Process Invoking Enterprise Business Services

12-32 Developers Guide for Oracle Application Integration Architecture Foundation Pack available, if the supplier is still active, if the requisitions that need the items on the line are still valid, and so on. Content Payload The payload of any operation that falls in the Validate category can be a business object, a business component of a business object, or any other user-defined payload. Verb Attributes Not applicable. Corresponding Response Verb The Validate verb has a paired ValidateResponse verb that is used in the response message for each Validate EBM. The Validate verb is always implemented synchronously. Response Content Payload The response payload of a Validate operation is user-definable.

12.8.6 Process

The Process verb is a request to a service provider to perform the corresponding operation on the business object associated with the service. It is generally used for operations that orchestrate multiple other operations, are intended to achieve a specific business result, or both. When to Use the Process Verb Process is used as a single verb to categorize all business operations that result in content updates but do not fall in the CreateUpdateDelete category to avoid a proliferation of verbs for specific business object actions. Operations that use the Process verb must always result in creation or updating of one or more business objects and may represent an orchestration of other operations. The Process verb can also be used for operations that act on a single business object, but have specific business semantics that cannot be communicated using an Update operation. In general, such actions are implemented in applications with distinct access control, and specific business rules that are applicable when the action is performed. Examples of such actions are state changes, updating meter readings on equipment, and so on. Because multiple operations can be performed by the Process verb, potentially multiple Process verbs can be used in any given EBS. Content Payload The nature of the operation performed by a Process verb may require properties and values that are not part of the business object on which the operation is being performed, but are required by the business rules that are implemented by the operation. For example, approval of a sales order can record a comment as part of the approval, but the comment in itself may not be a property of the sales order. Tip: Operations that implement the Process verb can be implemented as synchronous or asynchronous. This is a deviation from the other verbs for which a consistent implementation pattern applies across all operations that use them. Constructing the ABCS 12-33 In general, the request and response payload of operations that use the Process verb need the ability to reflect the method signature of the application, without a restriction that the content that forms the payload must come from the business object to which the service operation is associated. To support the preceding, the payload of each Process operation is not restricted to content from the EBO definition. This is unlike all the other EBOs for which the EBM business content must be the same as or a subset of the EBO content. The List pattern used in the other generic verbs is also applicable here, but does not apply generically; that is, in an EBS, both a single and List implementation of a Process operation may exist, or just one or the other. Unlike the other generic verbs for which single and list are both consistently created for all EBOs, Process is driven by the requirements of the corresponding operation. Verb Attributes Not applicable. Corresponding Response Verb The Process verb has a paired ProcessResponse verb that is used in the response message for each Process EBM. Response Verb Payload The payload of the response verb is specific to each process operation and is determined by the objective of the operation. Similar to the Process verb payload, there is no restriction that the content of the response is restricted to the content of the EBO.

12.8.7 Query