8.1 About the Integration Activity

The Integration activity is an activity that allows workflows to exchange data with arbitrary Web services. Data sent to a Web service can integrate an individual workflow with other systems, inside and outside the organization. Data received from a Web service can provide decision support information on approval forms.

You create flowdata variables to move data from the workflow to the Web service for processing. The Integration activity automatically creates an action model for working with a Web service based on a WSDL document that you specify.

NOTE:The action model is a subset of the features available in the NovellĀ® Integration Manager product (formerly known as Novell exteNd Composer).

An action model is a visual representation of a set of instructions for processing XML documents and communicating with XML data sources. An action model performs all data mapping, data transformation, and data transfer within an Integration activity. You can edit the action model to manipulate data before and after the data is submitted to the Web service. You then map the data from the Integration activity back to flowdata variables for use in the workflow.