Service Signature for Calling a Flow Service in IBM webMethods Integration

Edit online

A signature is an agreement between IBM® webMethods B2B and IBM webMethods Integration. After you call an integration on IBM webMethods Integration, IBM webMethods B2B receives the results of the service execution. webMethods B2B displays the information in the form of tasks in Reliable execution mode and as an entry in the Course of transaction section of the corresponding transaction.

Input Request

Edit online
Field Sub-field Description
metadata   Document.

Metadata is a composite object that contains the fields.
  sender String.

Name of the recognized sender.
  receiver String.

Name of the recognized receiver.
  documentType String.

Name of the recognized business document.
  documentId String. Internal ID extracted as a transaction attribute.
  userStatus String.

Status that you or a partner assign to a document (for example, Needs Approval).
  groupId String.

Identifier that associates a transaction with other transactions in a group.
  conversationId String.

Identifier that associates a transaction with other transactions that a business processes.
  attributes Document.

Key-Value pairs of all extracted attributes of the transaction (key is attribute name, and value is attribute value).

For example, cost, trackingId.
Note: Attribute name is case-sensitive.
$duplicate. String.

Identifier of duplicate documents. The document is identified as duplicate when the value is set as true. The default value is false.

Note: You can prevent spurious execution of an integration by using the $duplicate attribute in the attributes list available in all the requests that webMethods B2B makes to webMethods Integration. Based on the value of the $duplicate attribute you can choose to run the integration again or ignore it.
request   Document.

A request message is a composite object that contains the fields.
  largeDoc Boolean.

The value for largeDoc is true and the content is null, for large documents.
  content String.

Content of the document that is encoded in Base64. The content is null for large document.
  contentPartNames String List.

The list of all the names of the content parts in the specified transaction.

Note: This field can be used in getTransactionContentParts operation to get the content parts of the associated contentPartNames.
  type String.

Type of content sent. The following codes pertain to the file type of the inbound document:

  • 0 - If the business document type does not recognize the content, it is tagged as Unknown.
  • 1 - If the content is identified as XML-family type.
  • 2 - If the content is identified as Flat File-family type.
  • 3 - If the content is identified as EDI-family type.
  • 4 - If the content does not belong to any of the listed types.
  encoding String.

The type of encoding used to encode the content in the request message.

The content is encoded in the UTF-8 standard. You cannot alter this standard.

Output Response

Edit online

The output that is received from IBM webMethods Integration must adhere to the following output signature:

Field Sub-field Description
error   Document. Error is a composite object that contains the fields:
  code String. Error code received from IBM webMethods Integration.
  message String. Error message associated with the error code in IBM webMethods Integration.
response   Document. The response message is a composite object that contains the fields:
  content String. Content of the document that is encoded in Base64.
  type String. Type of content sent.
  encoding String. Type of encoding that was used to encode the content in the response message.

If the response does not contain the encoding method, IBM webMethods B2B considers the content to be using Base64 encoding in the UTF-8 standard.

Depending on the response received from IBM webMethods Integration after the service is run, appropriate information is displayed in IBM webMethods B2B. Ensure that you use the setHTTPResponse flow function in IBM webMethods Integration to set the HTTP status code for IBM webMethods B2B to interpret the status of the transaction.

The response can be one of the following objects (error or response):

  • response - HTTP status code range for success scenarios is 200-299.
  • error - Use an appropriate HTTP status code to indicate how the error is interpreted in IBM webMethods B2B by using the setHTTPResponse flow function. For example, if you are accessing an unauthorized resource, use HTTP status code 401 for IBM webMethods B2B to interpret it as an unauthorized request.

Example of Request Payload

Edit online

Example of the Flow Service request during the Call an Integration action in the processing rule, for an XML payload.

{
"metadata": {
  "sender": "Acme Corporation",
  "receiver": "IBM",
  "documentType": "PurchaseOrderRequest",
  "documentId": "53o5dn00ec9rmuok00000070",
  "userStatus": "IGNORED",
  "groupId": null,
  "conversationID": null,
  "attributes": {
     "country": "UNITED STATES"
  }
},

 "request": {
  "largeDoc": false,	
  "content": "<encoded content>",
  "type": "1",
  "encoding": "UTF8",
  "contentPartNames": [
     "xmldata"
  ]
   }
}
Note: For an EDI payload, the conversationID and GroupID are populated with values.

Example of Response Payload

Edit online
{
   "response": {
      "content": "<encoded content>",
      "type": "text",
      "encoding": "UTF-8"
   }
}

Example of the Flow Service response to signal execution failure.

{
    "error": {
        "code": "USER_STATUS_FAILED",
        "message": "Failed to update user status for transaction 53o5dn00ec9rmuok00000070"
    }
}