Taleo Web API - managing user groups in a user profile

I have been using Taleo (or Oracle's) SOAP based web API to transmit data to Taleo from PeopleSoft. As part of this service I am creating/updating user profiles in Taleo based on actions taken in PeopleSoft. Recently received a request to manage/update the user groups associated with a user profile based on action done in PeopleSoft.

I am running PeopleTools 8.61.x, HCM 9.2 but this should be possible as long as you can make a SOAP call out from PeopleSoft. 

User Groups are part of the UserAccount construct as shown below. Following is a simple construct to pull up or search for an user account and then assign a user group to the user account.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <UserAccount> <Loginname searchType="search" searchTarget="../../.." searchValue="user@emaildomain.com" /> <Groups> <Group> <Name searchTarget="." searchType="search" searchValue="Group-Code-01" /> </Group> </Groups> </UserAccount>

To delete all the User Groups assigned to an user the request XML will be like below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <UserAccount> <Loginname searchType="search" searchTarget="../../.." searchValue="user@emaildomain.com" /> <Groups action="reset" /> 

</UserAccount>

  

To delete only a specific user group from the list of assigned user groups on an user profile the request will be like below.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <UserAccount> <Loginname searchType="search" searchTarget="../../.." searchValue="user@emaildomain.com" /> <Groups> <Group action="remove"> <Name searchType="search" searchTarget="." searchValue="Group-Code-01" /> </Group> </Groups> </UserAccount>

One can combine the above actions in a single request like removing all or one user group and assigning a new user group.

Uploading files to SharePoint Online

Here are the steps to upload files to SharePoint Online using PeopleSoft's services/service operations.

I am running PeopleTools 8.61.x and there are some properties that are discussed below that are only available in the latest tools release. 

At a high level there are three steps

1. Generate Access Token

2. Using the access token generate Form Digest

3. Finally using both the access token and form digest upload file to SPO.

Service and Service Operation build

1. Created a Document Template (N_SPO_URI_TEMPLATE) with the following primitives defined as text.

TenantID, TenantName, SiteName, SPOFolder and FileName

2. Defined two non-rowset based messages - N_SPO_REQUEST and N_SPO_RESPONSE

3. Created a consumer REST service called as N_SPO.

4. Created three service operations all with REST method as POST - 

N_SPO_ACCESSTOKEN_POST, N_SPO_FORMDIGEST_POST and N_SPO_UPLOADFILES_POST

For the service operation N_SPO_ACCESSTOKEN_POST the REST base URL is 

https://accounts.accesscontrol.windows.net/ and template is {TenantID}/tokens/OAuth/2

For the service operation N_SPO_FORMDIGEST_POST the REST base URL is https:// and 

template is {TenantName}.sharepoint.com/sites/{SiteName}/_api/ContextInfo as we cannot provide any variables in the base URL.

Finally for the N_SPO_UPLOADFILES_POST service operation, the REST base URL is https:// and template is {TenantName}.sharepoint.com/sites/{SiteName}/_api/web/GetFolderByServerRelativeURL('/sites/{SiteName}/{SPOFolder}/')/Files/add(url='{FileName}',overwrite=true)

All other settings are default settings.

5. Updated the integrationGateway.properties file as follows - (this parameter may be available only in the latest tools release)

ig.UseDomainName.ExternalOperationNames=N_SPO_FORMDIGEST.v1,N_SPO_UPLOADFILES.v1

Had to provide external operational service name for these two. The first one related to access token generation worked without having to define it here. 

6. For the SPO site to which I want to upload the file, I need a Client ID and Secret, which is kind of like the user ID/password to make the connection. SharePoint admin can generate this. Value for &ApplicationID, &TenantID also provided by SharePoint admin. Value for variables like &TenantName, &SiteName, &SPOFolder derived by parsing the SPO URL to which I had to upload the file. &attachFileName is derived from the complete file path of the file to be uploaded.  

7. Now comes the peoplecode part to invoke these service operations. 

/* step 1 */

/* intialize service operation and update URL variables */

&reqMsg = CreateMessage(Operation.N_SPO_ACCESSTOKEN_POST);
&Doc_Tmpl = &reqMsg.GetURIDocument();
&COM_Tmpl = &Doc_Tmpl.DocumentElement;
&reqMsg.URIResourceIndex = 1;
&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("TenantID").Value = &TenantID;

/* this is how form-data can be provided */

&reqMsg.SegmentContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
&bRet = &reqMsg.SetContentString("grant_type=client_credentials&client_id=" | EncodeURLForQueryString(&ClientID | "@" | &TenantID) | "&client_secret=" | EncodeURLForQueryString(&ClientSecret) | "&resource=" | EncodeURLForQueryString(&ApplicationID | "/" | &TenantName | ".sharepoint.com@" | &TenantID));

/* following HTTP property may only work in latest tools release */

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.LoadRESTHeaders();
&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Disable_URLEncodingBody", "True", %HttpProperty);

/* submit request and the parse json response */

&respMsg = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&reqMsg);
&sResp = &respMsg.GenXMLString();

&AccessToken will have the access token received in the response. 

/* step 2 */

/* intialize service operation and update URL variables */

&reqMsg = CreateMessage(Operation.N_SPO_FORMDIGEST_POST);

&Doc_Tmpl = &reqMsg.GetURIDocument();

&COM_Tmpl = &Doc_Tmpl.DocumentElement;

&reqMsg.URIResourceIndex = 1;

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("TenantName").Value = &TenantName;

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("SiteName").Value = &SiteName;

/* add properties to request header, &AccessToken is from step 1 */

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.LoadRESTHeaders();

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Authorization", &AccessToken, %Header);

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Accept", "application/json;odata=nometadata", %Header);

/* submit request and the parse json response */

&respMsg = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&reqMsg);

&sResp = &respMsg.GenXMLString();

&FormDigest will be populated form the response.

/* step 3 */

/* intialize service operation and update URL variables */

&reqMsg = CreateMessage(Operation.N_SPO_UPLOADFILES_POST);

&Doc_Tmpl = &reqMsg.GetURIDocument();

&COM_Tmpl = &Doc_Tmpl.DocumentElement;

&reqMsg.URIResourceIndex = 1;

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("TenantName").Value = &TenantName;

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("SiteName").Value = &SiteName;

/* if SPO folder path has space in it then it has to be encoded like &SPOFolder = EncodeURL("Shared Documents/General/SPO Test"); */

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("SPOFolder").Value = &SPOFolder;

&COM_Tmpl.GetPropertyByName("FileName").Value = &attachFileName;

/* read the file to attach and GetBase64StringFromBinary */

&MTOMFile = GetFile("filename.xlsx", "R", %FilePath_Absolute);

If &MTOMFile.IsOpen Then

   &theBase64encodedString = &MTOMFile.GetBase64StringFromBinary();

   &MTOMFile.Close();

End-If;

/* add the bas464string to request message */

If (&reqMsg.SetContentString(&theBase64encodedString)) Then

   &reqMsg.SegmentContentType = "binary";

   &reqMsg.SegmentContentTransfer = %ContentTransfer_Binary;

End-If;

/* add properties to request header, last property is a HTTP property */

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.LoadRESTHeaders();

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("X-Request-Digest", &FormDigest, %Header);

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Authorization", &AccessToken, %Header);

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Accept", "application/json;odata=nometadata", %Header);

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Content-Type", "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet", %Header);

&bRet = &reqMsg.IBInfo.IBConnectorInfo.AddConnectorProperties("Base64toBinary", "Y", %HttpProperty);

/* submit request and the parse json response */

&respMsg = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&reqMsg);

&sResp = &respMsg.GenXMLString();

Parse the response or check response status &respMsg.HTTPResponseCode

or &respMsg.ResponseStatus to complete the processing.

Hope this helps.

Creating JSON request for REST web services

PeopleSoft provides Document technology to be used to generate JSON request messages but in my experience they are very restrictive especially when working on integrating with 3rd party web services. So following is what I did to generate a JSON request message to post to a 3rd party REST web service. 

The request that I have to generate is in the following form.
[
   {
      "attrib1":"value1",
      "attrib2":"value2",
      "attrib3":{
         "attrib3_1":"values3_1",
         "attrib3_2":"values3_2",
         "attrib3_3":"values3_3",
         "attrib3_4":"values3_4"
      }
   }
]

I am running PT 8.57.x and at this time its not possible to build a document with the root node as an array as shown in the example below. Also I have nested compounds which is also a challenge, the parent compound does not have a label where as the child does. 
So to build something like above I am using the CreateJsonBuilder API provided by PeopleSoft.

Local JsonBuilder &jbldr = CreateJsonBuilder();
Local JsonArray &jArray;

Local string &json;
Local message &request, &response;
Local boolean &bRet;

&jbldr.StartArray(""); /* no label */
 &jbldr.StartObject(""); /* no label */
  &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib1", "value1");
  &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib2", "value2");
   &jbldr.StartObject("attrib3"); /* need a label */
    &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib3_1", "value3_1");
    &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib3_2", "value3_2");
    &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib3_3", "value3_3");
    &jbldr.AddProperty("attrib3_4", "value3_4");
   &jbldr.EndObject("attrib3"); /* closing out the compound or JSONObject */
 &jbldr.EndObject("");
&jbldr.EndArray("");


/* this will return the array just like what I want */
&jArray = &jbldr.GetRootNode().GetJsonObject().GetJsonArray("");
&json = &jArray.ToString();

Created a basic non-rowset based message and assigned that as the request message in my service operation. Use this method to set the content for the message segment for a non-rowset-based message only.

&bRet = &request.SetContentString(&json);
&response = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&request);

That's it, works like a charm.

JSON Parser

PeopleSoft has undocumented JSON related API and this post covers some of the routines that I have tried to dynamically parse a json response. I think this API calls were made available in PT 8.56.x as part of PeopleSoft's inbuilt integration with ElasticSearch. 

I am making a RESTful web service call to a service hosted by a 3rd party vendor from PeopleSoft; so PeopleSoft is a consumer of the service. Focus here is to parse the response from the service so I am not covering how the service is setup and the request part of the service. 

So I have two types of responses. Response 1 as shown below 

{

    "error": {

        "message": "Some message text",

        "detail": "detail text about the error"

    },

    "status": "failure"

}

and Response 2 as follows.

{

   "import_set":"Import set value",

   "staging_table":"tablename",

   "result":[

      {

         "status":"updated",

         "error_message":"Unable to format 01-01-2019 using format string yyyyMMdd  for field hire_dt"

      }

   ]

}

In Response 1, I has 2 children, viz "error" and "status", whereas Response 2 has 3 children, import_set, staging_table and result.

In Response 1, "error" is a JSonObject which has 2 more children, message and detail. In Response 2, "result" is a JSonArray which has 2 children status and error_message.

Local string &content, &propName, &propValue;

Local JsonParser &parser;

Local JsonObject &jsonRoot, &jsonDetails;

Local JsonArray &jArray;

Local boolean &ret; 

Local number &i, &j, &k, &l;

&parser = CreateJsonParser(); /* this is the undocumented API */

&ret = &parser.Parse(&content); /* &content is the json response as a string */

&jsonRoot = &parser.GetRootObject();

For &i = 1 To &jsonRoot.GetChildCount()
/* for Response 1, following will get status tag and its value */
/* for Response 2, following will get import_set, staging_table and its values */

   &propName = &jsonRoot.GetPropertyNameAt(&i);

   &propValue = &jsonRoot.GetProperty(&propName);

   /* if there is a nested value then its either JsonArray or JsonObject */

   Evaluate &propValue

   When = "JsonArray"
/* this will return status and error_message which are in Response 2 */

      &jArray = &jsonRoot.GetJsonArray(&propName);

      For &j = 1 To &jArray.Length()

         &jsonDetails = &jArray.GetJsonObject(&j);

         For &k = 1 To &jsonDetails.GetChildCount()

            &propName = &jsonDetails.GetPropertyNameAt(&k);

            &propValue = &jsonDetails.GetProperty(&propName);

         End-For;

      End-For;

      Break;

   When = "JsonObject"
/* this will return message and detail which are in Response 1 */

      &jsonDetails = &jsonRoot.GetJsonObject(&propName);

      &numCnt = &jsonDetails.GetChildCount();

      For &l = 1 To &jsonDetails.GetChildCount()

         &propName = &jsonDetails.GetPropertyNameAt(&l);

         &propValue = &jsonDetails.GetProperty(&propName);

      End-For;

      Break;

   When-Other;

      /* when not JsonArray or JsonObject, get prop name and value which is at root level */

      Break;

   End-Evaluate;

End-For;

Hope this helps.

PeopleSoft web service response namespace issue

Running PT 8.53.x, wrote a simple custom web service "Hello World". Service works fine but saw one issue where the namespace returned by the response message is not defined in the WSDL. So any other 3rd party solution like a .Net program when they consume and execute this service it fails to receive the response due to the unidentified namespace.

Request 

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2003/03/addressing/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance/">
  <soapenv:Header xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <HelloWorld xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/Enterprise/Tools/schemas/HELLOWORLD.V1"></HelloWorld>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Response via PeopleSoft SOAP message template

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2003/03/addressing/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema/" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance/">
  <soapenv:Header xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
  </soapenv:Header>
  <soapenv:Body xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">
    <HelloWorldResponse xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/Enterprise/Tools/schemas/HELLOWORLDRESPONSE.V1">
      <HelloWorldResult>XYZ</HelloWorldResult>
    </HelloWorldResponse>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Actual response via SOAPUI or Postman

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <soapenv:Body>
      <HelloWorldResponse xmlns="http://peoplesoft.com/HelloWorldResponseResponse">
         <HelloWorldResult>Success</HelloWorldResult>
      </HelloWorldResponse>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>


As you see the the problem is the namespace value returned for the root tag "HelloWorldResponse".

<HelloWorldResponse xmlns="http://peoplesoft.com/HelloWorldResponseResponse">


PeopleSoft puts the default value (not sure where this is stored)
http://peoplesoft.com/HelloWorldResponseResponse
instead of what is defined in the WSDL which is 
http://xmlns.oracle.com/Enterprise/Tools/schemas/HELLOWORLDRESPONSE.V1

I have a very basic synchronous service operation, with a request and response message and the handler OnRequest peoplecode is doing all the work.

Following was my application package peoplecode initially.

&response = CreateMessage(Operation.HELLOWORLD_SVCOP, %IntBroker_Response);
&xmldata = "<?xml version='1.0'?><HelloWorldResponse/>";
&xmlresponsedoc = CreateXmlDoc(&xmldata);

&HWResponseNode = &xmlNode.AddElement("HelloWorldResult");
&HWResponseNode.NodeValue = "Success";
&response.SetXmlDoc(&xmlresponsedoc);
Return &response;


So when creating the XmlDoc I was not specifying any namespace and I was hoping PeopleSoft will add it based on the schema definition. 

Instead following is what I had to do to correct the issue. (only displaying the change, no change to rest of the code)

&xmlresponsedoc = CreateXmlDoc("");

&docTypeNode = &xmlresponsedoc.CreateDocumentType("", "", "");
&rootNode = &xmlresponsedoc.CreateDocumentElement("HelloWorldResponse", "http://xmlns.oracle.com/Enterprise/Tools/schemas/HELLOWORLDRESSPONSE.V1", &docTypeNode);

&xmlNode = &xmlresponsedoc.DocumentElement;

So I have to use the CreateDocumentElement method of CreateXmlDoc in order to define the namespace. In order to use this method I had to first initialize the &docTypeNode variable by using the CreateDocumentType method.

After making the above change the response comes back correctly.

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
   <soapenv:Body>
      <HelloWorldResponse xmlns="http://xmlns.oracle.com/Enterprise/Tools/schemas/HELLOWORLDRESSPONSE.V1">
         <HelloWorldResult>Success</HelloWorldResult>
      </HelloWorldResponse>
   </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Sending and Receiving MTOM-encoded binary data

PeopleSoft supports the MTOM protocol for sending and receiving binary data using service operations. While you can send and receive binary data using SOAP, doing so requires that you Base64-encode the data, which can increase message size by 33 percent or more. The MTOM protocol enables you to send and receive binary data in its original binary form, without any increase in size due to encoding.

For sending or receiving MTOM-encoded binary data, we have to use message segments to store the data. The SegmentContentType property of the message object is used to set or read the content type of each message segment.

Following is a test that I did to send a XML file as an attachment in a SOAP message and then read the attachment that is sent by the 3rd party system that I am interacting with. I am running PT 8.53.22.

Sending:

Request message is as shown below. For this test I am storing this in a html object called as MY_MESSAGE but this can be generated dynamically as needed using SOAPDoc or XMLDoc classes. The request message defined on the service operation is nonrowset based. 

<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soapenv:Header/>

<soapenv:Body>

<submitLargeDocument>        

    <Document>  

         <PsftXopInclude SegmentNumber='1'/> 

    </Document>      

</submitLargeDocument>

</soapenv:Body>

</soapenv:Envelope>

document.xml is my payload which I have created in a different routine and I am just using it here. Its just like creating any other XML file in PeopleSoft. Payload can be a binary file like a pdf or a image file.

Sender node is my default local node and receiving node is the delivered WSDL_NODE. You can always create a custom receiving node if needed. Routing is using local gateway and HTTPTARGET connector. Under routing, connector properties content-type is set to text/xml as my payload is a xml file, HTTPPROPERTY MTOM is set to Y, METHOD is POST, SOAPUpContent is set to N as I have already built the SOAP wrapper in my html object above. If you need IB to create the wrapper then set this property to Y. Provided PRIMARYURL to destination 3rd party application. Took all other defaults.

PeopleCode:

&str = GetHTMLText(HTML.MY_MESSAGE);

&requestXMLDoc = CreateXmlDoc();

&ret = &requestXMLDoc.ParseXmlString(&str);

&request = CreateMessage(Operation.SEND_OPERATION);

&request.SetXmlDoc(&requestXMLDoc);

&MTOMFile = GetFile("C:\temp\document.xml", "R", %FilePath_Absolute);

If &MTOMFile.IsOpen Then   

   &theBase64encodedString = &MTOMFile.GetBase64StringFromBinary();   

   &MTOMFile.Close();

End-If;

&request.CreateNextSegment();

If (&request.SetContentString(&theBase64encodedString)) Then   

    &request.SegmentContentType = "application/xml";  

    &request.SegmentContentTransfer = %ContentTransfer_Binary;

End-If;

&response = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&request);

Receiving:

Response message defined on the service operation is a non-rowset based message. Sender node is the default local node and receiving node is WSDL_NODE. Using local gateway and HTTPTARGET connector. Setting HEADER properties Content-Type to text/xml as the response attachment that I am receiving is a xml file, sendUncompressed is Y, HTTPPROPERTY Method is POST and SOAPUpContent is Y and finally the PRIMARYURL to the 3rd party service.

On the weblogic webserver, in the integrationGateway.properties file enable the MTOM Listening Connectors. 

ig.MTOM.enablePeopleSoftServiceListeningConnector=true

ig.MTOM.enableHttpListeningConnector=true

Bounce the webserver after making this change.

PeopleCode:

This is pretty straightforward. Once the request is made, read the response and parse out the document.

&response = %IntBroker.SyncRequest(&request);

&responseXMLDoc = &response.GetXMLDoc();

If (&response.ResponseStatus = 0) Then

     &dataNode = &responseXMLDoc.DocumentElement.GetElementByTagName("data");

     &theData = &dataNode [1].GetCDataValues();

     &responsestr = &theData.Shift();

End-If;

The &responsestr string variable will have the response SOAP envelope as well as the attachment separated by message segments as shown below. Parsed it out using string functions.

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<data psnonxml="Yes">

  <![CDATA[

------=_Part_624_1792156364.1458048147094

Content-Type: application/xop+xml; charset=UTF-8; type="text/xml"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Content-ID: <soap.xml@xfire.codehaus.org>

<soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/">

<soap:Body>

.......

.......

.......

</soap:Body>

</soap:Envelope>

------=_Part_624_1792156364.1458048147094--

------=_Part_724_1792156364.1458048147094

Content-Type: application/xop+xml; charset=UTF-8; type="text/xml"

Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit

Content-ID: <soap.xml@xfire.codehaus.org>

<Document>

........

........

........

</Document>

------=_Part_724_1792156364.1458048147094--

]]>

</data>