A service is a PRPC programmatic component that defines and implements an interface between an external application acting as a client and a PRPC system acting as a server.
An external system may use any of several technical frameworks to call a PRPC application, become a requestor of an appropriate type, send a request, execute an activity (which may call other activities, update data, and start other processing), and receive the results in a response.
A service is implemented through an instance of one of the rule types below, plus appropriate calling code in the external client system:
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Services using the SOAP protocol to transmit XML-formatted messages are known as Web services. Multiple service rules supporting a single interface are known as a package, defined through the Service Package form. In many situations, the service instructs PRPC to call a single activity. This is known as the service activity.
Service rule types belong to the Integration-Services category.