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SOAP activities

Introduction

A SOAP activity, using its SOAP connection, retrieves data from or sends data to a SOAP endpoint and is intended to be used as either a source to provide data to an operation or a target to consume data in an operation. The specific activities that are available depend on the SOAP methods selected during configuration of the SOAP connection. You can configure as many SOAP activities as you like for each SOAP connection.

Whether the activity can be used as a source or a target in an operation depends on the specific web service and the request and response structures, if present. For more information about what determines if an activity can be used as a source or target, see Parts of an operation in Operation creation and configuration.

Create a SOAP activity

An instance of a SOAP activity is created from a connection using an activity type.

To create an instance of an activity, drag the activity type to the design canvas or copy the activity type and paste it on the design canvas. For details, see Create an activity or tool instance in Component reuse.

An existing activity can be edited from these locations:

Configure a SOAP activity

Follow these steps to configure a SOAP activity:

Step 1: Enter a name

SOAP activity 1

  • Name: Enter a name to use to identify the SOAP activity. This field is prepopulated with the name of the method. You can create multiple activities using the same method, but the name must be unique for each SOAP activity and must not contain forward slashes (/) or colons (:).

  • Save & Exit: If enabled, click to save the configuration for this step and close the activity configuration.

  • Next: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and continue to the next step. The configuration will not be saved until you click the Finished button on the last step.

  • Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Step 2: Review the data schemas

SOAP activity 2

  • Data Schema: The request and/or response data schemas are displayed. If the operation uses a transformation, the data schemas are displayed again later during the transformation mapping process, where you can map to target fields using source objects, scripts, variables, custom values, and more.

  • Add plugin(s): Plugins are Jitterbit- or user-provided applications that extend Harmony's native capabilities. To apply a plugin to the activity, click to expand this section and select the checkbox next to the plugin to be used. For additional instructions on using plugins, including details on setting any required variables used by the plugin, see Plugins added to an activity.

  • Back: Click to temporarily store the configuration for this step and return to the previous step.

  • Finished: Click to save the configuration for all steps and close the activity configuration.

  • Discard Changes: After making changes, click to close the configuration without saving changes made to any step. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

Next steps

After configuring a SOAP activity, you can use it within an operation as described below. You may also want to configure chunking to split the data into smaller chunks for processing.

Complete the operation

After configuring a SOAP activity, complete the configuration of the operation by adding and configuring other activities or tools as operation steps. You can also configure the operation settings, which include the ability to chain operations together that are in the same or different workflows.

Menu actions for an activity are accessible from the project pane and the design canvas. For details, see Activity actions menu in Connector basics.

Operations that use SOAP activities can also have operation actions configured to trigger on a SOAP fault — an error resulting from an incorrect message format, header processing, or incompatibility. Operation actions can be configured to run an operation or send an email after a SOAP fault occurs. For instructions on triggering an action on SOAP fault, refer to Operation actions.

Operations that contain a SOAP activity can have only one SOAP activity and cannot also contain any NetSuite, Salesforce, Salesforce Service Cloud, SAP, or ServiceMax activities.

When ready, deploy and run the operation and validate behavior by checking the operation logs.

Used as a source

SOAP activities that are used as a source can be used with these operation patterns:

Other patterns are not valid using SOAP activities that are used as a source.

Used as a target

SOAP activities that are used as a target can be used with these operation patterns:

Other patterns are not valid using SOAP activities that are used as a target.

Using a SOAP service without request parameters

SOAP web services are commonly used as the first target in the Two-transformation Pattern: A source provides the request that the SOAP web service takes as input, and the service then outputs a response that is written to another target.

But some SOAP web services might not require anything to be provided in the request beyond just asking for the service. In this case, two transformations are still required by the pattern, but the request structure may not have any fields that require mapping; instead, the structure may consist of only nodes without fields.

Use chunking

Many web service APIs have size limitations. If you are running into record limits imposed by the API, you may want to use chunking to split the source data into multiple chunks. The transformation is then performed on each chunk separately, with each source chunk producing one target chunk. The resulting target chunks combine to produce the final target.

For instructions and best practices on using chunking, see Operation options.