pp108 : Custom Connector

Custom Connector

This topic describes the Web service operations required to create a custom connector.

To create a custom connector, you have to write the implementation for the following Web service operations:

  • createConnectorConfiguration(): This Web service operation creates the configurationXML Web service operation for the application connector. The signature of this Web service operation is createConnectorConfiguration(configurationNode), where configurationNode is the XML node at which the configuration details of the connector have to be added. If the Web service operation returns 'true', the data is updated in the LDAP. If the Web service operation returns 'false', the data is not updated in the LDAP.

Note:
While appending the content to the configuration node, the XML element(s) must be created using the ownerDocument Web service operation of the configuration node. This is required to circumvent the IE bug which does not allow adding nodes to an XML document from an XML document in another window.

  • fillInPropertyScreen(): This Web service operation is invoked for populating data in the property screen when the user views the details of an existing Service Container. The signature of this Web service operation is fillInPropertyScreen(configurationNode), where configurationNode is the XML node which contains the existing configuration information in the LDAP. The application developer has to parse the data from this XML node and fill in the property screen.

Note:
If the application connector configuration page has tabs and if any of these properties is a cold setting (i.e., if changing that property requires restarting the Service Container), such a page must implement a Web service operation called isRestartRequired(). This Web service operation returns a Boolean. Based on this value, the administration framework alerts the user if a SOAP processor has to be restarted for the configuration changes to take effect. This Web service operation must be implemented in the main page that contains the tabs. If the property page does not contain tabs or if the property changes in the page do not require restarting of the SOAP processor, this Web service operation need not be implemented. This is because the administration framework supports property pages without tabs.