Invoking a SOAP Endpoint from a BPMN Workflow

BPMN SOAP tasks allow you to invoke SOAP endpoints within your BPMN processes. This can be achieved by adding a SOAP Task and handling the SOAP invocation part in a process implementation. EI-Business Process has provided this functionality out of the box to avoid the hassle of doing implementations by process developers.

Adding a SOAP task to a process

Create a BPMN process and a BPMN diagram. For instructions, see Creating a BPMN Process.
Drag and drop a SOAP Task from the tools palette in the place where you need to invoke the endpoint.
Go to the Properties panel of the SOAP Task and select the Main config tab.

Enter values for the following fields appropriately, as shown in the example below.

Field Name	String Value	Required/Optional
Service URL	URL of the target endpoint	Required
Input Payload	Request payload	Optional
SOAP Headers	SOAP header block, which is attached to the SOAP header when creating the SOAP request	Optional
SOAP version	Soap version to be used when creating the SOAP request (i.e., SOAP11 or SOAP12)	Required
HTTP Connection	Control options for the current connection. ('keep-alive' is the the default value.)	Optional
HTTP Transfer Encoding	The form of encoding, which is used to safely transfer the entity to the user	Optional
Output Variable name	Name of the variable to save the response	Required
Transport headers	Header values in the format "headerName0":"headerValue0","headerName1":"header Value2"	Optional

SOAP task properties

The following configuration provides an example definition to use as the SOAP task.

<definitions
	xmlns="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/MODEL"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
	xmlns:activiti="http://activiti.org/bpmn"
	xmlns:bpmndi="http://www.omg.org/spec/BPMN/20100524/DI"
	xmlns:omgdc="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DC"
	xmlns:omgdi="http://www.omg.org/spec/DD/20100524/DI" typeLanguage="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" expressionLanguage="http://www.w3.org/1999/XPath" targetNamespace="http://www.activiti.org/test">
	<process id="myProcess" name="My process" isExecutable="true">
		<serviceTask id="servicetask1" name="SOAP Task" activiti:class="org.wso2.carbon.bpmn.extensions.soap.SOAPTask" activiti:extensionId="org.wso2.developerstudio.bpmn.extensions.soapTask.SOAPTask">
			<extensionElements>
				<activiti:field name="serviceURL">
					<activiti:expression>http://10.0.3.1:9773/soapSample1_1.0.0/services/soap_sample1/${method}</activiti:expression>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="payload">
					<activiti:string>&lt;m:getFullQuote
						xmlns:m="http://services.samples/xsd"&gt;
                                &lt;m:request&gt;
                                &lt;m:symbol&gt;IBM&lt;/m:symbol&gt;
                                &lt;/m:request&gt;
                                &lt;/m:getFullQuote&gt;
					</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="headers">
					<activiti:string>&lt;headers:ServerHeader
						xmlns:headers="http://www.roguewave.com/examples/webservice/headers"
         env:mustUnderstand="0"&gt;MyValue: From the server&lt;/headers:ServerHeader&gt;
					</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="soapVersion">
					<activiti:string>soap11</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="httpConnection">
					<activiti:string>keep-alive</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="outputVariable">
					<activiti:string>output</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="soapAction">
					<activiti:string>urn:sayHello</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
				<activiti:field name="transportHeaders">
					<activiti:string>&lt;p1:Code
						xmlns:p1="http://www.XYZ.com/XSD"&gt;XYZ&lt;/p1:Code&gt;
					</activiti:string>
				</activiti:field>
			</extensionElements>
		</serviceTask>
	</process>
	<bpmndi:BPMNDiagram id="BPMNDiagram_myProcess">
		<bpmndi:BPMNPlane bpmnElement="myProcess" id="BPMNPlane_myProcess">
			<bpmndi:BPMNShape bpmnElement="servicetask1" id="BPMNShape_servicetask1">
				<omgdc:Bounds height="55.0" width="105.0" x="340.0" y="60.0"></omgdc:Bounds>
			</bpmndi:BPMNShape>
		</bpmndi:BPMNPlane>
	</bpmndi:BPMNDiagram>
</definitions>