How the WSIF Access Action works

The following process describes what the WSIF Access Action does when a toolkit entity such as a Struts process invokes it:

  1. Reads the definition for the WSIF Access Action in the Struts configuration file.
  2. Creates the service based on information contained in the definition such as the WSDL file location, name of the service, name of the port, and the name of the Web service operation.
  3. Formats the data found in the context into the process request message. The mapper definition has the relationship between the data in context and the WSIF message. The WSIF Access Action uses the WSIFMessage Mapper to do the formatting.
  4. Starts a work area if configured to do so and stores the session IDs there. The setting that controls this is in the web.xml file of your Web Application WAR file. If the WSIF Access Action is not configured to use work areas, it places the session data into the WSIF message as a separate message part.
  5. Sends the WSIF request message to the application logic layer to invoke the Web service.
  6. Formats the data in the response message into the context when the message arrives in the application presentation layer. The WSIF Access Action uses the WSIFMessage Mapper to do the formatting.
  7. Completes the work area if it started one.