Soap, submit formdata

Question

Hi everybody,
I'm trying to submit a task and the related data to ALC using Soap, from an external application, to implement HTML/Angular Forms in ALC ES3, but can not find any doc nor any info about what service to invoke...
I've tried to use ProcessManagementTaskService, which seems to be the one invoked when a Flex form is submitted in the workspace, but can not get it work (I get a nullpointerexception on backend side, which, after some decompiling, seems to be caused by a lack of flex session... see ProcessManagementTaskServiceImpl on line 1090, it invokes FlexContext.getHttpRequest, which I bet is null at this point (but that may be the session as well)).
See that decompiled code:
  private TaskItemResult callSubmitService(String taskId, int formIndex, com.adobe.idp.Document doc)
    throws ProcessManagementException
    if (doc == null) {
      return null;
    long start = ProcessManagementUtils.getCurrentTime();
    try
      long tid = Long.parseLong(taskId);
      HttpServletRequest request = FlexContext.getHttpRequest();
      request.getSession().setAttribute("prepared_taskId", ""); // ******* line 1090 -> NPE
      Map inputMap = new HashMap();
      Map httpHeaders = new HashMap();
      String environmentBuffer = (String)doc.getAttribute("environment");
      String userAgent = (String)doc.getAttribute("userAgent");
      inputMap.put("targetUrl", getTargetUrl());
      inputMap.put("relativeTargetUrl", "/rest/services/ProcessManagementDocumentHandlingService.submit");
      inputMap.put("environmentBuffer", environmentBuffer);
      inputMap.put("userAgent", userAgent);
      inputMap.put("acrobatVersion", (String)request.getSession().getAttribute("acrobatVersion"));
      inputMap.put("acroClientType", (String)request.getSession().getAttribute("acroClientType"));
      inputMap.put("pm:callingApplication", "pm:workspace");
      Enumeration headerNames = request.getHeaderNames();
      while (headerNames.hasMoreElements()) {
        String headerName = (String)headerNames.nextElement();
        httpHeaders.put(headerName, request.getHeader(headerName));
      httpHeaders.put("accept-language", (String)request.getSession().getAttribute("Accept-Language"));
      inputMap.put("httpHeaders", httpHeaders);
      TaskManager tm = TaskManagerClientFactory.getTaskManager(ProcessManagementUtils.getServiceClientFactory());
      FormServiceInvokeResponse response = null;
      long innerStart = ProcessManagementUtils.getCurrentTime();
      try
        response = tm.callSubmitService(tid, 0L, doc, inputMap);
      catch (TaskManagerException e) {
        String msg = ProcessManagementUtils.formatMessage("ALC-WKS-005-029", new Object[] { taskId });
        throw new ProcessManagementException(msg, e);
      catch (RuntimeException e) {
        String msg = ProcessManagementUtils.formatMessage("ALC-WKS-005-029", new Object[] { taskId });
        throw new ProcessManagementException(msg, e);
      ProcessManagementUtils.traceTime(this, timeLogger, "submit.tm.callSubmitService", innerStart, Level.FINER);
      TaskItemResult results = new TaskItemResult();
      populateTaskItemResult(results, response);
      FormInstance _formInstanceReturned = tm.getEmptyForm();
      _formInstanceReturned.setDocument(response.getResultingDocument());
      innerStart = ProcessManagementUtils.getCurrentTime();
      try
        Object successSubmit = results.getMap().get("success");
        Object renderAgain = results.getMap().get("newRender");
        tm.setParticipantIPAddress(ProcessManagementUtils.getClientIPAddress(request));
        if ((successSubmit != null) && (renderAgain != null)) {
          if ((renderAgain.toString().compareTo("false") == 0) && (successSubmit.toString().compareTo("true") == 0)) {
            tm.save(tid, _formInstanceReturned);
        else
          tm.save(tid, _formInstanceReturned);
      catch (TaskManagerException e) {
        String msg = ProcessManagementUtils.formatMessage("ALC-WKS-005-029", new Object[] { taskId });
        throw new ProcessManagementException(msg, e);
      catch (RuntimeException e) {
        String msg = ProcessManagementUtils.formatMessage("ALC-WKS-005-029", new Object[] { taskId });
        throw new ProcessManagementException(msg, e);
      finally
        jsr 6; } ProcessManagementUtils.traceTime(this, timeLogger, "submit.tm.save", innerStart, Level.FINER); ret;
      return results;
    finally
      ProcessManagementUtils.traceTime(this, timeLogger, "submit", start, Level.FINER);
Then, I tried to invoke TaskManagerService, but I can't get it work too / doesn't seem to be the right service...
Can anybody shed some light on this?
Thanks you very much in advance!

Answer 1

There are six different ways to initiate a workflow process. 3 are created automatically when the process is activated and 3 require you to build an endpoint.
1. Automatic endpoint - Data Services - you could submit the data to a servlet or other such program and in turn have it call Data Services to start the process.
2. Automatic endpoint - EJB interface - submit the data to a servlet and have it call the EJB interface to start the process.
3. Automatic endpoint - Web Service interface - same as above but use the SOAP interface instead. You could also have the form call the SOAP interface directly but there will be some work required on the form to get the contents of the form to submit via SOAP.
4. Endpoint requires config - Watched folder - you can save out the data to a shared network drive. That drive is monitored by Livecycle and your process is kicked off when a file is dropped into that folder.
5. Endpoint requires config - Email endpoint - same as #4 except email is used and not a folder.
6. Endpoint requires config - TaskManager endpoint - make use of workspace to have the user choose the process to start and the data is submitted to the process automatically.