An operation is an artifact that specifies the information
required to invoke a flow, a nonterminal application, or an outbound Web service.
To be useful an operation must be associated with a flow (see Associating an interface operation with a flow)
or with an Invoke node in the flow editor.
Working with an operation for an Invoke node includes the
following steps:
Create the operation in an operations file (see Creating an operations file).
In the new operation, specify the information required to invoke the
entity that you want to be invoked (a particular flow, a particular nonterminal
application, or a particular outbound Web service), including:
- The name by which the entity is to be invoked.
- An input data structure for passing data to the invoked entity.
- An output data structure for receiving data returned by the invoked entity
when it terminates normally.
- Optionally, a faults data structure for receiving data returned by the
invoked entity when it returns abnormally.
See Creating an operations file.
In the flow editor, create an Invoke node that is associated with the
operation. The new Invoke node is one of the following, depending on the type
of entity the operation invokes:
- An Invoke nonterminal application node
- An Invoke outbound Web service node
- An Invoke flow node
See Flow nodes and Populating a flow in the flow editor.
In the flow editor, connect the Invoke node to the flow path.
See Populating a flow in the flow editor.