Accessing the SharePoint CMIS provider from IBM BPM

In IBM Business Process Manager (BPM) 8.0, the Content Management Interoperability Services (CMIS) standard is used to provide integration with Enterprise Content Management (ECM) systems like Microsoft SharePoint. The CMIS functionality is comprised of nine separate web service endpoints.

About this task

In IBM Process Designer, ECM servers are configured in the Process App Settings editor or the Toolkit Settings editor by specifying the host, port, and context path. When the CMIS web service URL is created at runtime, the URL includes the specified host, port and context path of the ECM server and the service name is automatically appended to the URL. This approach enables IBM BPM to successfully connect to IBM FileNet Content Manager, IBM Content Manager, and other ECM systems that require the web service URL to be appended with the service name. For example, FileNet uses the following naming convention to expose the CMIS RepositoryService endpoint URL:

http://hostName:portNumber/fncmis/RepositoryService

However, a SharePoint CMIS web service URL does not follow the same naming convention because the URL is not appended with the service name. Instead, the URL uses a naming convention that is similar to the following examples:

http://hostName:portNumber/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService.svc/basic
http://hostName:portNumber/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService.svc/kerberos

Note: The above Kerberos URL is intended to provide an example of the naming convention that is used with SharePoint CMIS web service URLs. However, this help topic does not include any information about Kerberos authentication. It explains how to map to the URL syntax conventions that are used by IBM BPM.

When IBM BPM attempts to contact the SharePoint server using the following URL, a connection cannot be made because the web service address is not known:

http://hostName:portNumber/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService

To enable IBM BPM to accommodate the naming convention used in SharePoint, Microsoft URL Rewrite Module 2.0 for Internet Information Services (IIS) 7 is required. The URL Rewrite Module provides a rules-based mechanism to rewrite the incoming request URL from IBM BPM before it is processed by the web server. For example, consider the following request URL from IBM BPM:

http://hostName:portNumber/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService

The URL Rewrite Module enables the URL to be rewritten in the SharePoint format that is shown in the following example:

http://hostName:portNumber/_vti_bin/cmis/soap/RepositoryService.svc/basic

To enable the URL Rewrite Module to rewrite incoming request URLs from IBM BPM, the following tasks need to be completed:

Download URL Rewrite Module 2.0 for Microsoft IIS 7
Define the rewrite rules in IIS Manager
Access the SharePoint CMIS Provider from IBM Process Designer

To perform these tasks, complete the steps in the following procedure.

Procedure

Download URL Rewrite Module 2.0 for IIS 7 by completing the following steps:
1. Verify that you have IIS 7 installed.
2. If Microsoft URL Rewrite Module 2.0 is not already installed in your IIS 7 installation, download it from one of the following web pages and then install it using the instructions that are found at one of the following web pages:
  - (x64) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=7435
  - (x86) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=5747
Define the rewrite rules in IIS Manager by completing the following steps:
1. On your desktop, select Start > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager. IIS Manager opens.
2. Select a connection.
3. Select IIS > URL Rewrite.
4. Select Rule > Inbound rules > Blank rule.
5. In the Name area, specify CMIS URL rewrite rule.
6. In the Match URL section, complete the following steps:
  1. In the Requested URL drop-down list, select Matches the Pattern.
  2. In the Using drop-down list, select Regular Expressions.
  3. In the Pattern field, specify the following pattern:
```
^.*cmis/soap/(.*)$
```
  4. Select Ignore case.
7. In the Conditions section, complete the following steps:
  1. Click Add. The Add Condition dialog box opens.
  2. In the Condition input field, specify the following condition input:
```
{R:1}
```
  3. In the Check if input string drop-down list, select Does Not Match the Pattern.
  4. In the Pattern field, specify the following pattern:
```
(.*).svc(.*)
```
  5. Select Ignore case.
  6. Click OK.
8. In the Actions section, complete the following steps:
  1. In the Action type drop-down list, select Rewrite.
  2. In the Rewrite URL field, specify a rewrite URL that is appropriate for your configuration. For example:
```
{R:0}.svc/kerberos
{R:0}.svc/basic
```
  3. Select Append query string.
9. On the right side of the page, click Apply to save the changes.
Access the SharePoint CMIS Provider from IBM Process Designer by completing the following steps:
1. Open the Process App Settings editor and select the Servers tab.
2. In the Server Details and Server Locations sections, specify the appropriate server information for your SharePoint installation. Ensure that you specify Enterprise Content Management Server in the Type field. Also ensure that you specify the correct context path in the Context Path field. The default context path is:
```
_vti_bin/cmis/soap
```
3. Click Test Connection to ensure that a successful connection exists.