Add a Web Services trading delivery

A trading partner delivery is an object that specifies how you want your local community to send messages over the Internet to a remote partner. This topic describes how to create a trading partner delivery for consuming services from a Web Services partner that is acting in a Web Services provider role.

Prerequisites

The partner delivery resides in a partner object. Before you add a partner delivery you must add a partner object to represent the Web Services exchange partner.

If you are configuring Activator a to provide Web Services, your partner is a Web Services client (consumer).

If you are configuring Activator to consume Web Services, you partner is a Web Services provider server.

About the WSDL parsing wizard

Community collaboration settings specify how a community packages the messages it sends to partners. When you create a delivery using the WSDL parser wizard, the wizard automatically generates a set of community collaboration settings by parsing a WSDL file that you specify.

The WSDL parsing wizard creates collaboration settings at the level of the community/partner delivery point. These settings:

• Override any other level of settings in the collaboration settings hierarchy (default, community-specific, category-specific, community to partner specific, community to partner delivery specific.). For information about the collaboration settings hierarchy, see Collaboration settings.
• Apply only to the messages sent from the selected community to the partner you are configuring.

To use the wizard and automatically generate community collaboration settings for Web Services sent to a specific partner, see Option 1: Configure with WSDL parsing wizard. You can create the processing connection now or later. The processing connection links the mapping part to the transport.

Procedure

When you execute this procedure, you have a choice of two methods of configuring the properties of the connection to the Web Services partner (provider):

• If you have stored a copy of the provider's WSDL on your file system or if you can connect to the provider URL and retrieve the WSDL, you can configure the delivery using the WSDL parser wizard (method 1 below).
• Manually configure the delivery (method 2 below)

Option 1: Configure with WSDL parsing wizard

1. In the user interface, from the Partners menu select Manage partners to open the Partners page.
2. Select the partner you want to use to represent your WebService partner.
3. On the partner map of the partner summary page, click the Partner delivery icon.
4. On the Delivery exchanges page, click Add a delivery exchange.
5. On the Choose a message protocol page, select Web Services (HTTP) and click Next.
6. On the Choose configuration type page, select Configure delivery by parsing a WSDL, if you have a WSDL file available on your file system, and click Next.
7. On the same page, do one of the following:
   • Browse to find the WSDL file. This is the default option.
   • Select Retrieve WSDL from URL and enter the URL of the WSDL. If the WSDL is located behind a proxy, and enter the proxy connection information:
     • Proxy user
     • Proxy password
     • Proxy port
     • Proxy host
8. Click Next.
9. On the Choose endpoint page, select the operation you want to call from the WSDL and click Next.
10. The wizard checks for a username token in the WSDL policies. If one is detected, the interface displays the Define username token page, otherwise, skip to the next step. Complete the fields in this page to define a user account to use when calling the service:
    • Define a new user? – Select this option to define a new user and password to use when calling the service.
    • User name – Enter the new user name.
    • Password / Confirm password – Enter and confirm a password for the new user.
11. Click Next.
11. On the Choose community page, select the community for who will send the request to this partner, and then click Next. The communities you see in the drop-down list are communities that are currently linked to the partner. The wizard completes the processing connection automatically when the delivery exchange is created.
12. On the Choose transport protocol page accept the default HTTP protocol and click Next.
13. On the Configure the HTTP settings page, complete the fields and then click Next:
    • URL — Enter the partner's WebService URL.
    • Select Encode or Decode to use either https:// or http://, respectively.
    • Clients must use SSL to connect to this server — Select this option if you must connect to this server using SSL. If you select this option, you can also select the Enable host name verification option.
    • This server requires a user name and password — select this option if the partner's server requires this information, then complete the following fields:
      
      • User name — Enter the client's user name.
      • Password — Enter the client's password.
      • Confirm password — Enter the client's password again for verification.
14. On the Exchange Name page, enter a name for this delivery. This is the friendly name that is used to identify this delivery in the user interface.
15. Click Finish.

Option 2: Manual configuration

1. In the user interface, from the Partners menu select Manage partners to open the Partners page.
2. Select the partner you want to use to represent your Web Services partner.
3. On the partner map of the partner summary page, click the Partner delivery icon.
4. On the Partner deliveries page, click Add a delivery.
5. On the Choose a message protocol page, select Web Services (HTTP) and click Next.
6. On the Choose configuration type page, select the option Configure delivery manually and click Next.
7. On the Choose transport protocol page, HTTP displays as the default. Click Next.
8. On the Configure the HTTP settings page, complete the fields:
   • URL — Enter the partner's web service URL.
   • Clients must use SSL to connect to this server — Select this option if you must connect to this server using SSL. If you select this option, you can also select the Enable host name verification option.
   • This server requires a user name and password — Select this option if the partner's server requires this information, then complete the following fields:
     • User name — Enter the client's user name.
     • Password — Enter the client's password.
     • Confirm password — Enter the client's password again for verification.
9. On the Name page, enter a name for this delivery. This is the friendly name that is used to identify this delivery in the user interface.
10. Click Finish.
11. The interface adds the Web Services delivery to the list of available delivery exchanges for this partner.
12. If you enter a name that was previously created, the Duplicate Exchange Point Name message displays. Enter an unused name.

After you create the Web Services trading partner delivery

The delivery is added to the list that displays on the partner's Partner deliveries page.

• You can tune or modify the Web Services delivery.
• The wizard generates values in the community / partner collaboration settings. These settings specify how to package messages sent from the linked community to the partner.