I received an e-mail from Suni Reddy, who asked me to share with her an easy way of working with Siebel objects – primarily because of their large object hierarchy. I have thought about it several times, but because our work on Siebel goes on a temporary basis, I was never able to come up with something. Until now. This article will describe how you can create a single library with all the parent objects and call those objects on demand.

Normally, if you would like to select an item from a SiebList, you would do something like:

SiebApplication("MyApplication").SiebScreen("MyScreen").SiebView("MyView")_
	.SiebApplet("MyApplet").SiebList("MyList").Select "Open"

The above hierarchy can be greatly simplified – and this article will show a few ways how it can be achieved. Also, the way we’re going to structure our hierarchy, changing one object in a single place will account for an overall change. In other words, instead of changing a single object multiple times (because something changed in the application) we’ll change it only once.

With Statements

This is by far the most common approach used when dealing with large hierarchies, and quite simple too. However, as the parent objects change, we end up creating more and more blocks of such statements. An example of With..End With statement in use:

With SiebApplication("MyApp").SiebScreen("MyScreen1").SiebView("MyView").SiebApplet("MyApplet")
	.SiebList("MyList").Select "Open"
	.SiebButton("MyButton").Click
End With
 
'SibScreen changes from MyScreen1 to MyScreen99: re-write.
With SiebApplication("MyApp").SiebScreen("MyScreen99").SiebView("MyView").SiebApplet("MyApplet")
	'your code
End With

Using Functions to Build Sieb Hierarchy

This technique uses several functions to build a complete hierarchy, but the result is a good one. Moreover, it also simplifies how events are performed on objects. Let’s start by building our first function for the base object (SiebApplication):

'Base Object: SiebApplication
Function oSiebApplication
	Set oSiebApplication = SiebApplication("MyApp")
End function

Let’s create instances for our Child objects:

'oSiebScreen retrieves its parent (oSiebApplication) from the function above
Function oSiebScreen
	Set oSiebScreen = oSiebApplication.SiebScreen("MyScreen")
End Function
 
'oSiebView_ retrieves its parent (oSiebScreen) from the function above
Function oSiebView
	Set oSiebView = oSiebScreen.SiebView("MyView")
End Functions
 
'oSiebApplet retrieves its parent (oSiebView) from the function above
Function oSiebApplet
	Set oSiebApplet = oSiebView.SiebApplet("MyApplet")
End Function

To demonstrate, if we want to set a value in the “lstApplication1″ SiebList, we can simply do the following:

oSiebApplet.SiebList("lstApplication1").Select "Urgent"

I hope the above concept is quite easy to follow, because its used in an OO-methodology below, but with the help of properties.

Using Classes

This is my favorite, and quite similar to what we have above, but, the advantage of using this technique is that we can have multiple classes for multiple Parents, or a single class to group them all together. Assume we have the following hierarchy with an event:

SiebApplication("MyApp").SiebScreen("MyScreen").SiebView("MyView")_
	.SiebApplet("MyApplet").SiebList("lstApplication1").Highlight

First, let’s create a sample class for the Base object(s) that will be common for all classes.

'Demo class for the top-most object (Parent Class)
Class clsSiebApplication
	Public Property Get oSiebApplication
		Set oSiebApplication = SiebApplication("MyApp")
	End Property
End Class

Now, let’s build the child classes, that will use the base class to complete object hierarchies:

'Child Class: Derives its Base Object from clsSiebApplication (Parent Class)
Class clsSiebObjects
	Private oShared
 
	'We will reuse the Base class to retrieve some common objects
	'An instance of the base class will be initialized as the class loads
	Private Sub Class_Initialize		
		Set oShared = new clsSiebApplication
	End Sub
 
	'Terminate the instance while exiting.
	Private Sub Class_Terminate		
		Set oShared = Nothing
	End Sub	
 
	'oSiebScreen Property will retrieve its parent from oSiebApplication
	Public Property Get oSiebScreen
		Set oSiebScreen = oShared.oSiebApplication.SiebScreen("MyScreen")
	End Property
 
	'oSiebView Property will retrieve its parent from oSiebScreen (above)
	Public Property Get oSiebView
		Set oSiebView = oSiebScreen.SiebView("MyView")
	End Property
 
	'oSiebApplet Property will retrieve its parent from oSiebView (above)
	Public Property Get oSiebApplet
		Set oSiebView = oSiebView.SiebApplet("MyApplet")
	End Property
End Class

This can be used in a fashion that makes it very easy for the reader to comprehend with which objects the script is working with. Let’s use the same example we used above with the “lstApplication1″ SiebList:

Dim oSieb
 
'Create an instance of clsSiebObjects
Set oSieb = New clsSiebObjects
 
'Performing an event on the SiebList Object
oSieb.SiebApplet.SiebList("lstApplication1").Highlight

Using an Object Dictionary

This technique is based on Meir’s article, Implementing a GUI Layer with Classes. I would recommend you to read the article to better understand this approach. I have used a high-level approach to this concept, and to better utilize this process, the article must be carefully read. This technique can be used in the following manner to simplify a large object hierarchy:

Class clsSiebObjects
	Private m_htContext
 
	'Loads the Object Dictionary
	Public Function Load
		LoadContext
		Set Load = m_htContext
	End Function
 
	'Represents the Object Context
	Private Function LoadContext
		m_Context = CreateObject("Scripting.Dictionary")
 
		'Loading objects in the dictionary.
		With m_Context
			'SiebApplication
			.Add "SiebApplication", SiebApplication("MyApp")
			'SiebScreen (Parent: SiebApplication)
			.Add "SiebScreen", .Item("SiebApplication").SiebScreen("MyScreen")
			'SiebView (Parent: SiebScreen)
			.Add "SiebView", .Item("SiebScreen").SiebView("MySiebView")
			'SiebApplet (Parent: SiebView)
			.Add "SiebApplet", .Item("SiebView").SiebApplet("MySiebApplet")
		End With
	End Function
 
	'Property Get/Let m_Context
	Private Property Let m_Context(ByVal Val)
		Set m_htContext = Val
	End Property
	Private Property Get m_Context()
		Set m_Context = m_htContext
	End Property
End Class

The snippet below shows usage of the above class to simplify Siebel Hierarchy:

Dim oSieb
 
'Instance of the Class
Set oSieb = New clsSiebObjects
Set oSieb = oSieb.Load
 
oSieb.Item("SiebApplet").SiebPickList("lstApplication1").Select "Open"

Summary

In the examples above, you may notice why only the top 4 objects (Application, Screen, View, Applet) of the hierarchy have been included. This is because, including all the objects will really flood your libraries and make spotting the right object quite a cumbersome task. Thus, by including only the top 4 hierarchies, we can simplify our work on a great scale. If the hierarchy changes, we would simply need to modify the elements at one place, only.

For developers wanting to use Descriptive Programming with Siebel Applications, please note that, you will have to write descriptions for your Parent objects only once. When these descriptions change, updating them in a single place will be the only required maintenance. I am using 100% Descriptive Programming with our Siebel application, and the techniques in this article have really simplified a lot of my work by just taking care of the Parent objects.

I hope Automation Developers using Siebel with QTP find this article useful. Thanks for visiting Relevant Codes.

References

1. Implementing a GUI Layer with Classes by Meir Bar-Tal (AdvancedQTP, SolmarKN).

If you have any questions, please ask them in the comments section. If your information is to be treated as confidential, please use the Contact Form to send me an e-mail instead.

Tagged as: Classes, Object Hierarchies, QTP, QTP Hierarchies, QTP Large Hierarchy, QTP Siebel, QTP Siebel Classes, Siebel