Note: This Example might not work due to irregularities of the called web service. The called SOAP service Get Weather Forecast is known to be down on a regular basis.

SOAP Service Task

This quickstart demonstrates how to use the built-in SOAP HTTP connector for invoking SOAP services in camunda BPM. The example is classless, relying entirely on scripting and expression language. It makes use of the camunda Connect and the camunda Spin extensions.

The example includes a BPMN 2.0 process which invokes a weather forecast service, parses the result and takes a decision based on the result:

Overview

How to run it

1. Checkout the project with Git
2. Read and run the unit test

How it works

The important part of this example is the service task Get Weather Forecast (Soap). It uses the SOAP connector provided by camunda Connect and processes the returned XML using camunda Spin. For reference, have a look at the complete BPMN XML.

Configuring Connect and Spin

Since Connect and Spin are optional extensions to the camunda platform, they have to be added as dependencies in pom.xml:

...
<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.camunda.bpm</groupId>
      <artifactId>camunda-bom</artifactId>
      <scope>import</scope>
      <type>pom</type>
      <version>${version.camunda}</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

<dependencies>
  ...
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.camunda.bpm</groupId>
    <artifactId>camunda-engine-plugin-connect</artifactId>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.camunda.connect</groupId>
    <artifactId>camunda-connect-soap-http-client</artifactId>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.camunda.bpm</groupId>
    <artifactId>camunda-engine-plugin-spin</artifactId>
  </dependency>

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.camunda.spin</groupId>
    <artifactId>camunda-spin-dataformat-xml-dom</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  ...
</dependencies>
...

Note the dependencyManagement entry. It declares the camunda bill of material (BOM) that provides managed dependencies for all camunda artifacts. These are referenced in the dependencies section. The BOM ensures that the version of the dependencies are consistent with each other.

Next, the process engine plugins provided by Spin and Connect are registered with the engine in camunda.cfg.xml:

...
<beans ...>

  <bean id="processEngineConfiguration" class="org.camunda.bpm.engine.impl.cfg.StandaloneInMemProcessEngineConfiguration">

    ...
    <!-- activates the camunda Connect process engine plugins -->
    <property name="processEnginePlugins">
      <list>
        <bean class="org.camunda.connect.plugin.impl.ConnectProcessEnginePlugin" />
        <bean class="org.camunda.spin.plugin.impl.SpinProcessEnginePlugin" />
      </list>
    </property>

  </bean>
</beans>

This ensures that connectors can be used with service tasks and that the Spin functions are available from scripts.

Using a Connector Service Task for SOAP requests

The task Get Weather Forecast (Soap) makes use of Connect's SOAP connector. It does the following things:

1. Create a SOAP envelope based on the process variables city and country using the Freemarker template language.
2. Invoke a SOAP web service using the SOAP connector provided by camunda Connect.
3. Extract a weather forecast element from the service's XML response using Javascript and camunda Spin
4. Extract the temperature from the forecase and map it to a process variable temperature. This variable is used on the follow-up exclusive gateway.

In detail, the task is declared as follows (see the process model):

<bpmn2:serviceTask id="ServiceTask_2" name="Get Weather Forecast (Soap)">
  <bpmn2:extensionElements>
    <camunda:connector>
      CONNECTOR DECLARATION
    </camunda:connector>

    <camunda:inputOutput>
      IO MAPPING
    </camunda:inputOutput>
  </bpmn2:extensionElements>
  <bpmn2:incoming>SequenceFlow_2</bpmn2:incoming>
  <bpmn2:outgoing>SequenceFlow_3</bpmn2:outgoing>
</bpmn2:serviceTask>

The task uses two extension elements. The first is the camunda:connector element. It means that a connector should be invoked when the service task is executed. In detail, the connector is declared as follows:

<camunda:connector>
  <camunda:connectorId>soap-http-connector</camunda:connectorId>
  <camunda:inputOutput>

    <camunda:inputParameter name="url">http://www.webservicex.net/globalweather.asmx</camunda:inputParameter>

    <camunda:inputParameter name="payload">
      <camunda:script scriptFormat="freemarker" resource="soapEnvelope.ftl" />
    </camunda:inputParameter>

    <camunda:inputParameter name="headers">
      <map>
        <entry key="Content-Type">application/soap+xml;charset=UTF-8;action="http://www.webserviceX.NET/GetWeather"</entry>
      </map>
    </camunda:inputParameter>

    <camunda:outputParameter name="forecast">
      <![CDATA[
        ${S(response)
            .childElement("Body")
            .childElement("http://www.webserviceX.NET", "GetWeatherResponse")
            .childElement("GetWeatherResult")
            .textContent()}
      ]]>
    </camunda:outputParameter>

  </camunda:inputOutput>
</camunda:connector>

The connector-id element identifies the SOAP connector. The inputOutput element defines a mapping of values to connector parameters. For example, the url parameter identifies which SOAP service is called. Note that the payload parameter uses a transformation with the Freemarker template language to create a SOAP envelope. See the template file for details.

The outputParameter element maps the response obtained by the connector to a variable forecast. The mapping makes use of camunda Spin to extract an element from the returned XML.

On the task itself, an output mapping is defined that further processes the forecast XML and sets a process variable temperature. This is done by the inputOutput declaration of the service task:

<camunda:inputOutput>
  <camunda:outputParameter name="temperature">
    <camunda:script scriptFormat="Javascript" resource="parseTemperature.js" />
  </camunda:outputParameter>
</camunda:inputOutput>

The mapping is implemented in Javascript, see the referenced source file.

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