How to get Multiple Docs via Exposed BP Objects as API

[MohammedNissarK]

@ewilson &@shashank.kumar280 & Team,

We have a requirement to expose our BP objects as API to get values for the fields mentioned in the startup parameters from different team to add queue items in BP work queue. Once we have the queue items, bot will perform the actions. Here we need to get multiple docs from them to attach it in some x application for each unique order number through startup parameters that we're exposing so could someon help me how to configure this?

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Mohammed Nissar Kaja Mydhin
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[ewilson]

@Mohammed Nissar Kaja Mydhin,

Not sure that I'm clear on what exactly you're trying to do, but there are essentially two native ways to expose your Blue Prism objects depending on what version of BP you're running. The oldest mechanism is to expose each VBO directly as a SOAP web service. You can do this from System -> Objects -> Exposure. There are a couple things to consider with this approach though.

First, you want to make sure any VBO you expose in this manner has a run mode of background ideally. The reason for that is you have to invoke the objects directly from a specific runtime resource (i.e. directly calling them on that RR's IP/DNS name). Having those objects with background run mode allows for more throughput than if the objects are Exclusive. 

Second, as I mentioned above, you should dedicate at least one, if not more, runtime resources to handling these requests. Yes, the RR could be used for other things, but in that case, you run the risk of any SOAP requests being rejected if the RR is tied up running some other process.  A resource pool can help in this situation, but it's still a bit finnicky.

If you're on Blue Prism v7 or later, you could use the BP REST API to address this scenario and it's more secure (OAuth2 security) and scalable.

There are of course other alternatives such as using some sort of off-board message queuing solution like Kafka, RabbitMQ, or even something like Azure Queues, but those require a bit more thought around implementation.

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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[MohammedNissarK]

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your response.

As you mentioned, we are using older approach of exposing each VBO directly as a SOAP web service. Below are the parameters have configured in the Startup parameters of each actions (having around 8 actions) in the VBO and exposed as a SOAP web service. All the actions will get the values for the startup parameters, update it in the collection and add it to Work Queue.

My query is how can we get list of values for each startup parameters and how can we add it to work queue. 

For Example: In below snapshot, have setup startup parameters. Once it is invoked, values will be passed to the data items with single value. But our scenario, we will get single value for Request Type, Order No, Action Remarks and for the other parameters we will be getting Multiple Values like Account Number (5 Accounts), Amount (5 Amounts), Instructions (5 Instructions), Attachments (8 Attachments), etc. How can we configure it and add these items to Work Queue. Hope this is Clear.

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Mohammed Nissar Kaja Mydhin
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[ewilson]

@Mohammed Nissar Kaja Mydhin,

If you're trying to interrogate the process/VBO to determine what the startup parameters are you'll need to use the HTTP interface exposed by each runtime resource. There's a specific command/endpoint called getparams. You can find more information about the Resource PC commands at the following links:

Resource PC Commands

Resource PC HTTP Interface

Cheers,

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Eric Wilson
Director, Integrations and Enablement
Blue Prism Digital Exchange
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