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Exposing a Workflow as a Web Service

The following statements can be applied to workflows consumed as Web services.

• A workflow corresponds to a single Web service operation.
• Workflow process properties are Web service messages. A workflow property set has no direct external representation but can be mapped to an Integration object.

NOTE:  Workflows that are either Persistent or Interactive must be refactored to work as Web services.

The following procedure explains how to make workflows available as Web services.

To make workflows available as a Web services

1. Identify process properties that are to be made available and correctly mark them as follows:
   • In if used as an input argument.
   • Out if used as an output argument.
   • In/Out if used as both input and output.

     NOTE:  The In, In/Out, and Out arg types are included in the interface definition.

2. If any process property is a property set hierarchy, then complete the following steps:
   1. Define the property set structure as an integration object in Siebel Tools.
   2. Specify data type for this process property as hierarchy and associate with an integration object.

      NOTE:  This is important as you must make available a strongly-typed interface, including arguments.

3. In the Administration - Web Services screen, Inbound Web Services view do the following:
4. Create a new Web service record or choose an existing Web service in the Inbound Web Services list. Enter the WSDL XML namespace here.
5. Create a record in Service Ports, choose the workflow in the Business Service/Business Process name column, set the Transport and URL properties, and select SOAP_DOC_LITERAL in the Binding column.

   NOTE:  To model a complete Web service with more than one operation, several service ports might be specified under a single Web service. This is normal and expected.

6. Create a service operation in Operations, set the WSDL operation name in the Operation Name column, and designate RunProcess as the Siebel method to execute in the Method Display Name column.

NOTE:  The observation about operation naming uniqueness noted in this topic applies here as well. Generally, Siebel Business Applications have resolved this uniqueness requirement by combining the service name with an abbreviation of the workflow name.