Siebel Search Specification (Search Spec) – What about it?

This article has been submitted by Nidhi Puri having Siebel experience of 2+ years and right now working as Project Lead.

A Search Spec is nothing but a filter on the returned set of records and if we we look atc it from database point it acts as where clause in the SQL that is formed which restricts the number of records that will be retruned from database.

In Siebel we can apply search spec to

• Applet
• Business Component
• Link
• Picklist

1. For an Applet, a search spec filters the records that are displayed on UI. The underlying BC brings back a set of records and before they can be displayed, the applet search spec applies the filter on them and displays only a subset of records.

2. For a Business Component, a search spec filters all records that would be returned from the underlying base table. This would also result in the filtering of records on the applet tied to this BC. However, the search spec in 1 above works only for that particular applet while on a BC, the search spec is inherently applied to all applets that are based on this BC.

3. A search spec on a Link will filter all child records from the destination BC.

For Example
Account/Address link. Search spec looks something like this: [City] = ‘London’, this will bring back all address records for the account where the City = London.

4. A search spec on a Picklist will filter the data that the picklist points to. For static picklist, the data exists on the List of values, so the search spec for a static picklist would look something like this:

[Value] <> 'Corporate'. This would show all values other than "Corporate" when you click on the dropdown. For dynamic picklists, the search spec would something look like this: [Active Flag] = ‘Y’, this would bring back all records from the destination BC (on which the picklist is based on) where the Active Flag = Y