Setting up a SOAP web service monitor

If you’re looking to add a SOAP monitor to your Uptrends account, you’ll find the instructions in this article.

Setting up a SOAP Web Service monitor

To test a SOAP service, you typically want to call a method of that web service, by posting input data to it in the form of a SOAP envelope and then verifying that the response is correct.

1. Get to the Add Monitor configuration screen. (If you need a refresh on how to do this, please refer to the Add a monitor article) Set your monitor type to Web Service HTTP or Web Service HTTPS.

   Note: Using the Web Service monitor type ensures that we’re using Content-Type: text/xml when sending requests to your server. Since SOAP envelopes are in XML format, this should work for most web services.

2. Fill in the appropriate name, check interval, URL, and port information.

3. Navigate to the Advanced tab, and set the HTTP method to POST.

4. Specify your SOAP request (the entire SOAP envelope) in the Post Data field.

   Typically it will look like this:
   …Message information goes here…

5. Your web server likely expects a SOAPAction HTTP header, which tells the server which method your web service should execute.

   In the HTTP headers field, specify the header in the following format:

   SOAPAction: http://mywebservice.example.com/MyServiceMethod

   Note: If your web server expects a different content type, you can specify a different Content-Type in the HTTP headers field. For example: Content-Type: application/xml

6. It is likely useful to verify that your web service comes back with the appropriate content.

   You can look for a specific piece of content by specifying it in the Page Content Match field, located in the Error conditions tab.

   The Uptrends service will then look for that content in the HTTP response every time it performs a check.

Can’t get your SOAP monitor to work?

If you can’t get your SOAP monitor to work, please contact support by filing a support ticket.

If possible, please provide a screen capture of an HTTP request that is known to work. Usually you will have a working setup in your own web service test tool, which you can use to provide a Fiddler capture, or a cURL command which contains all the necessary data (URL/POST data/HTTP headers.)