The DirectProcess Web Service is a web service for direct batch processing. With certain limitations (see Functional Restrictions), this web service can process normal scenarios.

Contrary to regular xSuite Interface functionality, the input, processing, and output steps are not processed asynchronously with the help of multiple independent worker instances and a management database. Instead, the steps are processed synchronously one after another by the web service instance itself. The web service receives a batch with one or more documents as input data, performs the desired steps on the documents according to the scenario configuration, and returns the modified batch directly as a result value.

Syntactically, the input batch corresponds to that of the Input Web Service (see Input System "WebServiceInput"), and the output batch corresponds to that of the Output Web Service (see Output System "WebServiceOutput").

The DirectProcess Web Service has the following endpoint:

POST /api/v1/DirectProcess/{Tenant}/{Scenario}/Batches [DirectProcessBatch]

A scenario for use in the DirectProcess Web Service must always take "WebServiceDirectProcess" as the input system (see Input System "WebServiceDirectProcess"). A separate output system for the batch that is returned by the web service as the result, on the other hand, does not need to be configured. The properties required for the output are already defined in the context of the input system.

The possible use cases for the DirectProcess Web Service are manifold. On the one hand, processing paths that are typical for xSuite Interface (e.g., the transfer of a document to an archive system) can be mapped with it. The document reference generated by the archive can be returned directly as a result here, in contrast to asynchronous processing.

On the other hand, the scenario does not necessarily have to include an output step. The processing can also end as soon as the processing step. This is the case, for example, if the web service is only used for the format conversion of an input file (i.e., only a file conversion macro is executed in the scenario and the target file is returned).

The following example shows a scenario configuration to convert an arbitrary source file to PDF, where the source file filter NOT(batch.json) is needed because the input system automatically generates an artificial file attachment with the raw JSON data of the input batch, but it is not converted.

{
   "InputSystem": {
      "Type": "WebServiceDirectProcess",
      "OutputFileFilter": "*.pdf"
   },
   "ProcessMacro": [
      {
         "Macro": [
            "ConvertToPdf('NOT(batch.json)')"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

The file attachment in the input data and in the output data must necessarily be embedded in a batch object and a document object (even if only the pure binary data is required in the present case). However, if you have more complex operations, it is a good idea to use the fields of the document object for dynamic control parameters from outside.

Functional Restrictions

The following restrictions apply to the use of the web service and the configuration of the scenarios executed by this web service: