Is WS-I BP good for you?

As I spend time looking at web services in real life, there is a question that is comming back, all the time:
What is wrong with my WSDL?

Today, I am looking at Microsoft Office 2003 Web Services Toolkit. Why do I get 0 as Search Results with a WSDL that is looking good, and pass the WS-I Basic Profile report without any error?
Here is a screen shoot with the error message. This error is not listed as one of the top-5 common problems [look at the troubleshooting section].
MO2003WST-SearchNoResults.
Using the A9 search with image-on was an easy way to locate atricles with the screen that is giving me troubles. For this sample, I am using a WSDL from systinet.
As you do not have access to this service, hosted by Systinet, you have to work without access to the server. It's as simple as one-two:

  1. make a local copy of the WSDL.
  2. on your local copy, remove the 'parts' attribute on all the soap:body elements, inside the binding. 
<input>
  <soap:body parts='parameters' use='literal'/>
</input>

Note that you have to use the file:// protocole to work with a local file system.

MO2003WST-SearchWorks

In conclusion, following the WS-I Profile recomendation is a good start, but is not good enought to ensure that your web services can be consumed by the mass. Once you have identify the set of toolkits most likely to be used by your customers, you have to make sure that your services can be used in those environment. Nothing replace testing.

-Ecco

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