Creating an exit point

To include an exit point in a workflow definition:

  1. Add an exit point activity to your workflow model.
    1. Open the workflow that should contain the exit point.
    2. If additional parameters are required for the exit point, define these parameters in the workflow.
    3. In the workflow model, add an exit point activity by dragging the workflow activity from the toolbox into the model.
    4. In the Exit Point Properties pane, specify a name and, optionally, a description for the exit point activity.
      If you want the aggregated notes also to be passed in each call to your exit point logic, select the Include notes from previous steps check box.
  2. Download the WSDL to be used for implementing the exit point.
    1. In the Exit Point Properties pane, click Download WSDL.
    2. Select the folder to store the WSDL file. Specify a file name and click Save.
  3. Implement the exit point.
    Develop an implementation based on the WSDL. How to do this depends on the technology and the development environment you use. This activity requires software development skills.

    For a typical development environment, complete these steps:

    1. Create a project.
    2. Generate a web service implementation using the downloaded WSDL file.
      Note: In the WSDL, inheritance is used to support variables of different data types such as IntegerValue and StringValue. Some older development environments cannot deal with this when generating code based on the WSDL. Therefore, you must use an up-to-date development environment.
    3. Implement the required logic in the implementation. For example, to concatenate strings, to read additional data from a database, or to invoke an existing web service.
      If you use Java, you can use the helper methods from the sample project to get or set the parameter values.
    4. Deploy the exit point so it can be invoked.
  4. Configure the location of the exit point in ION.
    1. Return to ION Desk.
    2. In the Exit Point Properties pane, specify the URL to connect to the WSDL of the deployed web service.
      For example: 
      http://myhost:8080/MyExitPoint/ExternalLogicExecuter?wsdl
    3. Click Validate to check whether ION can connect to the exit point.
    4. Optionally, specify the command to be used.
      See Command string.
  5. Specify the connection settings.
    1. Click the Connection Settings tab.
    2. Specify the authentication that is required to connect to the exit point. If basic authentication is required, specify the user name and password to be used.
    3. Specify how to handle errors, for example if the web service is unavailable or if it returns an exception.
      • Select Continue workflow without changing parameters if the workflow can continue without problems. Select this, for example, if the exit point retrieves an additional description that must be displayed in a user task, but that description is not critical for executing the task.
      • Select The workflow fails if the successful execution of the exit point is crucial for the workflow. Select this, for example, if the exit point retrieves data that is required to make a decision in the next step of the workflow.

        See Avoiding workflow failure.

    4. Optionally, modify the retry time that is used if the exit point service is unavailable.
    5. Optionally, modify the web service time-out that is used if the exit point service can be invoked but does not respond in time.