This topic describes how to associate an operation with a flow.
Select Interface Operation
The Select Interface Operation (or Select
Operation) menu selection or, alternatively, the corresponding
drag feature, allows you to do the following things:
- To associate an operation with a flow that does not have an operation
associated with it; or
- To replace the operation currently associated with the flow with a new
associated operation.
Note: The operation must come from an interface definition subproject,
not from a nonterminal applications subproject, a terminal applications subproject, or an outbound Web services subproject.
When
you associate an operation with a flow, the flow editor:
- Associates the port type and program name of the operation with the flow.
The flow must be invoked using this program name.
- Associates the input message referenced by the operation with the Receive
node of the flow, and associates the output message referenced by the operation
with the Reply node of the flow. If the flow does not yet contain a Receive
node and a Reply node then the service flow project creates them.
Figure 1. Receive node and Reply node
To associate an operation with a flow, you can either:
- Drag an operation from the EST Project Explorer to the flow editor canvas;
or
- Select an operation from a window.
Using the drag feature
To drag an operation:
- In the EST Project Explorer:
- Expand the service flow project containing the operation that you want
to use.
- Expand the interface definition subproject.
- Expand the Operations subfolder.
- Expand the operations file.
- Select the operation that you want to use.
- Drag the operation to the flow editor canvas.
- The flow editor associates the operation with the flow.
Selecting an operation from a window
To select an
operation from a window:
- In the flow editor, right-click anywhere over a blank area of the canvas,
then select Select Interface Operation from the contextual
menu.
Note: Alternatively, you can select from the main menu of
the workbench.
- The Select Operation window opens. The left pane
of this window shows a filtered version of the EST Project Explorer that includes
the artifacts shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Artifacts in
the Select Operation window| Type of artifact: |
From which types of folder and subfolder: |
From which service flow projects: |
|
|
Operations subfolders in:- Interface definition subproject
|
- The service flow project to which the flow belongs.
|
- In the Select Interface Operation window:
- Expand a service flow project.
- Expand the interface definition subproject.
- Expand the Operations subfolder.
- Expand an operations file.
- Select the operation that you want to use.
- Click OK to close the Select Operation window.
- The flow editor associates the operation with the flow.