttons are no longer displayed.

After running or canceling the query, the buttons are displayed again and will be enabled if they have to be.