Outbound Messaging

Outbound messaging uses the notifications() call to send SOAP messages over HTTP(S) to a designated endpoint when triggered by a workflow rule.

Outbound endpoints are continuously listening for the events.

What is outbound Message?

• Is a notification() SOAP API call
• A single SOAP message can include upto 100 notifications. Each notification contains the object ID and a reference to the associated sObject data.
• If the response from the other party is not ok then it will try to resend the notification for all those requests which are 24 hours old.

notifications() call:

Outbound message will have following format which will contain notifications.

<schema elementFormDefault="qualified" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" 
 targetNamespace="http://soap.sforce.com/2005/09/outbound">
	<import namespace="urn:enterprise.soap.sforce.com" />
	<import namespace="urn:sobject.enterprise.soap.sforce.com" />

	<element name="notifications">
		<complexType> 
			<sequence> 
				<element name="OrganizationId" type="ent:ID" />
				<element name="ActionId" type="ent:ID" />
				<element name="SessionId" type="xsd:string" nillable="true" />
				<element name="EnterpriseUrl" type="xsd:string" />
				<element name="PartnerUrl" type="xsd:string" />
				<element name="Notification" maxOccurs="100" 
				  type="tns:OpportunityNotification" />
			</sequence> 
		</complexType> 
	</element>
</schema>

where ActionId is the workflow rule(action) that trigger this message.

The Notification datatype is defined in the WSDL as below-

<complexType name="OpportunityNotification">
	<sequence>
		<element name="Id" type="ent:ID" />
		<element name="sObject" type="ens:Opportunity" />
	</sequence>
</complexType>

Notification response:

Below is the schema for sending acknowledgement (ack) response to salesforce.

<element name="notificationsResponse">
	<complexType>
		<sequence>
			<element name="Ack" type="xsd:boolean" />
		</sequence>
	</complexType>
</element>

Schema should be only in this format otherwise salesforce will not consider message to be delievered.

Creating outbound message using workflow:

In this outbound message creation, we will be using rest endpoint generated from hookbin.com-

Demo:

Also, check outbound message status under Setup->Monitoring->Outbound Messages as shown below-

It is showing delivery as failed which we can ignore as of now because we are not getting response(ack) from hookbin in format described in Notification response section.