Using IFS Interface Browser

IFS Interface Browser provides technical interface specifications of service APIs exposed in IFS Applications™.

Interface Browser is made to be a single page web application, where all the information related to technical interface specifications of IFS Applications™ could be accessed easily and intuitively.

 

Contents

• Basic Use of IFS Interface Browser
• How to start up the Interface Browser
• How to use Interface Browser
• Troubleshooting

Basic Use of IFS Interface Browser

The Interface Browser will be used in several ways, and by multiple types of users. Here are some of the most important uses:

• Integration developers at IFS, customer or partner, will use the interface browser as a “live” documentation. The interface browser provides all the information they need to integrate with the services. If used by customer or partner, the interface browser shows all customized and/or added web services, in addition to the standard ones released with IFS Applications.
• IFS technical presales will use the interface browser to show prospects the range of available interfaces to IFS Applications.

How to startup the Interface Browser

Interface Browser can be accessed from the following URL for a given environment.
http://<middleware_server_host>:<middleware_server_port>/interfacebrowser

This is made easy by the link available on the index page.

How to use Interface Browser

Figure 1 shows the overview of IFS Interface Browser.

Figure 1: Overview of the IFS Interface Browser.

All available service handlers and BizAPIs are displayed on the left of the screen. Users have the capability of searching using web service name or     BizAPIs name. Information about the selected service handler or BizAPIs is displayed on the content pane shown on the right side of the list. If there is a need to clear cache, if your newly developed web service isn't listed, then use 'Clear cache' button provided at the top right of the screen. The search bar provides an easy method to short list the service handlers. Once a service handler is selected interface browser looks as shown in Figure 2. Here the "Application Server WS" tab is selected by default. Where it shows operations exposed as JAX web services.

Figure 2: Selected Service Handler - Application Server WS

When you select the "IFS Connect WS" tab it shows the BizAPIs as shown in figure 3. An icon which displays before the description indicates the type of BizAPI.

  Inbound   Inbound Synchronous    Outbound Outbound Synchronous

Figure 3: Selected Service Handler - IFS Connect WS

When a BizAPI is selected the interface browser shows all the in/out parameters with their types as shown on figure 4.

    Figure 4: Selected BizAPI

Figure 5: Short listed Web Services

Venturing deep into complex parameters, the path leading up to that point is shown through the use of breadcrumbs on the top of the page. To indicate the breadcrumb is a web service, preceding the name WS icon is shown. Similarly to indicate the breadcrumb is an operation preceding the name OP icon is shown. Figure 6 shows one such instance. Clicking one of the crumbs will take you back to that point.

Figure 6: Breadcrumbs

Troubleshooting

1. The environment is configured with SSL why isn't Interface Browser not showing any Web Services?


The reason for Interface Browser not showing any Web Services in an SSL environment is when the SSL certificate is not correctly imported into the Java Keystore file. If it not showing it has to be imported to the Java Keystore manually. To import SSL certificate follow the instructions below



• Open a command window from the folder IFS_HOME\java\jre\bin
• Use the following command to import the SSL certificate.
  keytool -import -trustcacerts -alias root -file SSL_FILE_LOCATION -keystore JAVA_KEY_STORE_LOCATION
• Restart the application server