An operation is an artifact that specifies the information required to invoke a flow, a nonterminal application, or an outbound Web service (see Basic information about operations).
An operation contains the following elements:
| Element: | Description: | |
|---|---|---|
| Port type: | The class to which the operation belongs. | |
| Operation: | The name of this operation. The operation contains a reference to the input message, a reference to the output message if any, and references to fault messages if any. | |
| Input message: | A reference to the input message of the program to be invoked. | |
| Output message: | A reference to the output message of the program to be invoked. | |
| Faults messages: | A reference to the faults messages if any of the program to be invoked. | |
Operations are stored in operations files (extension .wsdl). You can create or modify operations in the operations editor (see Operations editor).
After you have defined the elements of an operation you can associate the operation with the program that the operation describes. There are two different kinds of association:
You can associate an operation with an Invoke node that lies within a flow that your are building so that the Invoke node can invoke another flow, a nonterminal operation, or an outbound Web service (see Invoke nodes in the flow editor).