Copyright Apex IT. 2006 Slide 1 Siebel Upgrade Best Practices: A Web Seminar from Apex IT January 17, 2007.

Copyright Apex IT. 2006 Slide 1

Siebel Upgrade Best Practices: A Web Seminar from Apex IT

January 17, 2007


Apex IT Corporate: Who We Are

Apex IT is a Minneapolis-based systems integrator and consultancy with expertise in both Customer Relationship Management and Enterprise Resource Planning

An Oracle Certified Advantage Partner, Apex IT supports the core platforms of the Oracle Applications Family

Those platforms include:

PeopleSoft Enterprise

Oracle E-Business Suite

Siebel Enterprise and Siebel On Demand

Apex IT is a full service consultancy – our service offering addresses the entire application implementation continuum - everything from strategy development and implementation, to change management and post-implementation managed services

Our service offering also includes custom development capabilities


Apex IT Siebel Qualifications

Apex IT understands key Siebel Enterprise features and functionality – we know what to do to make a Siebel implementation successful, and more importantly, we know what not to do

Apex IT hires only the most skilled and competent Siebel consultants – a majority of our Siebel consultants have certifications in major releases like Siebel 99, 2000, 7 and 7.7

Apex IT is also a Siebel user – we are currently live on the newest release of Siebel On Demand

We have built our most important sales and marketing processes around Siebel On Demand

We rely on Siebel On Demand to provide the sales pipeline and sales forecast reports needed to plan for and allocate our consulting resources


Today’s Presenter . . . Amy Mattes

Today’s Presenter


To discuss Siebel upgrade planning best practices

To outline an tried and true upgrade flow and approach

To discuss Siebel upgrade execution best practices

Today’s Objectives


Upgrade Planning – Best Practices

Upgrade Flow

Upgrade Execution Best Practices

Questions

Agenda


A decision TO UPGRADE should be based on:

- New App vs. Old App Audit – Key stakeholders should conduct an analysis to ensure that the new Siebel release truly does contain clear feature/functionality advantages

- A Clear Cost vs. Benefits Analysis – The costs of maintaining the legacy Siebel app should outweigh the costs of the upgrade OR the risk of not upgrading is greater than the cost of upgrading

- A Clear New App ROI – The new Siebel app should deliver clear and measurable ROI

- Support Agreements – Make sure to consider the time left before Oracle “sunsets” support services for legacy application

Justifying the Upgrade Decision


Careful planning is required to be successful!

Determine your upgrade path Evaluate the complexity of the upgrade

─ Number of modules, integration point, and interfaces

─ Total number of scripts

Assess the current Siebel environment!─ Compare architecture and current implementation─ Identify areas of new functionality ─ Assess scripts, integration, reports, business process,

repository objects─ Use the Upgrade Assessment Worksheet in bookshelf

Estimate the level of effort to upgrade─ Determine the metrics and cost associated with the

upgrade─ The assessment should help estimate resources,

timelines and cost Establish a cross functional team

Planning Your Upgrade


Most upgrades will be a one-step process

Two-step upgrade applies to:

─ 6.x version upgrading to 7.8

On your first upgrade go with the highest version i.e. 6.x would go to 7.7; not 7.5

Don’t do any more work after the first upgrade than necessary

─ don’t compile a SRF, test application, etc

Resolve all conflict after each upgrade

Upgrade Versions and Paths: One-step vs. Two-steps


If you have performed an upgrade in the past, you can benchmark your time by:

─ Last upgrade was version 6 to 7, then this upgrade should require less time

─ Last upgrade was 7 to 7.7, then this upgrade should require the same amount of time

If you have never done an upgrade, you can estimate your time by:

─ The length of time it took for the original implementation and take 25% to 50% since steps such as requirements and build much small if even needed

*7.x upgrade from start to finish including testing and deployment will take 4-5 months

*How Long Will the Upgrade Take?


Typical Upgrade Project Plan

Plan Overview Plan Analyze

─ Perform a trial run ─ Inventory all applets, views and screens

Upgrade Development/QA─ Follow the upgrade flow─ Upgrading the QA environments a good benchmark for

Production Test

─ Training and change management activities Upgrade Production

─ Follow the upgrade flow Deploy

─ Planning for phase 2 can begin

Plan

Upgrade Dev and QA

Test

Production

Analyze

Phase 1 - Upgrade

Phase 2 - Enhancements

16

Weeks

11



Upgrade Flow


Questions

Agenda


Upgrade Infrastucture

Pre-Upgrade Tasks

Upgrade Tasks

Post-Upgrade Tasks

Prepare Application

Data

Upgrade Database (upgrep)

Prepare for Repository

Merge

Merge Repository

Run Post merge

Utilities

Upgrade Custom DB

Schema (upgphys)

Set Up Environment

Application Administratio

n Tasks

Application Configuration

Tasks

Test the System

Upgrade hardware/software/database

Upgrade 3rd party

software

Install Siebel Software

Development Env

Only

Upgrade Flow


Upgrade Infrastructure


Pre-Upgrade Tasks

Upgrade TasksPost-Upgrade

Tasks

Make sure your hardware and software are up to required specification for the upgrade

Review Support Platforms Guide Review all Alerts, Tech Notes, FAQ’s, etc. Consider new or changed functionality Complete all upgrade assessments


Pre-Upgrade Tasks

Pre-Upgrade Tasks


Upgrade TasksPost-Upgrade

Tasks

Prepare the Siebel database for the upgrade─ Close all database connections─ Clear all pending workflow tasks─ Disable triggers

Workflow Process Migration─ Make sure workflow in development are the same as production if not, otherwise; when

production is upgraded workflows will be lost─ Best practice: All production workflows should be in development

Delete all old repositories


Upgrade Tasks

Upgrade TasksUpgrade

InfrastucturePre-Upgrade

TasksPost-Upgrade

Tasks

Run the database server configuration utility (upgrep) to perform a basic upgrade of the database schema and loads repository in prep for merge

Merge repository using Siebel Tools*

Run postmerge utilities to analyze your customizations and apply changes to them as needed to conform to the new user interface*

Run the database server configuration utility (upgphys) this will further upgrade the database with the changes resulting form the repository merge

*Development Environment Only


Post-Upgrade Tasks

Post-Upgrade Tasks


Pre-Upgrade Tasks

Upgrade Tasks

Set up environment─ Compile latest SRF

─ Extract developer’s databases

Application Administration─ Verify user access and visibly of views and screens

Application configuration─ Prepare QA environment for testing

─ Validate application data: LOV, views, responsibilities, etc.

Test the system─ Unit test the development environment

─ Full regression and stress test QA

─ User Acceptance



Upgrade Flow


Questions

Agenda


Upgrep Best Practices

Upgrep: The Utility that upgrades the database schema and loads the repository for the new version of Siebel

Performance Problems?

─ Verify preparation activities were done

─ Assume the same problem will happen in QA/Prod

Use the logparse utility to check for errors

─ Compare to errors.rtf

Understand the steps upgrep is performing

Remember upgrep is restartable

Do take all recommended backups between steps

Failures are common: usually due to missed steps

Other common problems:

─ Not enough table or index space

─ Network timeouts


Merge Repository Best Practices

Run the repository merge on a Windows app server with fast processors, fast disk and lots of memory if available

Search merge0.txt for string “!!ERROR”

If errors occur, this will be noted in the status field on the application upgrade applet

─ Screens->Application Upgrader

Use Support Web’s Troubleshooting Steps. Explanations of most errors can be found here

Focus on fixing non-UI conflicts

Only “Upgrade Ancestor” type errors are considered acceptable

Search for deleted objects that have been added back

Search for obsolete object that you are using

─ Document these during the assessment


General Upgrade Best Practices

Upgrade Ancestors (Inheritance)─ Should have been set as objects were cloned; if upgrading from a release that didn’t

allow this, do it after UPGREP and before the repository merge

─ You can always use object comparison after the upgrade to synchronize copied objects with OOTB objects

Incorporate Custom Layout (ICL) can save time when upgrading 7.x to 7.8 if you extensively modified OOTB applets instead of making copies

─ Provides SOME consistency in UI by maintaining the controls and their locations form previous release

─ Due to changes in view navigation (aggregates&categories), view groups are not completely preserved

6.x version may need to visit each form and list applet

─ Form: controls, labels, vertical spacing, group boxes

─ List: max# of columns per applet

6.x version should run script analyzer to determine which script features are not compatible wit 7.8

─ Applet script will need to be moved to applet server script

─ Replace MsgBox with RaiseErrorText

Siebel has a utility that can help convert VB code to eScript

Don’t assume 7.0 and 7.5 scripts will upgrade smoothly to 7.8

─ Only fields displayed on applet can have their values “gotten”


Testing Upgrade Best Practices

Plan to upgrade test environment at least twice; maybe more

─ Restore test with a copy of production

─ First time upgrade in parallel to development to determine if performance will be an issue

Do not underestimate testing for the upgrade

Allow the same amount of testing time as it took in our initial implementation

Consider performance and stress testing

Test new 7.8 load balancing

Test data as well as the application

Test data migration if migration scripts changed


Production Upgrade Best Practices

Do at least one practice run of your production upgrade

─ Allows you to configure application servers ahead of time outside the upgrade window

─ Put together a project plan with estimates based on your practice run to help with calculating final upgrade window

There is more to the production upgrade than running upgrep and upgphys so don’t under estimate the amount of time your production upgrade will take

Put together a detail document of your upgrade steps using the upgrade guide but adding detail specific to your upgrade

─ How to QA each step in the production upgrade

─ Names and location of all scripts/utilities to be run


Questions

&

Answers

6

Copyright Apex IT. 2006 Slide 1 Siebel Upgrade Best Practices: A Web Seminar from Apex IT January 17, 2007.

Documents

copyright apex

siebel qualifications

siebel upgrade best

demand apex

upgrade decision slide

siebel user

new siebel app

legacy siebel app