Exposing a Process Flow as a Web Service

How to:

A process flow created in iWay Designer can be exposed as a Web service through the iWay Explorer. The prerequisites to exposing a process flow as a Web service are:

You can then use the iWay adapter, accessed through iWay Explorer, to expose the process flow as a Web service, as explained in this section.

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Procedure: How to Expose a Process Flow as a Web Service

To expose a published process flow as a Web service:

  1. Launch iWay Designer.
  2. In the Navigator pane, click the Explorer tab.
  3. Select or create the repository that corresponds to the iWay Business Services Provider (iBSP) that will host the new Web service.

    For instructions on creating a new repository, see Configuring iWay Business Services Provider.

  4. Expand the Services node.
  5. Expand the iWay adapter node to reveal the iWay targets.
  6. Right-click the target to which you want to connect and select Connect from the drop-down list, or create a new target.

    This is a connection to iWay Service Manager where the process flow is published. For more information, see the iWay Designer User's Guide.

    The published system process flow appears under the target node.

    As an example, the following image shows a target named Target7 and two process flows named PFIVP and Supply.

  7. Right-click the process flow node that you want to expose as a Web service and select Create iWay Business Services from the drop-down list.

    The IBS Name and Description dialog box opens. The following image shows this dialog box with an example name and description.

  8. In the Name field, type a name for the Web service.
  9. In the Description field, type a brief description of the new Web service.
  10. Click Next.

    The Define License and Method dialog box opens. The following image shows this dialog box with an example entry for the license and method.

  11. From the License Name drop-down list, select a license.
  12. In the Method Name field, accept the suggested name or type a new name for the method.
  13. In the Method Description field, type a brief description of the method. This is optional.
  14. Click Finish.

    The Web Services tab in the Navigator pane opens showing the new Web service under the Services node, the workspace pane lists the new Web service with its description, and the Message Log displays the following message:

    The iWay Business Service 'xxxxx' has successfully been created.

    where:

    xxxxx

    Is the name of the new Web service.

    The following image shows the iWay Designer window with an example of a newly exposed Web service named SupplyFlowService.

    At this point, you have exposed the process flow as an iWay Web service. You can test the functionality of the Web service by using the built-in HTTP based Test client. To test the Web service, continue with the following steps.

  15. In the Web Services tab, select the new Web service node

    The workspace pane displays the Web service methods.

    The following image is an example of this pane with a Web service named SupplyFlowService and its method named Supply.

  16. To test the new Web service, click the method name. In this example, the method is Supply.

    The method Test pane opens, as shown in the following image. This pane provides a text field in which to paste the XML input document or you can browse to an XML document and upload it to the test field.

  17. Click Invoke.

    The test results appear in the Test pane.

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