IBM BPM, V8.0.1, All platforms > Authoring services in Integration Designer > Developing business processes > Building BPEL processes > Defining BPEL process logic

Calling business services

Call a business service from your BPEL process using an invoke activity.

The Invoke activity calls an operation from another service. To use an Invoke activity, you must specify a reference partner. The reference partner always points to the Interface of the service that you are calling. Then you associate the Invoke with that reference partner and select one operation that you want to call on that partner.

You can have multiple Invoke activities for one partner. When the Invoke activity runs, it will invoke the specified operation. If the operation has inputs or outputs you must specify variables for each of those inputs and outputs. These variables hold the data that is being sent to the service or received from the service.

An outline of how to call a business service from your BPEL process is provided below. See related links for more detailed information.


Procedure

  1. Create a reference partner that points to the interface of the target service.

  2. Create an Invoke activity and associate it with this reference partner.

    • Drag the partner onto the canvas, which automatically creates an Invoke activity, or
    • Manually create an Invoke activity and associate the reference partner:

      1. Add an Invoke activity to your BPEL process.

      2. In the properties view of the Invoke, set the partner.

  3. In the Details tab of the Properties view of the Invoke, select one operation of the partner.

  4. In the Details tab of the Properties view of the Invoke, set the data for that operation by providing appropriate variables for each input and output of the operation.
  5. Drop both the process and the partner onto the assembly diagram, and create a wire between them. If the partner is not a local component, create an Import and wire the process to the Import.

Defining BPEL process logic


Related concepts:
The building blocks of the BPEL process editor
Dealing with faults in your BPEL process
Work with XPath in the BPEL process editor
Work with micropatterns
Locked activities


Related tasks:
Adding an interface or a reference to a business state machine
Adding a variable to a business state machine
Adding a process application as an activity
Adding an activity to a BPEL process
Defining transactional behavior
Defining timer-driven behavior in a BPEL process
Enabling SCA events to be emitted
Calling other BPEL processes


Related information:
Adding partner references