You use data providers in conjunction with Data Instance behaviors to augment order information by retrieving information from external systems. After you've defined a data provider, you can reuse or extend the configuration for multiple Data Instance behaviors.
For example, consider that you have a task that requires information that is not included in an order, such as a customer name and address. To obtain this information, you can define in the Task editor a Data Instance behavior called Customer ID. When you define the properties for the data instance, you can specify an existing data provider or create a new data provider that will describe the configuration necessary to retrieve the information from the external CRM system. If, to attach to the external CRM system, you know that you will need to include a host value and a password, you can use the Data Provider editor to add host and password as input parameters and define default values for these parameters, written as an XPath or XQuery expression.
Understanding Built-in Data Provider Types
Data Provider Editor Settings Tab
Defining Data Instance Behavior Properties
Design Studio provides several built-in data provider types intended to retrieve external XML instances from the following sources:
| Data Provider | Description |
|---|---|
| Objectel | Use to invoke an Objectel server extension. The returned XML document is used as the external instance. This adapter provides a reliable transport call into Objectel. Although JMS is an asynchronous protocol, the adapter itself is not. While JMS simplifies transaction management, recovery, offline capabilities, and security, these benefits are not really of relevance when considered within the context of a Data Instance rule. The JMS adapter utilizes additional resources in the application server in the form of temporary JMS destinations to which Objectel sends the response. These can be expensive if an order has many adapters being called concurrently. Oracle does not recommend this adapter in this situation.
Objectel is an inventory tracking application designed to assist telecommunication and network engineers with the documentation of the equipment used in providing data and voice communications, with the creation of facilities, and with the assignment of customer circuits. |
| Order | Use order data from any OSM order as an external instance. |
| Property File | Reads the data instance data values from a property file. |
| SOAP | Invoke SOAP Web services using HTTP protocol and utilize the responses. |
| XML Attachment | Use an XML file that has been attached to any OSM order as an external instance. |
| XML File | Use an XML file accessible from any standard URL as an external instance. This built-in data provider is useful for integrating external XML data located in a file system, FTP site, from HTTP, or in a Java .jar file. |
| XML Validation | Use to validate any XML document using a schema. Both the document and the schema can be either elements or URLs. |
| JDBC | Query any JDBC database, then use the results within a behavior. This built-in data provider is useful for acquiring information stored in an external database. |
| Web Service | Use to invoke OSM Web service operations GetOrder and FindOrder. This built-in data provider acts as a wrapper around the OSM Web Services API allowing these operations to be invoked from external instances. |
For more information about the built-in data provider parameters, and examples, see OSM Developer's Guide.