WSDL in Salesforce

WSDL - Web Service Description Language

If any external system wants to access force.com, we need WSDL file. Your platform uses this WSDL which generates an API to access force.com Webservice it defines.

Steps to generate WSDL for your organisation

Click Setup -> Develop -> API

Any user with system admin credentials can go ahead in generating a WSDL for the organisation. We would be using Enterprise WSDL in our Radical teams approach to meet our requirements.

If we watch closely the downloaded WSDL, it contains of only XML format. This is best for describing network services as a set of end points. Our Enterprise wsdl is strongly typed WSDL for customers who want to build an integration with their salesforce.com organization only.

We would be using this particular WSDL in our SOAP API Tool while creating a new project. 

A thought would arise in your mind that, why would anyone use the Salesforce generated WSDL while creating a project on SOAP tool ?

This is because if at all SOAP api tool wants to access salesforce, our wsdl file would  generate an API on SOAP tool for access our salesforce data. 

Cool isn't it !!!

In our case, we are assuming that soap tool to be a legacy system and wants to send particular data in xml format to salesforce. When we want to access salesforce api's, this generated WSDL would come handy for our legacy system.

The legacy system needs an API(application programming interface) generated with the help of Enterprise WSDL.

Click here to know the differences between Enterprise and Partner WSDL

Terms to remember :

API - Application programming interface. This would be provided by the system which wants other external systems to access it.

Legacy System - when ever any system is out of date or is in need for an replacement, those kind of systems are called legacy systems.

Next Topic - Creating a SOAP project, adding WSDL and obtaining session id