5.41.1 What can I use the AxesTerminalService for?
You can use the AxesTerminalService to allow your application to interact with any 5250 application, whether or not you have source code or specifications for the 5250 application. You only need to know how to operate the application as a 5250 terminal operator would.
The following paragraphs outline some example scenarios that might make use of the AxesTerminalService.
To receive and enter sales orders electronically …
When your ERP application was developed and implemented, all sales orders were received by telephone operators who entered the details at 5250 screens.
Now, many of your customers wish to submit their sales orders electronically in XML format. Unfortunately, details of the internals of the ERP application for the order entry screens are not available.
In order to satisfy the customer requirement without replacing the ERP application, you can elect to implement a program that can read the received sales order XML files (perhaps using LANSA Integrator's XMLBindService), extract the details and use the AxesTerminalService to drive the 5250 screens of the ERP order entry function.
To provide a sales order status enquiry as a web service …
In addition to electronic submission of sales orders, your largest customer now demands that you implement a web service that enables them to electronically interrogate your system to determine the current status of their sales orders.
Currently, this information is only accessible via a 5250 screen enquiry and you have neither database specification nor application program interfaces to enable you to satisfy this requirement.
Instead, you implement the web service using LANSA Integrator's SOAP Server wizard and the SOAPServerService. In your implementation code, you take advantage of the AxesTerminalService to drive the 5250 application such that your program can navigate to the order status screen for the specified sales order number and extract the required details.