Call External J2EE application from Livelink

Hi Everyone,I have seen a few discussions about calling an external application from LiveLink. However, I didn?t find a final solution! In my case at a certain point in a workflow, I need to call an external J2EE application and get a return value from it. My question is 1- is this implementable 2- If yes, what possibilities does LiveLink provide? I very much appreciate any helps.Thanks,Mohammad

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Cory_Thomas

Message from Cory Thomas <coryt@opentext.com> via eLink

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You should have a look at XML WorkflowInterchange. It’s designed to get data in/out of a workflow:

https://knowledge.opentext.com/knowledge/llisapi.dll/fetch/2001/744073/2045383/2062557/2069949/3149989/customview.html?func=ll&objId=3149989

Alternatively, if you want to roll yourown or you want to display the return value in a field on the current workflowstep (in a workflow form), you could make an AJAX request from the workflow form to yourexternal app and populate the workflow that way.

This approach can be used in a Customview orAppearance too. Depending on your level of security, you’ll probablyrequire a broker to make the request from the Livelink machine to the externalapp. A simple JSP, ASP or “whatever” page will do. I’ve donethis and it works quite well as a catch-all type of solution.

AJAX<-> broker (running on Livelink machine) <-> external app

Hope this helps!

Cory

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Subject: Call External J2EEapplication from Livelink

Call External J2EE application from Livelink

Posted by BMOUser10 (Daga , Alok) on 01/24/2006 05:09 PM

Hi Everyone,
I have seen a few discussions about calling an external application from LiveLink. However, I didn?t find a final solution! In my case at a certain point in a workflow, I need to call an external J2EE application and get a return value from it. My question is 1- is this implementable 2- If yes, what possibilities does LiveLink provide?
I very much appreciate any helps.

Thanks,
Mohammad

Alok_Daga_(bmouser10_(Delete)_4212930)

Hi Cory,Thank you very much for your information and quick response.Regards,Mohammad

Alok_Daga_(bmouser10_(Delete)_4212930)

Hi again,Thanks to your information, I went through the XML workflow interchange documents and have a better understanding of what needs to be done now. The thing that I didn?t find any information was on AJAX calls. Can you please provide me with some information or tell me where I can find information about making AJAX calls from Livelink?I just want to check my understanding with you: XML workflow interchange will be used to develop in my workflow to ?Post? an HTML form data, using Https protocol, and call a servlet (or JSP) that will be running on Livelink server. In this Servlet, I will call my process and return the values. Is this a correct approach? My external application will probably be deployed on the same server as the LiveLink. So, can I place my Servlet in my application, or should it be implemented as part of Livelink? My final question is that does Livelink provide any possibilities for calling Web Services?Thanks,Mohammad

Cory_Thomas

Hi Mohammad,1. For Ajax you may want to read this as it centres around Ajax with Java. http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/j-ajax1/There's a lot of info on the web abot Ajax2. You are correct about XML Workflow Intechange. You can POST HTML form data to the servlet and get return values back. I haven't actually used XML Workflow Interchange myself so I highly recommend you contact customer support, they'll be able to answer any workflow interchange questions better than I can.3. The servlet can reside in your application. I'm not sure what you mean by "as part of Livelink" though.4. As far a web services go, this is a tricky one

First, Livelink has it's own web services called LAPI web services. They are installed as part of the LAPI SDK and provide a (fairly rich) subset of LAPI functionality. I've used them extensively and they always get the job done. So you'd use these as you'd use regular LAPI.If you want to create your own web services in Java and consume them in Livelink you'll have to create your own code to consume the service. Again, you can look at AJAX or LAPI web services to call a service from Livelink. This really depends on where you need to call the service from in Livelink (a customview, workflow, etc).Cheers,Cory

Cory_Thomas

Just want to add that Ajax calls in the Livelink interface are the same as doing Ajax calls from a regular HTML page. ... in case you thought there's something special behind it because it's Livelink, there's not.Cory

Alok_Daga_(bmouser10_(Delete)_4212930)

Hi Cory,Thank you very much for your time and information. Now I have a clear understanding of what I need to do. Hopefully I won't bug you freqeuntly, when I get into implementation!Cheers,Mohammad