Starting workflow with HTTP-Post

Question

Hello,
like I wrote in Starting workflow with HTTP-Post I have a problem with starting a workflow with a http-post:
I have an installation of SAP ERP 2005 SR2 IDES on Win2003 SR2 SP2 and want to start a simple workflow with an external application. Therefor I created an elementary test-workflow and set the general task flag so everybody is allowed to start it. So far everything work fine as I start it manually.
Now I want to start the workflow by an external application over a HTTP-Post as described in
http://help.sap.com/saphelp_47x200/helpdata/EN/54/de9e3887d6174fe10000009b38f842/content.htm
I configured the webserver (Customizing Web-Server) as follows:
Service: WebFlow (Intranet)
Address: http://192.168.0.216:8000/
Path: SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?
and sent a post via perl to http://192.168.0.216:8000/SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?protocol=01&localkey=WS99900004
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<WfMessage Version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.wfmc.org/standards/doc/WF-XML">
<WfMessageHeader>
<Request ResponseRequired="No">
<Key>http://192.168.0.216:8000/SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?protocol=01&localkey=WS99900004</Key>
</WfMessageHeader>
<WfMessageBody>
<CreateProcessInstance.Request StartImmediately="true">
<ObserverKey>http://192.168.0.224</ObserverKey>
</CreateProcessInstance.Request>
</WfMessageBody>
</WfMessage>
The Web-Server returns
C:\FH\SAP\perl-scripte>perl http-post.pl
HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Server: SAP Web Application Server (1.0;700)
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2008 11:00:24 GMT
Client-Peer: 192.168.0.216:8000
Client-Response-Num: 1
but it seems that nothing happens.
I also tried to post the XML via html-form-field with the same result.
Did I forgot something essential?

Answer 1

Hello Daniel
It's 6 years after you posted your question, but I found your post very useful and thought it would be worth updating for future reference.
I've just managed to trigger a workflow via http.
URL :
http://server.domain:8000/sap/bc/workflow_xml?sap-client=110
Java :
URL obj = new URL(url);
URLConnection con = (URLConnection) obj.openConnection();
String userpass = "username:password";
String basicAuth = "Basic " + javax.xml.bind.DatatypeConverter.printBase64Binary(userpass.getBytes());
con.setRequestProperty ("Authorization", basicAuth);
con.setRequestProperty("Content-type", "text/xml");
con.setDoOutput(true);
DataOutputStream wr = new DataOutputStream(con.getOutputStream());
wr.write( xml.getBytes("UTF-8") );
wr.flush();
wr.close();
You can then read the response.
I found that until I added the sap_client parameter I couldn't debug in CL_HTTP_WORKFLOW_XML->IF_HTTP_EXTENSION~HANDLE_REQUEST. Then I found that the content type has to be "text/xml".
I set the xml variable (the data sent to ECC) to :
<?xml version="1.0" ?>
<WfMessage Version="SAP.1.0" xmlns="http://www.wfmc.org/standards/doc/WF-XML">
<WfMessageHeader>
<Request>
<ResponseRequired>Yes</ResponseRequired>
</Request>
<Key>HTTP://server.domain:8000/SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?~localkey=WS90000074</Key>
<Operation>CreateProcessInstance</Operation>
</WfMessageHeader>
<WfMessageBody>
<CreateProcessInstance>
<Key>HTTP://server.domain:8000/SAP/BC/WORKFLOW_XML/?~localkey=WS90000074</Key>
<ContextData>
<YOUR_CONTEXT_VARIABLE>x</YOUR_CONTEXT_VARIABLE>
</ContextData>
<StartImmediately>Yes</StartImmediately>
</CreateProcessInstance>
</WfMessageBody>
</WfMessage>
regards
Steve