Web Service Description Language

Web Service Description Language (WSDL) is an XML format for describing network services as a set of endpoints operating on messages containing either document-oriented or procedure-oriented information. The operations and messages are described abstractly, and then bound to a concrete network protocol and message format to define an endpoint.

A WSDL document is comprised of a number of elements:

• Type definitions, for data elements using an XML schema
• Message definitions, which are comprised of one or more typed data elements
• Operation definitions, which are abstract descriptions of supported actions
• PortType definitions, which list the set of operations supported by the Web service
• Binding definitions, which describe the binding between the PortTypes and protocols

From within the Business Process perspective in Designer, you can use the Artifacts view to import existing WSDL artifacts from a local file system. Once imported, you can browse WSDL objects and create an activity from an existing operation by dragging and dropping the operation to the drawing surface.

See also:

BPMN

BPEL

WS-Human Task