Oracle CRM On Demand – JS API vs SOAP Web Services

This blog article compares Oracle CRM On Demand Release 24 Java Script (JS) API with traditional SOAP Web Services API highlighting the differences. The benefits of developing the integration and customization solutions using the JS API & Client Side technologies is also covered here.

This article can be used as a reference by technical consultants to choose the right API to design & develop CRMOD integration & customization solutions. I would assume that people reading this article are familiar with CRMOD SOAP Web services API and proceed with comparison.

CRMOD – JS API vs SOAP Web Services

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• JS API supports CRUD Operation on Parent Records only. Both Standard and Custom Objects are supported. CRUD Operations on Child records are not supported in the current release
• CRUD Operations can be performed on only one record at a time
• All CRUD operations are asynchronous
• Row Id is the only search specification accepted by Read, Update and Delete operations
• For create and update operations on required and read-only fields in off-screen records, only default preconfigured fields are supported and not custom fields.
• JS CRUD API doesn’t consume any web services operations quota and hence doesn’t impact Service allotments
• With JS API, no need to explicitly establish the session either using SSO token or using Username/Password. JS API CRUD operations inherits the logged in user privileges by default
• Administrative Service API is not available in JS API
• The JS API may not be helpful to develop ETL/batch program based solutions
• Current release of JS API is not very consistent with Firefox and Chrome. But works consistently with IE

Note: If the integration & customization requirement can’t be meet using JS API and if you still intend to develop the client side solution, we could consume the SOAP Web services using Java Script technologies, develop the client side solution & host the solution in CRMOD Client Side Extension (CSE).

Benefits of developing CRMOD Integration & Customizations using Client Side technologies:

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• Cut down/Save the dollars spent on Hosting server procurement & maintenance. Using JS API we can develop integration solution using JS client side technologies and host them within CRMOD using Client Side Extension(CSE) feature.
• Performing Web Services Operations using JS API doesn’t impact the CRMOD Web Services Allotments. And hence reduces the investment of procuring the Web Services allotments quota.
• JS API & Client Side Solutions are more responsive and performs better.
• JS API don’t consumes any CRMOD Web services session to perform web services operations. And thus eliminates concurrent session handling at the client side.
• Leverage CRMOD security practices by deploying solutions within Oracle server

N Prashanth 

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Oracle CRM On Demand Integration Apps – cut down hosting server costs with client side solutions

Oracle CRM On Demand Integration Apps – cut down hosting server costs with client side solutions

Generally in ORACLE CRMOD (or any other system to that matter), when customer business needs can’t be met using standard out of box features, developing custom integration applications (using web services) is unavoidable. These custom integration solutions needs hosting server and the customers end up spending hundreds of dollars in arranging these servers. Customers who opts for cloud based solutions doesn’t like to invest in and maintain the servers in general. This is one major pain point that many customers have faced or are facing over the years.

With the latest technology advancements and with few new feature additions to CRMOD product by ORACLE, this problem can now be addressed to a great extent. Now let us look at these developments in brief to see on how they can be leveraged to solve the hosting server problem.

1. Latest technology development (Evolution of JavaScript to server-side apps): Since its inception in 90’s, JavaScript (JS) has become one of the most popular web development programming language. The JavaScript mainly gathered the popularity due to its ability to deliver rich, dynamic web content, its relatively lightweight and its high ease of use.

Although initially developed as a browser-agnostic scripting language, JavaScript made inroads in the areas such as mobility and server-side enterprise apps. At present, we are witnessing the shift away from server-side development in favor of client-side JavaScript. Organizations are preferring to go with backend API & rich client side applications due to obvious reasons. JS is the language everybody (developers) needs to know and it is not going to go away anytime soon.

The emergence of frameworks such as Angular, Ember, Backbone, Sencha, WebIx, etc. have taken the client side application development to the new heights and have made powerful enterprise apps development using client side technologies a reality.

2. Key feature Additions to CRMOD: Embracing the technology changes and to keep up with current trend, ORACLE added the following features to CRMOD related to Client side technologies.

    a. Client Side Extension (CSE) in R19 – CSE are files (HTML, JPG, GIF, SWF, and CSS files) that you can upload to and host on Oracle CRM On Demand instead of hosting them on other servers. We can leverage the CRMOD security practices.

    b. JS API in R24 – API provided by CRMOD to customize the screens and perform CRUD operations on objects/tables.

    c. REST API – planned in the upcoming releases

So using JS, CSE and JS API we can now develop fairly complex and rich client side solutions and host them within CRMOD. At the same time, it is also important to be noted that not every custom integration solution can be solved using Client side technologies. But there is a high probability of solving most custom requirements provided we exploit the powerful features of client side technologies, SOAP & JS API.

Considering the cost saving advantage it offers to the customers, integration solutions using client side technologies should be preferred option while architecting the solutions. All of this is good news for the CRMOD customers 🙂

N Prashanth

Related blogs: Oracle CRM On Demand – JS API vs SOAP Web Services