Understanding Constituent Web Services

In general, a web service is a collection of operations that enable software to utilize a resource. The official web service definition can describe almost any standard for exchanging data over the internet, but in common usage the term refers to the exchange of XML messages that follow the SOAP standard using the same HTTP protocol as a web browser. A simple definition of a web service is an internet application programming interface (API) that is self-describing and can work between various programming languages. The constituent web service was developed to be used in a manner consistent with common web services.

The constituent web service manages information about a constituent. A constituent can be a prospect, applicant, student, faculty member, or any other person of interest to your institution. The web service allows the Campus Solutions database to communicate with virtually any other external system, regardless of the technology supporting that system. Prior to web service standards it was difficult to connect systems on disparate technologies, such as operating systems, database platforms, and application architectures. Web service standards make it possible for computer systems on virtually any technology platform to integrate with minimal effort.

Institutions can use constituent web services to integrate constituent data between Campus Solutions and other external systems. The constituent web service:

• Notifies integrated systems when new constituents in Campus Solutions are created or when their information is changed.

  External systems can use this notification to synchronize their version of the constituent or to perform processing based on the changed data.

• Allows integrated systems to update a constituent's information in Campus Solutions, such as adding a new address or changing the constituent's name.

• Allows integrated systems to retrieve a constituent's detailed information.

• Enables Campus Solutions users to run Search/Match against an external constituent repository, such as a data hub.

Institutions can use the web service to integrate to a variety of administrative and academic systems that comprise the higher education ecosystem. For example, the service can be used to integrate to a data hub (MDM), housing system, human resources, parking system, learning management system, and general purpose registry. Large institutions often deploy hundreds of such systems.

Messaging between the systems is done via synchronous or asynchronous interactions. In a synchronous interaction, the source system issues a request to the target system and then waits until a response is received. Asynchronous interactions involve the source system issuing a request to the target system and not waiting for any response, but instead immediately continuing with processing. The request is assumed to have been received by the target system and to have been processed successfully. Asynchronous requests do not receive a response from the target system. This model assumes that the underlying messaging middleware guarantees the delivery of the request to the target system.

The PeopleSoft Campus Solutions Constituent Web Services Developer's Guide provides the technical details of web services as well as configuration and messaging.

The data that comprises the constituent message includes the core person data contained in the PERSON_BASIC_SYNC message, the Campus Solutions extension data contained in the PERSON_SA message, and affiliations data.