Saturday, September 5, 2015

HCM: WebService integrations

 

I am turning over a new leaf and starting with Oracle's Fusion HCM Cloud Service, looking into its integration system. Looks like Oracle does not want developers to use its webservices, because there seems to be no concise document available on how to set up a simple webservice integration. After sifting through numerous blogs and forums, I finally decided to explore the Oracle Enterprise Repository for information. And this seems to be the unwritten golden rule for Fusion applications: if you need information, go to OER.

After logging into OER as guest, run a quick query in the left pane to get started. If you want to know about Fusion HCMs webservices, select "ADF Service" under Type, and "Human Capital Management" under Product Family. You can also choose an appropriate Version, though everyone will be on the latest version anyway.

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Running the query gives a  list of Fusion ADF services which can be used for external integrations. For main Employee related webservices, choose the Worker services at the end of the list.

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To find the WSDL address of this service, choose the detail tab and go to the end of the page.

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And there, right at the end of the page, is the logical address of the service. You will have to replace the <hcm server> part with the actual hostname of your cloud service.

Simply entering this URL in a browser gives us the WSDL:

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And providing this URL in SOAPUI downloads the WSDL and schema. The WSDL is very big, SOAP UI takes a couple of minutes to completely consume the WSDL and generate the sample messages.

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And now for the really tricky part. The search request has to be built in the SOAP message so that the system can respond with data. After trying numerous combinations, I just tried a simple empty SOAP request. And…it returned successfully !

 

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:typ="http://xmlns.oracle.com/apps/hcm/employment/core/workerServiceV2/types/" xmlns:typ1="http://xmlns.oracle.com/adf/svc/types/">
   <soapenv:Header/>
   <soapenv:Body>
      <typ:findWorker>
         <typ:findControl>
       </typ:findControl>
      </typ:findWorker>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

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Important: The userid and password has to be provided either in the soapenv:Header section, or in the userid/password fields of SOAP UI. If you enter a wrong password, the fusion system does not respond with an error message or exception. Instead, it simply sends back the request which it received. Completely. Without any indication of any error. So if you start getting back your request payload in the response, check the credentials.