v9 - Usage of Process Activator

[Brembo]

Hi all,

I'm trying to set up a simple application which uses a web service created by the Process Activator, which I have used to expose a process as a web service.

Problem is: this is totally undocumented.

I have created a vb.net exe and added the web reference to the web service. Now all I can do is call "Open" and "Close" methods. Other methods behave in a different way than what I have found in documentation (wich in fact refers to 7.5 version).

For example, the login methods asks for four arguments:

clientType - string. I assume it is the clientType used in the SAP script?

currentSAP - integer. The number of the SAP I want to use for the login?

authenticationProcess - string. I really don't know. The SAP name maybe?

loginData - an array of form Fields. I think I must write in here user and password.

I have tried to fill the parameters in many ways but the best I got is:

"Engine Exception occurred - String reference not set to an instance of a String.
Parameter name: name"

Did anybody manage to make this work? Or - better, much better - does Metastorm plan to put out a document containing explanations and examples on how to use web services generated by the Process Activator?

Thank you all,

Yuri Pasquinelli

[Carolyn]

There is some documentation right at the end of the designer user guide for v9 SR1.

[Brembo]

It just explains how to create the web service. There is no word on how to consume it.

Yuri

[Carolyn]

I guess they think that the consuming part will happen in another program, and so outside the scope of their documentation. Where are you trying to access it from?

[Brembo]

I am trying to do it from a web application written in C#.

There are some explanations on how the web services are to be called in 7.6 manuals, including code snippets in C#. There the go in detail on how to make a login and how to pass form field values.

But the Process Activator has been changed, now the Login method (for example) accepts four parameters, different from the two that were present in version 7.6.

I expect for version 9 to be produced something like what was produced for version 7.6.

Yuri

[Carolyn]

I can't actually get my process activator working at the moment (something about a missing registry setting). So I'm not a lot of help!

If you're REALLY stuck you could try and write a .net web service yourself as a wrapper to the metastorm work, and connect to your own eweb service rather than the metastorm one. Seems to be a fair number of login methods in the metastorm objects visible through .net, one of them had only username and password as parameters, so you might be able to get in that way at a push. But it would be nice to do things the 'normal' way.

It would be nice too if there was an 'examples' section on the website for all this stuff, because there's a lot of us that want to use this kind of thing.

[Brembo]

About the registry, I had a similar problem, and I think it is yours.

There is a bug - I think - when you install on a 64 bit environment.

Registry settings are written under HKLM/Software/Wow6432Node/Metastorm etc, because Metastorm BPM works in 32 bit.

Problem is that the Process Activator ignores it and goes looking for the registry settings to connect to the database under the normal path in the registry (without the "Wow6432Node" key).

To solve it, I exported the registry settings, modified them deleting "Wow6432Node" from the paths, and imported them.

Thanks for your suggestions about web services, I have already managed to find another way to do what I needed. Anyway I expect Metastorm to produce documentation about what I need.

Yuri

[Jerome҉]

That could well be why my process metadata service will not start. I'll try that one, thanks!

[Brembo]

Nice link at the bottom of your message
I have registered, it seems to be a good point to learn and share about e-work.
Regards,
yuri

[Tony Nudd]

Hi,

I have created 3 text fields for a simple  blank form on my test process.

I have used the Process Activator to create a service, but when I validate my service I get a CS0102 - definition for Text31 already exists.

When I look at the complier output, indeed, all the fields are duplicated for some reason.

In the absence of any documentation, does anyone have experience of successfully using the Process Activator and able to get Web Service calls working through the Process Activator.

I am using V9.0 SR2