1.3 Overview

This protocol provides methods to create and update Document Workspace sites.

A Document Workspace site is a convenient and centralized place for collaboration on a project. For example, team members can create and update documents and publish them on the Document Workspace site. The most current version of documents that the team is working on always appears on the Document Workspace site, so team members do not have to send large files by e-mail when content changes.

Each method in the protocol is a SOAP operation that accepts a set of parameters as a SOAP request and returns a set of values as a SOAP response. The protocol client sends a request to the protocol server by a SOAP request message, and the protocol server sends return values to the protocol client by a SOAP response message.

The CanCreateDwsUrl operation is a simple example of a DWS client-server exchange. The protocol client initiates the exchange with a CanCreateDwsUrlSoapIn message. The protocol server processes the request and returns a response in a CanCreateDwsUrlSoapOut message, as shown in the following illustration.

Figure 1: Communication during the CanCreateDwsUrl operation

The CreateDws operation creates a Document Workspace site. The protocol client can use the CanCreateDwsUrl operation to determine whether the current user has the necessary rights on the protocol server to create the workspace. The CanCreateDwsUrl operation also ensures that the new Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is unique. The protocol client initiates a CreateDws operation, providing a URL for the new workspace to be created. This URL becomes the base for the new workspace, that is, further operations on the new workspace are performed by sending the request to a URL in the form of "HTTP://<URL>/_vti_bin/dws.asmx". For example, if the CreateDws client request includes the URL "http://my_server/workspaces/user_one", further operations on the new workspace are sent to the SOAP service at "http://my_server/workspaces/user_one/_vti_bin/dws.asmx".

The following illustration shows the typical protocol client-protocol server interaction when creating a Document Workspace.

Figure 2: Creating a Document Workspace

Once a workspace has been created, other operations can be performed if they are DWS or other Web services that are based on a site URL. A typical operation uses GetDwsData to get information about the workspace. The GetDwsData operation can then be repeated, using the LastUpdate field to determine whether any changes have been made to the workspace. The following illustration shows GetDwsData using LastUpdate, resulting in a "NoChanges" response from the protocol server.

Figure 3: Client-server interaction when LastUpdate is used