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Outer Join Flag

The document discusses the importance of setting the outer join flag when creating joins in Siebel business components. Forgetting to set this flag can lead to performance issues, data issues, and records disappearing. It provides examples of real situations where not setting the outer join flag caused problems like updates failing or records disappearing from views. The outer join flag controls whether records with no match are included or discarded from the join, to ensure all relevant data is returned.

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venkat576
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49 views2 pages

Outer Join Flag

The document discusses the importance of setting the outer join flag when creating joins in Siebel business components. Forgetting to set this flag can lead to performance issues, data issues, and records disappearing. It provides examples of real situations where not setting the outer join flag caused problems like updates failing or records disappearing from views. The outer join flag controls whether records with no match are included or discarded from the join, to ensure all relevant data is returned.

Uploaded by

venkat576
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Siebel Business Component Outer Join - How Important?

During my past two years of working on Siebel I have come across lot of situations
where just one little miss can wreck havoc with the application. It can result in
performance issues and Data issues. I think some of you might have guessed by
know what miss I am talking about.

I am talking about Outer Join Flag on Join Section of the Business Component. Joins
are the integral part of Siebel configuration. They are indispensable, joins are required
because we know the database (it can be oracle, DB2 or Microsoft SQL Server) is a
relational database known as RDBMS in short form. Which means the
information that resides in it is in the form of related tables and we always need
information of one table in another. These tables are related with the help of Foreign
Keys (FK). So, when we want to show information of one table in another we use
Joins and we use them all the times.

When we are creating Joins in Siebel you can see a field called Outer Join Flag. Please
see the screenshot below.

and every time we don't check that flag we are heading for trouble.
Now, what exactly does that flag represent? Before I explain it I assume that
you have basic understanding of SQL and simple joins. As I have mentioned earlier
that everything that configure or do on UI is converted into SQL and that is where this
flag comes into picture.

For example see the simple sql pulling data from another table with the help of simple
join

select name b
from siebel.s_opty a, siebel.s_doc_quote b
where b.par_row_id = a.row_id
and a.somefield = b.somefield
and a.row_id = 'Some Id'

Now this SQL is suppose to select name of the quote where the par_row_id column
(which store row id of its parent) is equal to the row if of opportunity and in addition
to that somefield of opportunity is equal to some field of quote. Now we assume that
you had created a join between Opportunity-Quote and forgot to check the outer join
flag.You will be amazed to see that there are No Records on UI. The reason being it
will try to match the exact values in the field and any record that is a not a match will
be discarded. Which means if there are some records that have no value in 'somefield'
either in Opportunity or on Quote will be discarded. What if we want those records to
shown? We have to check the Outer join flag which will result in a query as given
below

select name b
from siebel.s_opty a, siebel.s_doc_quote b
where b.par_row_id = a.row_id
and a.somefield = b.somefield(+)
and a.row_id = 'Some Id'

Which will result in all the Quotes that have 'Some Id' in par_row_id or in simple
terms that have Opportunity Id with 'Some Id' as their parent.

My experience has taught me to ask this as the first question whenever I face problem
mentioned above and I have seen developers sweat over this kind of problem for hours
before they spot it. I will mention some real life situations I have faced which were
due this little (or rather huge) miss while doing configuration.

Examples - Real Life Situations:


We have developed a web service that resulted in the insertion of quotes from a Java
Application. When we inserted a quote it got inserted successfully and when we
tried to update it, it Failed. It took us almost a day to find out that a developer had
created a new join in business component and forgot to check that Outer Join
flag which resulted in update to failed as it was not able to fetch that record.

I had created a new View in Assets Screen. When user was in My Assets view
then he was able to see the records but as soon as he choose All view the records
disappeared. The reason same a new join and forgot to check Outer join flag.

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