Web service applications establish connections to the Orchestrator server through simple object access protocol (SOAP) binding, using either the HTTP or HTTPS protocols.

To perform any useful task with a workflow, you must find the objects on which the workflow will run. The Orchestrator Web service API provides functions for finding objects of all types in the VMware Infrastructure inventory.

You can use the find operation to find objects of any type that match a particular search criterion, that you set in the query parameter.

You can use the findForId operation to find an object if you know a specific object's unique ID.

You can use the findRelation operation to locate the children of a particular object.

When you have found the objects with which to interact, you must find the workflows that perform these interactions.

The getAllWorkflows operation lists all workflows that a user can access as an array of Workflow objects.

Every workflow has a unique ID that you can retrieve by using the Orchestrator client and a text editor. You need the workflow ID to perform operations over a workflow by using the Orchestrator SOAP API.

If you know the name of a particular workflow, as it is defined in the Orchestrator client, the Web service application can obtain this workflow using its name or part of its name.

If you know a particular workflow ID, a Web service application can obtain this workflow by using the getWorkflowForID operation.

The main purpose of a Web services client is to run workflows across a network.

After the workflow starts, the Web services client can perform various actions in response to events while the workflow is running.

After the workflow completes its run, you can retrieve the results by calling the getWorkflowTokenResult( ) operation.