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The world as seen by a fish another blog by Azahar Machwe
Structure of a Web-Services Description Language (WSDL) Document
Creating a WSDL resource retriever for Service Resource

Developing Web-Services with TIBCO ActiveMatrix

BusinessWorks
In this post we are going to talk about developing web-services in TIBCO ActiveMatrix BusinessWorks
(AMBW). We will be using the following software:
1) TIBCO Designer 5.6 to develop and test-deploy the web-service
2) SOAP-UI 3.0.1 (Freeware) to test the web-service
We are going to be looking at web-service development from a conceptual point of view rather than
concentrating on specific implementations.
The TIBCO AMBW Process Design Guide and the Palette Reference do an excellent job of describing
web-service implementations.
Before we get into web-service development in TIBCO AMBW let us just review what goes into
developing a web-service. As there are many excellent books on web-services out there this section will
be restricted to a brief overview.
A web-service consists of three basic components:
1. Description all the information about the web-service, including how to invoke it.
2. Protocol how to communicate with the web-service.
3. Implementation how to implement the operations defined by the web-service.
The Description of a web-service needs to address both, the abstract interface as well as its concrete
implementation. As we all know this description is contained in the WSDL file associated with the webservice. With modern tools it is very easy to create client stubs for web-services using just the WSDL.
The WSDL also acts as a contract between the service provider and the consumer. Therefore a skeleton
of the web-service implementation can also be created using just the WSDL. This approach towards
service development is called the contract-first approach where you define the interface before defining
the implementation.
The opposite of the above process i.e. implementation-first approach allows easy exposure of existing
functionality as a web-service.
TIBCO AMBW allows for both styles of web-service development.
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Before we go any further it will help to review the structure of a WSDL document.
There are two ways of implementing a web-service in TIBCO AMBW:
1) Service Resource
2) SOAP Event Source process starter
Which route you take depends on your specific requirements as well as the current state of development.
You would ideally use a SOAP Event Source process starter to expose a single process as a web-service
over a single transport protocol. In case you need to expose multiple processes over multiple transport
protocols and have a clean separation between web-service definition and implementation, use the
Service Resource.
I will first focus on using the Service Resource as it (in my opinion) is a cleaner way of doing things and
conforms well to the philosophy behind web-services of separation of interface and implementation.
SOAP Event Source will be covered in another post.
Now from the TIBCO AMBW Process Design Guide we have:
A service joins an abstract WSDL interface to a concrete implementation and exposes them on one or
more endpoints
There are three main steps in setting up a web-service using the Service Resource:
1) Define the service interface using the WSDL and Schema Resource involves definition of the
abstract part of the WSDL as well as defining schema for input and output data using the Schema
Resource
2) Setup the endpoint bindings to expose the service.
3) Implement the operations defined in the web-service.
Figure 1 shows the mapping between TIBCO AMBW components and various components of a webservice (as represented in the WSDL).

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Figure 1: Mapping between TIBCO AMBW components and various components of a web-service.
Request Context
As the Service Resource separates the service definition from the implementation, there might be a
requirement to access the context of the request by the implementing process. This context could be
the clients digital signature (for authentication) or something simpler like a client ID. The Context
Resource allows us to do just this. We can define a schema to store the relevant context which can then
be accessed by the implementing process using the GetContext and SetContext activities.
Example
I will take the example of a simple web-service for Customer Information Management (add and retrieve
customer information). The web-service will contain two operations:
1. Add Customer Information (name, age and ID).
2. Retrieve Customer Information using Customer ID with a Request ID for logging purposes.
To get the customer information we supply the customer ID and a request ID to the web-service which
will return the customer information.
To add information for a new customer we will supply the customer information (id, name and age).
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Going back to the three step process for implementing a web-service using the Service Resource:
Step 1: Defining the web-service interface
We will use the Schema Resource and the WSDL Resource to define the web-service interface including
the operations and the associated input/output schema.
The Schema
Firstly create the Schema for the input and output messages using the Schema Resource (within the XML
menu).
Below we can see a simple CustomerInformation schema which defines the customer information
structure (for both retrieval and addition) as well as a CustomerInformationRequest schema which
defines the structure of the incoming request for customer information.

The Web-service Interface using WSDL

Next we define the interface for the web-service using the schema we defined above and a WSDL
resource.
We will first define the input and output messages using the schema and then use them to define the
operations. All the required resources are in the WSDL menu.
Create a new WSDL resource and double-click it. Add two new Messages: CustomerInformationRequest
and CustomerInformation. The output message for the retrieve information operation has the same
schema as the input for the add information operation.
Next we define the operations using previously defined Messages. Add a PortType resource to start
defining operations. Double click the PortType resource and add two new Operations: AddCustomer and
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RequestCustomer.
In the AddCustomer operation configuration, add an input message with the message schema set to
CustomerInformation (we are now connecting the schema with the interface). We dont need any output
message for this operation.
In the RequestCustomer operation configuration, add an input message with message schema set to
CustomerInformationRequest and the output message with message schema set to CustomerInformation.
This can be seen in the screenshot below.

You will notice that till now we have been defining only the interface of the web-service (namely the
operations and messages). We have not spoken about things like which transport protocol to use or the
style of the web-service (document vs. RPC).
The next step is to use the Service resource to configure the concrete endpoints using the interface we
have just defined. After that in the final step we will use the Service resource to join the abstract interface
of the service with the actual implementation of the operations.
Step 2: Implementing the service endpoints using Service Resource
Add a Service resource from the Service menu.
The first thing we need to do is to give this service a face (in other words define which interface it is
going to implement).
Double-click it and within the Configuration tab click on the + button in the Implementation section.
In the window that pops up locate the WSDL file (on the left side) with the abstract interface that you
have defined in Step 1. The PortType, Namespace and Operations will be loaded from the WSDL on the
right hand side. This is shown in the screenshot below.

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Check the operations and the input and output for them. Click on OK.
The Service resource should contain a whole lot of new stuff now (see screenshot below). In
Configuration tab, the Implementation will have two tabs: Operations and Endpoint Bindings.

The next thing to do is to create the endpoint for the service. This involves defining style and encoding of
the service and the operations and selecting the transport for the service.
Click the Endpoint Bindings tab and then the + to add a new endpoint. Change the Endpoint Type to
SOAP and two more tabs will come up: Transport and SOAP Details.
Transport tab requires you to select a HTTP connection (as we are going for SOAP over HTTP in this
example), which is required to host the service. Once the transport connection is set up you will see the
Endpoint URI appear below it.
Next move to the SOAP Details tab. Define the default service style (document or RPC in present
example document) and the styles and encoding for the different operations within the service (in our
case document literal). You can set style to Use Default Style to make your life easier in case of
multiple operations.
The screenshot below shows this.

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The final step is to go ahead and implement the operations we have defined in interface.
Step 3: Implementing the service operations
Firstly we create the processes for adding customer information and requesting customer information.
The only thing I will say about creating the processes is that the Start and End activities must have their
outputs and inputs same as the WSDL messages setup for the corresponding web-service operation.
For example the process to handle request for customer information (i.e. RequestCustomerOperation)
should have output for the Start activity a WSDL message: CustomerInformationRequest (that is the
input going in to the RequestCustomerOperation). Same goes for the input to the End activity which
should be a WSDL message: CustomerInformation.
Go back up to the Operations tab and click on the binocular button in the Operation Implementation
column next to the operation to be implemented. All processes which have input and output WSDL
messages matching the operation to be implemented will be shown in the window that pops up. Select
the relevant processes. Do the same for all the operations defined in the interface.
The screenshot below shows the two operations for the example being implemented.

Test
Everything is now set for the web-service to be tested. But before we test the service it is worthwhile to
see the WSDL for the service that we have just created. Go to the WSDL Source tab in the Service
resource. This is the WSDL for the service. You will need this file to create a test client.
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There are two ways to give a client access to the WSDL. First is to setup a WSDL retrieval process using
SOAP Retrieve Resources resource with a HTTP Receiver process starter. Then the client will be able to
download the WSDL as normal. The second option is to save the WSDL file (by clicking on Save WSDL
in WSDL Source) and providing a local copy to the client.
We shall use SOAP UI (free edition) to test the TIBCO web-service. We setup a new SOAP UI project
with a local copy of the WSDL file. SOAP UI creates test requests for the web-service as a part of the
project setup.
Make sure in the TIBCO Designer the Service resource and the processes implementing the operations
have been selected and run.
In SOAP-UI, go to the test request for the operation to be tested and double-click it. A blank request will
open up with ? where you need to fill in data to complete the request.
After filling in the data, execute the request by pressing the green play button. On the right-hand side
you will see the response of the request (if the operation has a response). In case of an error you will see
an error response.
The screenshot below shows a test of the RequestCustomerOperation. The customer information request
sent is on the left-hand side and the response from the example web-service received on the right-hand
side.

Hope this limited example has explained how to setup a basic web-service in TIBCO AMBW using the
Service resource. There are several things that I have left out including using the SOAP Event Source
process starter, using Contexts and retrieval of WSDL. All these topics deserve complete posts in
themselves that is why I aim to cover them as and when I get the time!
Note: If you are going to deploy to BW engine then you will need to create an archive file (.ear).
Remember to include the Service Resource (if you are using it) in the Process Archive starter processes
before building the archive.
Please leave comments and suggestions.
Update:
Have added a new post on WSDL retrieval for Service resource-based web-service.
Tags: TIBCO, Web Services
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 20th, 2011 at 11:22 pm and is filed under TIBCO, Web Services. You can follow
any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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25 Responses to Developing Web-Services with TIBCO ActiveMatrix

BusinessWorks
1.

Peter Cole says:

January 24, 2011 at 8:59 am
Its great to see these how-tos on the web for new starters to TIBCO, shipped documentation often
falls short of telling you succinctly how to address your issue, so a big thanks.
A word of caution to anyone thinking of using SoapUI for testing though, it is extremely time
consuming to set up any kind of automated testing. Green Hats GH Tester is a purpose built
application for test automation of TIBCO projects and offers incredible time-savings and fast
return on investment, we have many converts from SoapUI.

2.

sriram says:
March 6, 2011 at 3:10 am
Hi,
Its very useful
Thanks

3.

Treston says:
April 4, 2011 at 5:53 am
Could you please give an alternate version of the above example with JMS. I tried it and didint
work. JMS worked with SOAPEventSource (means noting wrong with queue or messages in
queue) not with service Resource.What I found is that the Http Transport is working and JMS is
not working on the same SerivceResource.
Please help.
Thanks,
Treston

4.

admin says:
April 4, 2011 at 9:09 pm
Hi Treston,
Could you please describe what error do you get/what happens when you try and run it? Is it a
Binding error?
Regards,
Azahar

5. Developing SOAP over JMS Web-Services using TIBCO BusinessWorks and Designer Tibco
Blog says:
October 26, 2011 at 12:30 pm
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[...] <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <xs:schema

xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema&quot;
xmlns="http://www.tibco.com/schemas/WebServiceTest/Schema/Schema.xsd&quot;
targetNamespace="http://www.tibco.com/schemas/WebServiceTest/Schema/Schema.xsd&quot;
elementFormDefault="qualified" attributeFormDefault="unqualified"> <xs:element name="add">
<! Request two integers a and b to be added > <xs:complexType> <xs:sequence> <xs:element
name="a" type="xs:int"/> <xs:element name="b" type="xs:int"/> </xs:sequence>
</xs:complexType> </xs:element> <xs:element name="result" type="xs:int"/> <! Response the
sum of a and b > </xs:schema> Now the next thing we need to do is to setup the Service
Resource. I won't go into the details of how it is done as I have already covered most of the steps in
a different post. [...]
6.

ganesh says:
December 5, 2011 at 2:39 am
hi
i need to work on designing tibco webservice with two way SSL. wil you be be able to giuide me
through a example of creating bw webservice with two way SSL enabled i will pay as required
Thanks
ganesh

7.

rainer says:
January 17, 2012 at 11:44 am
Hi, I followed your steps in creating this CustomerInformation web-service. But sending test
request from soapUI results in errors!
For AddCustomer I receive a BindException in the process starter, and for RequestCustomer I get
an Internal SOAP Error.
Can you please provide your test-project as ZIP archive, so that I can see what Im doing wrong?
Thanks and regards, rainer

8.

rainer says:
January 17, 2012 at 1:25 pm
Hi, again
I got the service running after starting from scratch! I also deployed it to my BW test engine and
retrieving the WSDL works fine. But how can I test the operations from soapUI? The retrieved
WSDL contains localhost in the soap:address? Should I change the hostname by hand in the
WSDL file?
Regards, rainer

9.

admin says:
January 24, 2012 at 8:56 pm
Hi Rainer,

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Never make changes to the WSDL file by hand. Use global variables wherever possible. To test
from Soap UI you will need the WSDL file (generated by TIBCO) which you can use to create a
SOAP UI project. Then you can invoke each of the operations through SOAP UI by providing test
data.
Hope this helps!
Regards,
Azahar
10.

kiran badagala says:

March 17, 2012 at 2:24 pm
Hi,
this is very useful who are initiate with webservice thanq.
thanqs,
kiran.

11.

sajjad says:
June 11, 2012 at 9:44 pm
Very useful How-to guide for TIBCO web service. It would be great if you can enhanced this post
by adding some material which shows the use of Contexts in web services.
Thanks,
Sajjad

12.

Venkat says:
July 12, 2012 at 11:55 pm
Hi,
Can you please advice how to write the Processes AddCustomer and GetCustomer and also how to
see them in Service Operation Implementation. very very helpful to me if you can provide the
source.
Thanks in advance.
Venkat

13.

amit kumar says:

October 30, 2012 at 6:19 pm
awesome tutorial.i cudnt find nething better.this tutorial is
precise and clear.
please upload some more tutorial on web services.
thnx a lot !!

14.

admin says:

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October 31, 2012 at 9:19 am

Will surely do will try and post one on Contexts soon. Thank you for your comment!
- Azahar
15.

admin says:
October 31, 2012 at 9:22 am
Hello Venkat,
The addCustomer and getCustomer processes were blank implementations because I was exploring
the service creation side of things. The main thing to remember is till you dont define the
process inputs and outputs as what is defined in your Operation, the process wont be showing up
in the Operation Implementation. The signature of the process must match that of the operation.
Let me know if you still need help.
- Azahar

16.

Sudha says:
November 9, 2012 at 3:19 pm
Hello Azahar,
Thanks a lot for this tutorial. I am very new to TIBCO and this was the best resource that helped
me. I am stuck with creating process definition part adn am not able to get that visible on Service
resource like Venkat. This is what i did.
1. I used basic celcius to fahrenheit conversion web service which takes one double paramter as
input and gives back one double parameter.
2. I created process definition. The start activity has the output of WSDl message which is
soapinput for the conversion process and the input for end activity is the soapoutput of the process.
I followed what you mentioned on the blog, but a little blindly lol. May be I am missing
something.
Can you please post on creating the process definition for this web service, please? It would really
be helpful.
Thanks a lot

17.

irfan ahmed shaikh says:

February 28, 2013 at 8:27 am
Hello Azhar,
Thank you so much for such a detailed post.
Regards
Irfan

18.

Siva says:
March 9, 2013 at 6:08 am

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Hi Admin,
I tried with this example, it worked very well. But I stuck with one doubt. is it possible to get the
outputs from two operations at a time while running? Because it is giving output for the one
operation which is selected in the concrete wsdl on soap request reply activity of client process.
19.

Reddy says:
August 7, 2013 at 8:20 am
Could you plz tell me that why we use soap action

20.

admin says:
August 9, 2013 at 10:31 am
@Reddy:
We use the SOAP actions to implement web-services in TIBCO. When you use the SOAP process
starter it ties in the interface to the implementation.
To get around this we have the Service Resource method of creating web-services.
The method chosen is usually determined by practical reasons (e.g. is it just one process that has to
be exposed as a WS over a single protocol or are you looking to create a more complicated WS
interface which may be exposed over multiple protocols)

21.

admin says:
August 9, 2013 at 10:36 am
@Siva:
If you wanted you could call the two processes from within the one process defined in the WSDL.
Then you would have to somehow combine the two results.
As I do not know the specifics of the problem the only thing I can advise is examine if you need
to break it into two separate operations even in the WS interface.

22.

sushant says:
September 6, 2013 at 9:50 am
can u plz share the project file.i m new to tibcoand i m stuck with addCustomer and
getCustomer processe definationsplz reply

23.

midsouza says:
October 1, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Hi
I am new to Tibco Designer i tried this example however i am stuck at the service creation step
and see the following errors in the WSDL Source tab of the Service ..

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[Service = CustomerInformationService; Implementation = CustomerInformation; Operation =

RequestCustomer]: The input type of the process does not match the input of the operation
[Service = CustomerInformationService; Implementation = CustomerInformation; Operation =
RequestCustomer]: The output type of the process does not match the output of the operation
[Service = CustomerInformationService; Implementation = CustomerInformation; Operation =
AddCustomerOperation]: The input type of the process does not match the input of the operation
[Service = CustomerInformationService; Implementation = CustomerInformation; Operation =
AddCustomerOperation]: The output type of the process does not match the output of the operation
The Service has configuration errors. For more information, please validate the resource
Would it be possible for you to zip up your projects send it via email.. so that i can compare the
same with mine.
Thanks
24.

admin says:
February 19, 2014 at 4:57 pm
Hi midsouza,
Please check the input types as defined in the process and the WS interface operation. There would
be a difference.
When you define and use a Service Resource think of it like creating a mask. The back end
implementations should line up exactly with the mask.

25.

Laura says:
March 28, 2014 at 7:57 pm
Hi, this is a great article! now everything is working inside my tibco designer following your steps,
but I am confused what is my next step in order to let me client to consume my web service. I want
to be able to give my client a link similar to this and then they can download the WSDL themself.
http://66.45.53.162/JobDataHubSvc/JobDataHubSvc.svc?singleWsdl
I checked my developement machine, I dont see the servcie hosted there, I was using localhost
as my HTTP connection.
Do I need to deploy the service? and then?
Thanks a lot for your help!.

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