Web service connection points

The Web Service Connector can connect applications that are unable to send or receive BODs, but have a web service interface available.

In this way, you can retrieve data from a web service and send it to one or more applications. Or you can use data from BODs to invoke a web service.

In a document flow, the use of web service connection points is comparable to the use of any type of connection points. Data from a web service is packed as a BOD and delivered to any other connection points. Data in BODs from any connection point can be delivered to a web service. Because all data is packed as BOD messages, you can extend your document flow using mappings or content-based routing.

When using standard BODs, you must transform the BOD contents to a web service request or transform a web service response to the BOD. To avoid unnecessary custom BODs, this transformation can be done inside the web service connector.

Prerequisites

You can use a web service in ION in these cases:

  • The web service is accessible through SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) over http or https. REST (Representational State Transfer) is not supported.
  • The web service is accessible anonymously or through basic authentication (RFC 2617).
  • The WSDL version is 1.1. Version 2.0 (also known as 1.2) is not supported in ION.
  • The WSDL does not contain overloaded operations (multiple operations having the same name but different input or output). To use one of these operations, use a copy of the WSDL and remove the variants that you do not use.
  • The WSDL does not contain circular references. For example, the WSDL cannot import an XSD that in turn imports the WSDL again.
  • In case of an RPC-style web service, both the input and the output must be a single parameter. Although it can be an XML node having child nodes.
  • The web service does not use WS-A (Addressing).
  • At least one input parameter in the WS operation that is referred from ION must be of complex data type.

Web services show many varieties. Not all web services adhere to standards such as WS-I or WS-I Basic Profile and different practices are used. Although ION was tested with various web services, we cannot guarantee that any web service works with ION. If you have problems using your web service in ION, go to the Infor Support Portal.