Enabling WebSphere Commerce as a service consumer

WebSphere Commerce can consume a business operation defined by an external system as a Web service. In this scenario, WebSphere Commerce acts as the service consumer to an external system.

Procedure

  1. Identify an external system with business logic that WebSphere Commerce needs to consume.
    • If not already provided, create a Web service on the external system to provide the business logic. WebSphere Commerce uses a Web Service Definition Language (WSDL) that is based on the OAGIS WSDL to make outbound service requests to external systems.
    • If the external system does not use the same WSDL, but has an existing service API defined, mediation is required to transform outbound service requests and responses between the two formats.
  2. Customize the Web service client invocation XML file.
  3. Create a Web service client API for WebSphere Commerce to construct the outbound message.
  4. Identify the business process (task commands or controller commands) within WebSphere Commerce that consume the service. Use Service-oriented outbound integration points as a reference. The task command should call the client API to send the message.