Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide for Financial Services > Designing Workflow Processes > Working with Business Service Steps >

Using the Business Service View

You use the Business Service view to define how to invoke a business service, including the input and output arguments.

The top portion of the view, the Business Service applet, is where you can perform various tasks. The lower portion has two applets: Input Arguments and Output Arguments.

The tasks you can perform in this view are:

NOTE:  Business services invoked from workflow processes cannot include browser scripts; they only work with server scripts. A business service with browser scripts will fail if it is executed from a workflow process on the Siebel server.

Business Service Applet Field Descriptions

Table 13 describes the fields where you enter data in the Business Service applet.

Table 13. Business Service Applet Fields
Field
Description
Possible Value
Name
The name of the business service step.
A descriptive name that is:
  • Consistent with your overall naming strategy
  • Meaningful to the process designer
Type
The type of task.
This value is automatically entered when you create the step on the Process Designer view.
Description
A text narrative describing the purpose of the task.
Free-form text.
Business Service Name
The name of the service to invoke.
The picklist displays business services existing in Siebel Tools with the Hidden flag set to FALSE.
See Enabling a Business Service for Workflow Processes for more information.
Method
The name of the method to invoke on the service.
The picklist displays methods defined for the selected business service.
Created By
The name of the person who creates the step.
This value is automatically entered based on the logon name of the user.
Created
The date that the step is created.
This value is automatically entered.

Input Arguments Applet Field Descriptions

Input arguments allow you to define values that you want to pass to a service method. Many methods require input arguments. Table 14 describes the fields in the Input Arguments applet.

Table 14. Input Arguments Applet Fields
Field
Description
Possible Value
Input Argument
The name of the input argument.
This field is required. The picklist displays input arguments existing for the selected business service method.
A method argument appears in this picklist if it has been defined as a business service method argument, the Hidden flag is set to FALSE, and the type is input or input/output.
Type
The type of argument.
This is a required field. The picklist contains the following choices:
  • Literal
  • Process Property
  • Business Component
  • Expression
Value
A string value.
For Literal and Expression type input arguments. This could be a picklist, depending on the argument selected. String values can only be a maximum of 32,767 characters.
Property Name
The name of the business process property.
For Process Property-type input arguments.
Property Data Type
The data type of the business process property.
  • String
  • Number
  • Data
  • Hierarchy
Business Component
The name of a business component within the business object of the business process.
For Business Component-type input arguments.
Business Component Field
The name of a field within the business component.
For Business Component Field-type input arguments.

Output Arguments Applet Field Descriptions

Output arguments are the result of a business service method. Output arguments should be stored in process properties.

Table 15 describes the fields in the Output Arguments applet.

Table 15. Output Arguments Applet Fields
Field
Description
Possible Value
Property Name
The name of the Process Property to store the results.
This is a required field.
This is a picklist of properties that have been defined for the process. For more information about defining process properties, see Defining Process Properties.
Type
The type or argument.
This is a required field. The picklist contains the following choices:
  • Literal
  • Output Argument
  • Business Component
  • Expression
Output Argument
The name of the output argument from the business service.
For Output Arguments type.
This is a picklist of output arguments for the selected method. An argument appears in this picklist if it has been defined as a business service method argument, the Hidden flag is set to FALSE, and the type is Output or Input/Output.
Value
A string value.
For Literal or Expression arguments. Note that string values can only be a maximum of 32,767 characters.
Business Component
The name of the business component within the business object of the business process.
For Business Component type.
Business Component Field
The name of a field within the business component.
For Business Component Field type.

NOTE:  Business component fields based on multi-value groups cannot be selected as values for input or output arguments. If you want to use a field based on a multi-value group, you need to define a business component for the field and link it to the appropriate business object. See Siebel Tools Reference for more information.

NOTE:  Calculated fields are also unavailable as values for input or output arguments. If you want to use a calculated value, use an expression.


 Siebel Business Process Designer Administration Guide for Financial Services 
 Published: 22 May 2003