Microsoft Office 2003 Web Services Toolkit 2.01

I have a working WSDL and XMM both of which were created and successfully tested using EntireX Workbench.

After deploying the web service I wanted to consume it using VBA on MS Word. This is possible by using the Microsoft Office 2003 Web Services Toolkit 2.01.

Before trying out my web service I tested a public web service using the guide from Consume Soap Web Services - VBA Code Examples

The Toolkit worked flawlessly with this web service http://greg.froh.ca/fun/random-bushism/soap/?wsdl

Now that I know the Toolkit works for web services I tried consuming my web service (created using Entirex Workbench) following the same approach. Unfortunately i couldn’t make it work.

Can someone help me please?

First of all let me say I never used it with EntireX, only with Adabas SOA Gateway WebServices, but although it wasn’t fun, I eventually got the Web Services Toolkit to work.

What does “couldn’t make it work” mean ? Any error messages ? What’s the issue at hand ?

If that hasn’t happened already, you might want to try if you can consume your web serice at all first, for example using a tool like soapUI ( http://www.soapui.org ).

what version of EntireX are you using?

Did you import the WSDL to the workbench, generate an XMM and deploy it to your ws-stack? tomcat (or what ever server) is running?

Hi Mr Winter,

a) First of all thanks for your reply and for suggesting SOAPUI. Using this tool confirmed my web service not only worked using the Tester that comes with EntireX Workbench.

b) “couldn’t make it work”: With this I meant that the Web Service Toolkit failed to generate the appropriate Class Modules.

c) I expected the following Class Modules to be generated automatically, similar to the example i mentioned in the original post:

  • clsof_Factory_
  • clsws_
  • struct_

d) Using the Toolkit on my web service only “clsws_” came out.

Hope this helps.

Hi Mr Kelly,

a) I’m not an expert on this and I hope I can answer you queries correctly.

b) EntireX Broker Stub Version 7.2.1, Patch Level=50
EntireX Workbench/Eclipse SDK Version 3.1.2

c) I created the Web Service from scratch, i.e.
- Mainframe: Create a Natural Sub-Program
- EntireX Workbench: Create a Sofware AG IDL
- EntireX Workbench: Generate Web Service (xmm and wsdl) from Sofware AG IDL
- EntireX Workbench: Tested Web Service using XML Tester
- Apache Server: Deployed Web Service
- SOAPUI: Tested Web Service

d) My goal is to be able to make my web service work with Microsoft Office 2003 Web Services Tookit 2.01.

Thanks again for your reply.

Hi Mr Kelly and Mr Winter,

I finally managed to make it work. However it’s not as pleasing to the eye as it should. By this I’m referring to the way the variables in the parameter in the IDL are defined.

It’s a good practice to group the fields in terms of Input and Output. However it gave me a hardtime because I’m not so familiar with MSXML2.

Instead of
1 DataInput IN
2 infield1 (A2)
2 infield2 (A2)
1 DataOutput OUT
2 outfield1 (A2)
2 outfield2 (A2)

I tried the following (Only in IDL, Natural Subprogram need not be changed)
1 infield1 (A2) IN
1 infield2 (A2) IN
1 outfield1 (A2) OUT
1 outfield2 (A2) OUT

The toolkit worked like a charm.