How to set up and configure an outbound integration endpoint
How to create a company-specific WSDL file to manage outbound integration
How to transfer binary data (images) over an integration solution
Integrating your complex workflow into the Rocky Jupiter ERP
The integration solution that you put together in the previous section makes sure
that the Rocky Jupiter database can directly feed the complex workflow solution that
presents delivery tasks to drivers. The logical next step is to make the integration process
truly two-way, and have the Driver Task List dashboard form update
not only the Mobilengine Cloud, but Astro, the Rocky Jupiter ERP system also, via outbound
integration messages.
As a proof of concept, you're going to send the delivery task status changes that the
drivers trigger with the workflow over to the ERP for processing. Once you get this working,
the Rocky Jupiter IT crowd can do whatever they like to the incoming data. Here's the steps
for a functional proof of concept in recommended order:
Set up a custom data package definition that specifies the structure of the XML
message to carry the status update data
Set up and configure an outbound integration endpoint to handle outgoing status update
data traffic
Make the workflow scripts that change the status of the delivery tasks also send a
status update XML message to Astro each time they run
Set up and customize a WDX protocol-compliant web service that expects, interprets,
and passes the status update messages to Astro
The demo solution you're setting up
is written in C# and uses the .NET Framework, though any platform that can handle SOAP
web services should work just fine. The rest of the tutorial assumes that you're using
Visual Studio 2013 to code along.
Figure 212. Schematic overview of an outbound web service-based integration solution
Head on over to the next section, and get the ball rolling with the definition for the data
packages that you'll be whizzing to Astro.
To demonstrate that the integration solution actually works, the sample solution in this
tutorial makes the web service log the incoming status updates to the command line of a
machine within the mobilengine.com domain. If you want to test the integration solution for
yourself, you'll need to configure a public network address as destination for the
integration messages. Ask your network administrator for one or set up a public network
address for yourself.