Who uses CIC's SOAP functionality?

SOAP tools support open standards (SOAP, XML, WSDL, etc.) These tools promote interoperability and are applicable to many types of application development. SOAP tools are primarily used by developers, advanced handler authors, and professional services personnel. However, the services created using SOAP tools are another matter. Anyone, anywhere on the Internet is potentially a consumer or provider of information processed by SOAP handlers. The possibilities are limitless.

For example, an caller might enter a PIN number into an auto-attendant menu created using Interaction Attendant. In turn, Attendant could start a SOAP handler that passes the PIN number to a remote web service to look up information that is spoken back to the caller using CIC's text-to-speech capability. A remote procedure invoked by SOAP can perform any kind of data processing tasks, ranging from a simple lookups to complex transactions that accept complex data types as input. SOAP does not impose any limits on the application functionality that can be invoked.

• OAP tools allow developers to create handlers that retrieve data from web services, or which function as web services. Handler-based services can be described using Web Services Description Language (WSDL)—an XML-based language that defines the functionality offered by a web service and how to access it. WSDL makes it possible to describe a service on CIC so that a worldwide audience can find and use it. WSDL describes the service, all parameters required to invoke it, and the location (endpoint) where the service can be accessed.

• WSDL's are not available for handler examples included with this release. However, you can easily create WSDL's to describe the example files.

• SOAP makes it possible for programs written in different languages and running on different platforms to communicate with each other.

• SOAP integrates CIC with business-to-business interactions and information services.

• Once a SOAP endpoint is exposed to the internet, a handler may call into the endpoint, which may be on the Internet or an Intranet.

SOAP is not appropriate for low-level, tightly-coupled transactions, due to network latency and the overhead imposed by the SOAP messaging encoding and decoding. SOAP is best suited for simple, high-level transactions, such as sending a name and PIN number to a service to obtain an account summary.