WS Call Web Service

The WS Call Web Service task calls an external web service for processing steps outside the Content Collector task route. You can call an external web service, for example, to retrieve data from external sources or to trigger specific actions.

The web service that the WS Call Web Service task calls must conform to representational state transfer (REST) principles and must use the JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) format for input and output. The web service can be written in any client or programming language that is capable of processing an HTTP or HTTPS request. The WS Call Web Service task submits each call as a HTTP POST request.
Important: When you include calls to external web services in your task route, remember that the performance of the respective web service impacts the throughput of the task route.

Task summary

Table 1. WS Call Web Service task summary
Characteristic Value
Task name WS Call Web Service
Main purpose Call an external web service with specific input data and store the response as metadata
Usable with which source connectors? Email Connector, File System Source Connector, IBM® Connections Connector, SharePoint Connector, SMTP Connector
Usable with which target connectors? Any target connector
When needed Optional in any task route
Placement in task route Can appear several times and anywhere in the task route
Produces which metadata? Task Status
Configuration options

Connection settings

Provide the following information:
  • A valid URL to the web service to call, in the format http://server name:port/path.

    Use the fully-qualified server name. The address must begin with http:// or https:// and might require a port number.

    Tip: Use HTTPS connections for secure communication between Content Collector and the external web service.
  • The user ID and the password of the user account that Content Collector uses for calling the web service.

Optionally, you can change the web service timeout value. This value is specified in milliseconds and determines how long the task waits for the web service to return a result. If the specified timeout is exceeded, the task status of the WS Call Web Service task is set to unsuccessful. The default timeout setting is 1 second (1000 milliseconds).

HTTP status codes other than 200 are considered to be errors. The task status is then also set to unsuccessful. The HTTP response is written to the Task Result metadata property.

Response metadata mapping

Select the metadata source that is to be populated with the data that the web service returns. The metadata source can be a system metadata source or a user-defined metadata source. The web service returns a JSON structure that contains the result for each entity.
Important: When you configure the WS Call Web Service task, you select the metadata source to be populated by its display name. The actual mapping, however, is done by using the unique identifiers of the metadata source and the metadata properties. To find out the unique ID of a specific metadata source or property, navigate to Metadata and Lists in Configuration Manager and select the metadata type that you want to check:
User-defined Metadata
Select a metadata source. The ID field in the General section shows the unique ID for the metadata source. The property IDs are displayed in the Metadata Properties list.
System Metadata
To see the IDs of all installed metadata sources or of specific properties, click the respective Show/hide IDs button.

Input parameters

Specify any additional input parameters for the web service. The property names and data types that you specify here must match the names and data types that your web service expects.
Tip: When you define the expression to assign a property value, consider that specific metadata properties might not be available at this point in the task route. To avoid errors that are caused by missing metadata, configure an advanced expression for the property mapping. Create an expression that uses the TestMetadataReference() function to test whether the property exists, and supply a default value if the property is not available.