When you transform data with a Web Service Consumer transformation, the transformation generates a SOAP request and connects to the web service. The transformation connects to the web service using an endpoint URL defined in the WSDL object, in a web services connection, or in an endpoint URL input port. The SOAP request contains the information that the web service requires to run the requested operation. The web service operation returns data to the transformation in a SOAP response. The transformation maps data from the SOAP response and returns the data in output ports.

The Web Service Consumer transformation encodes the SOAP message headers in ISO-8859-1.

The transformation can process SOAP messages with document/literal encoding. The document/literal style requires an XML schema to describe the SOAP message. SOAP messages are formed from the XML. When a SOAP message contains multiple-occurring elements, the groups of elements form levels in the XML hierarchy. The groups are related when one level is nested within another.

A SOAP request message can contain hierarchical data. For example, the Web Service Consumer transformation sends a request to add customer orders to a sales database. The transformation passes two groups of data in a SOAP request message. One group contains a customer ID and name, and the other group contains order information. The order information occurs multiple times.

A SOAP response message can contain hierarchical data. For example, the Web Service Consumer transformation generates a SOAP request for customer orders. The web service returns an order header and multiple-occurring order detail elements in the SOAP response.