Consume a Web Service

With this effect you can query or submit data to a Web Service. Consuming a Web Service is sometimes also referred to as calling a Web Service.

Before you can consume a Web Service you need to set up a service contract with the Web Service provider. This is done by creating a Web Service Reference. Follow the instructions in the step-by-step procedure on how to create a Web Service Reference.

To consume a Web Service, do the following:

  1. In the Name box, optionally enter a name. The name is displayed in the action tree, if a name is not entered, a summary of the effect is displayed.
  2. In the Description box, optionally enter a description.
  3. Click the General tab.
  4. In the Service Reference box, select the Web Service Reference containing the Web Service you wish to consume.
  5. The Endpoint box is only available if you are consuming an external Web Service. Select the appropriate endpoint if the external service contract contains multiple endpoint configurations.
  6. In the Operation box, select which operation to call.
  7. Click the Messages tab.
  8. Bind the request (input) and response (output) messages exposed by the operation to an XML document from one of your data sources. To read more about the messages used in the Message Exchange Pattern, see Request / Response Message Exchange Pattern. You can view the XML schema definition for a message element by pressing the CTRL key, and then click the link in the Definition column.
  9. If the Web Service provides SOAP faults, the fault messages should be listed with the message type SOAP Fault along with the input and output messages. For each SOAP fault defined by the Web Service Reference, bind the fault element to a data source. To read more about handling SOAP faults when consuming a Web Service, see Receiving and Handling SOAP Faults. The data source containing the request message should be filled out before you call the Web Service. Use the Create Object(s) effect to fill out the data source containing the request message.
  10. Additional SOAP headers can be added to the request message. To read more about SOAP headers, see SOAP Headers. To add a SOAP header to the request message, click Add and select either a data source or a field containing character or string data.
  11. You may also add HTTP headers to the request message. For each HTTP header to add, click Add and set Name and Value.

If you are consuming an external Web Service which normally exceeds the default timeout for your Application Model, you should specify the maximum allowed time the effect can run. To do this, do the following:

  1. Click the Advanced tab
  2. In the Timeout section, click Allow the effect to run for, and the type the maximum number of seconds the effect is allowed to run.
  3. If the Web Service provider is designed to process messages asynchronously, you can use Rerun Attempts to poll the Web Service until the result is returned. To do this:
  4. In the Rerun Attempts section, select the If this condition is true check box to enable rerun attempts.
  5. The effect will continuously call the Web Service as long as the specified condition is true. Click Modify to specify a condition.
  6. In the Rerun every box, type the number of seconds to sleep between each call.
  7. In the Attempt to rerun box, type the maximum number of rerun attempts for the effect.

See Also