Business Automation Workflow web service APIs programming guide

The application programming interface (API) for web service clients defines a number of schemas and provides a set of operations to access Process Designer functionality from an external client application.

Because the web API abstracts the actual technology used in Business Automation Workflow, you can write external client applications using different technologies such as Microsoft .NET or Java. You can use a number of toolkits depending on the technology you are using, such as the Axis WSDL-to-Java tool, to help you generate classes based on the WSDL description.

The web API provides operations that enable your client applications to:
  • Query process instances and tasks
  • Manage process instances
  • Manage and synchronize tasks
  • Search business data
  • Manage external activities
Communication with Workflow Server using web service operations is asynchronous.

Compatibility considerations

The Business Automation Workflow web API complies with the WS-I Basic Profile 1.0 standard for web service interoperability. Complete interoperability and other guarantees for the web API are outlined at the beginning of the WSDL.

In some cases, you can implement versions of web service operations that are different from the version of Workflow Server. For complete compatibility information, see the WSDL file.

All clients created using the web API must include a ClientInfo header object that identifies the client to Workflow Server. This header passes time zone and other compatibility information to Workflow Server, as described in the WSDL.