SOAP connection

Introduction

A SOAP connection, created using the SOAP connector, establishes connections using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). Once a connection is configured, you can create instances of SOAP activities associated with that connection to be used either as sources (to provide data in an operation) or as targets (to consume data in an operation).

Create or edit a SOAP connection

A new SOAP connection is created using the SOAP connector from one of these locations:

• The design component palette's Project endpoints and connectors tab (see Design component palette).
• The Global Endpoints page (see Create a global endpoint in Global Endpoints).

An existing SOAP connection can be edited from these locations:

• The design component palette's Project endpoints and connectors tab (see Design component palette).
• The project pane's Components tab (see Component actions menu in Project pane Components tab).
• The Global Endpoints page (see Edit a global endpoint in Global Endpoints).

Configure a SOAP connection

Each user interface element of the SOAP connection configuration screen is described below.

• Connection name: Enter a name to use to identify the SOAP connection. The name must be unique for each SOAP connection and must not contain forward slashes (/) or colons (:). This name is also used to identify the SOAP endpoint, which refers to both a specific connection and its activities.

• Upload URL, Upload file, or Select existing: Use the radio button to select the source of the WSDL file to upload or reuse. Files up to 5 MB in size can be uploaded.

  • Upload URL: Enter the URL of the WSDL file into the text box, and then click the Upload button. The URL must be accessible without authentication or you will receive an error. If uploading a WSDL with the same name as an existing WSDL, see Replace an uploaded WSDL later on this page.

  • Upload file: Click Browse to select a WSDL or ZIP file. A ZIP file must contain one WSDL file and can include XSD files that the WSDL depends on. Then click Upload. For uploading a WSDL with the same name as an existing one, see Replace an uploaded WSDL below.

    Note

    Any schemaLocation must point to a local file using a relative reference. This usually means that instead of supplying a tuple such as this:

    xsi:schemaLocation='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/mime/ http://ws-i.org/profiles/basic/1.1/wsdlmime-2004-08-24.xsd'
    

    This should be supplied in its place:

    xsi:schemaLocation='http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/mime/ wsdlmime-2004-08-24.xsd'
    

    In the above example, the XSD file wsdlmime-2004-08-24.xsd is located either in the same directory or on a path relative to the WSDL being loaded.

  • Select existing: Choose from WSDL files previously used in the current project.

• Port: Select the appropriate port from the dropdown menu.

  Note

  When editing a connection, this field is disabled if you have activities for the endpoint already in use.

• Web service URL: Enter the URL for the web service. By default, this field populates with the URL from the WSDL.

• Service and Binding: These fields automatically populate based on the WSDL and port and cannot be edited.

• Optional Settings: Click to expand additional optional settings:

  

  • Enable content encoding: When selected, sends the Accept-Encoding header with Harmony-supported encoding (currently Gzip).

  • Enable chunked transfer encoding: When selected, sends the Transfer-Encoding: chunked header. This is useful when transferring large data sets.

  • Send Expect: 100-continue: When selected, sends the Expect: 100-continue header. This ensures the HTTP server validates headers before any data is sent. This is useful for sending large amounts of data without chunked transfer encoding.

  • Allow weak ciphers: Select to communicate with HTTP servers using weak ciphers (DES/3DES and RC4).

  • Set Accept-Encoding to Gzip: Selected by default, this tells the HTTP server that Harmony can accept Gzip-compressed responses. Harmony follows the RFC 1952 standard and automatically decompresses Gzip HTTP responses. If the server does not use Gzip, Harmony sees that the response is not compressed and handles it normally.

    Note

    This setting is unrelated to the Gzip connector.

  • SSL Version: Select a specific SSL version if the HTTP server requires it.

  • Request Headers: Enter HTTP headers, with each header on its own line unless wrapped according to HTTP standards. This field supports global variables, project variables, and Jitterbit variables using square brackets [ ].

• Username and Password: Enter credentials for accessing the WSDL, if required. Leave blank if no authentication is needed.

  By default, Harmony negotiates with the endpoint to determine which authentication methods are supported and uses the provided credentials against one of the protocols. Harmony supports these HTTP authentication options:

  • HTTP Basic
  • HTTP Digest
  • HTTP Digest with authentication with an IE flavor

• Certificate: Select a certificate to authenticate with the HTTP server. You can manage client-side SSL certificates from the Management Console under Customizations > Client Certificates.

• Retry: This setting is functional only with environments using a private agent group. It retries requests when a SOAP endpoint returns these status codes: 500, 501, 502, 503, or 504.

  Private agents must be version 10.29 or later for this feature to work. Earlier agent versions ignore this setting.

  Select the Retry checkbox to expand additional configuration options:

  

  • Retry interval (seconds): Enter how long to wait (maximum 5 seconds) between retry attempts.

  • Max retries: Enter how many times (maximum 5) to retry the request. If the request still fails after all retries, an exception appears in the operation log. The private agent also logs each retry in the jitterbit.log file.

    All retries count as part of the same operation run, with a single record in the operation log. Any operation actions for downstream operations trigger based on the final status after all retries.

  Note

  These settings override the Jitterbit variables jitterbit.web_service_call.retry_wait_seconds and jitterbit.web_service_call.number_of_retries if those variables are set.

• Select methods: Select any methods you want to make available as sources or targets in operations.

  Note

  You cannot remove previously selected methods that are already in use by SOAP activities.

• Selected activity and Display name: As you select methods above, they are added to the table below, showing each selected method that will be rendered as an activity block under the SOAP connection in the component palette. To edit a Display name, click the edit icon and enter a new name.

  Note

  Previously selected activities that are currently configured as a project component cannot be removed.

• Test: Click to verify the connection using the provided configuration.

• Save Changes: Click to save and close the connection configuration.

• Discard Changes: After making changes to a new or existing configuration, click to close the configuration without saving. A message asks you to confirm that you want to discard changes.

• Delete: After opening an existing connection configuration, click to permanently delete the connection from the project and close the configuration (see Component dependencies, deletion, and removal). A message asks you to confirm that you want to delete the connection.

Replace an uploaded WSDL

When replacing a WSDL by uploading one with the same name, its WSDL operations must be named the same as any that are currently in use by existing activities. If they are not named the same or if in-use WSDL operations are missing from the replacement WSDL, the following error message instructs you to delete those activities first, and lists which activities need to be deleted:

After the deletion, the following confirmation message lists activities that may be impacted by the replacement of the WSDL to review adjacent transformations for potential mapping errors. On acknowledgment of the message, the WSDL will be replaced in all locations where it is used throughout the project:

Next steps

Menu actions for a connection and its activity types are accessible from the project pane and design component palette. For details, see Actions menus in Connector basics.

After configuring a SOAP connection, you can configure one or more SOAP activities associated with that connection to be used either as a source to provide data to an operation or as a target to consume data in an operation, or you can use the SOAP connection in a script.

For more information, see SOAP activities.