Integration Platform Technologies: Siebel Enterprise Application Integration > Web Services > Invoking Siebel Web Services Using an External System >

About the Relationship of Port Types and Operations

Port types are defined in the Inbound Web Services view, in the Service Ports applet. The Type and Business Service/Business Process Name fields are based on the same dynamic picklist. Opening it displays all the port types. Here you can create or delete port types.

After a port type has been created, you can create the operations that the port type will define. This is done in the Operations applet. Clicking the New button displays any operations that are currently defined for the specified port type. You can expose as many business service methods as you want, but once defined they cannot be deleted or modified through the picklist or through the Operations applet. You can only delete the link between the specified port and operation.

The business service methods are read from the SRF. When an operation is defined, a new record is added to the S_WS_OPERATION table, with the Method Display Name field set to the business service method.

Subsequent attempts to add new operations display the dynamic picklist of operations stored in the S_WS_OPERATION table. Any changes to the business service definition made after the Web service operation was created are not reflected, because operations are read from the database.

When generating a WSDL, the generator reads the port type definition from the database and retrieves all associated operations. It processes the operations and then checks them against the business service methods in the SRF. Any discrepancy causes an error to be thrown.

This design allows port types to be shared across Web services. Changes to a port type (including the associated operations) made in one Web service definition do not affect other Web services. You can only make changes to a port type (such as deletion) after no Web services are pointing to it.

Deleting Operations by Deleting the Port Type

Operations themselves cannot be deleted after being created. The only way to delete an operation is to delete the associated port type.

NOTE:  Deleting a port type will cause all associated operations to be deleted.

To delete a port type and its operations

1. Delete all Service Port records that use this port type.
2. Click New to display the picklist.
3. Delete the port type, which will trigger the deletion of all associated operations.