CORNERSTONE ONDEMAND
Web Services
Technical Specification
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................................. 0
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 1
TECHNICAL SUMMARY ................................................................................................................. 2
TECHNOLOGY ....................................................................................................................................2
TRANSPORT LEVEL SECURITY ............................................................................................................3
AUTHENTICATION AND AUTHORIZATION ...............................................................................................3
CORNERSTONE ON DEMAND SERVICES ................................................................................... 5
LEARNING OBJECT SERVICES .................................................................................................... 6
REQUEST ..........................................................................................................................................6
REGISTER .........................................................................................................................................6
LAUNCHLO........................................................................................................................................7
COMPLETE ........................................................................................................................................7
TRANSCRIPT AND TASK SERVICE .............................................................................................. 8
GETTRANSCRIPTANDTASKS...............................................................................................................8
CATALOG SEARCH SERVICE ..................................................................................................... 12
SEARCH ..........................................................................................................................................12
CLIENT DATA SERVICES ............................................................................................................ 14
ECHOOUS .......................................................................................................................................14
ECHOUSERS ...................................................................................................................................14
RECONCILEOUS ..............................................................................................................................15
RECONCILEUSERS ...........................................................................................................................15
SETOUS ..........................................................................................................................................15
SETUSERS ......................................................................................................................................15
ASSUMPTIONS............................................................................................................................. 17
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Cornerstone OnDemand ©1999-2008.
0
INTRODUCTION
Web Services are the set of protocols by which Services can be published, discovered and used
in a technology neutral, standard form.
With broad support across vendors and businesses, Web services enable computer systems on
any platform to communicate over corporate intranets, extranets, and across the Internet with
support for end-to-end security, reliable messaging, distributed transactions.
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CORNERSTONE ONDEMAND
Cornerstone & Cornerstone OnDemand are registered trademarks of Cornerstone OnDemand Inc.
Cornerstone OnDemand ©1999-2008.
1
TECHNICAL SUMMARY
Technology
Cornerstone On Demand web services are built on the Simple Object Access Protocol model
SOAP 1.1 and SOAP 1.2.
SOAP 1.1 was adopted by W3C in May of 2000, SOAP 1.2 in June 2003.
What is SOAP?
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SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
SOAP
stands for Simple Object Access Protocol
is a communication protocol
is for communication between applications
is a format for sending messages
communicates via Internet
is platform independent
is language independent
is based on XML
is simple and extensible
allows you to get around firewalls
is a W3C recommendation
SOAP BUILDING BLOCKS
A SOAP message is an ordinary XML document containing the following elements:
 An Envelope element that identifies the XML document as a SOAP message
 A Header element the contains the header information
 A Body Element that contains the call and response information
 A Fault element containing errors and status information
Skeleton SOAP Message
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<soap:Envelope
xmlns:soap="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-envelope"
soap:encodingStyle="http://www.w3.org/2001/12/soap-encoding">
<soap:Header>
...
</soap:Header>
<soap:Body>
...
<soap:Fault>
...
</soap:Fault>
</soap:Body>
</soap:Envelope>
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Transport Level Security
Cornerstone On Demand Web Services use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol, the
established Web tier technology, to secure and encrypt the data as it is transmitted between
Cornerstone servers and the caller.
Authentication and Authorization
Cornerstone On Demand web services employ SOAP Message security 1.1 specification, WSSecurity 2004. This is an OASIS specification, the result of work by the WSS Technical
Committee, and adopted by all major players in the Web Services technology realm, IBM,
Microsoft and Sun.
WS-Security specification uses the following namespaces:
http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity263
secext-1.0.xsd
http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity265
utility-1.0.xsd
http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/oasis-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.1.xsd
WS-Security security related information is attached to the SOAP message through a block in
the header.
Cornerstone Web Services implement the UserName Token element from WS-Security
specification, to convey authentication credentials to the system.
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
xmlns:wsa="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2004/08/addressing" xmlns:wsse="http://docs.oasisopen.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-secext-1.0.xsd" xmlns:wsu="http://docs.oasisopen.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-wssecurity-utility-1.0.xsd">
<SOAP-ENV:Header>
<wsse:Security SOAP-ENV:mustUnderstand="1">
<wsse:UsernameToken>
<wsse:Username>[corpname]\username</wsse:Username>
<wsse:Password>password</wsse:Password>
</wsse:UsernameToken>
</wsse:Security>
</SOAP-ENV:Header>
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
…
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</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>
The UserName token consists of a Corporation ID, Username and Password.
A specific service account will be set up on the Cornerstone OnDemand portal for each client to
provide the correct level of access required.
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CORNERSTONE ON DEMAND SERVICES
LEARNING OBJECT
 Request
Request a learning object for a user
 Register
Register a user in a learning object
 LaunchLO
Retrieve the launch URL for a learning object (currently only supports materials)
 Complete
Mark a learning object complete in a user’s transcript
TRANSCRIPT AND TASK
 GetTranscriptAndTasks
Retrieves transcript or task information for a user
CATALOG SEARCH
 Search
Enables clients to browse the Cornerstone content catalog
CLIENT DATA SERVICE:
 EchoOus
Send Organizational Units' payload and have it echoed back, validates XML payload
against schema without loading into the system.
 EchoUsers
Send Users payload and have it echoed back, validates XML payload against schema
without loading into the system.
 ReconcileOus
Deactivates Organizational Units based on latest modification date and allow reconcile
flag set in the system.
 ReconcileUsers
Deactivates Users based on latest modification date and allow reconcile flag set in the
system.
 SetOus
Create / Update Orgnanizational Units in the Cornerstone system.
 SetUsers
Create / Update Users in the Cornerstone system.
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LEARNING OBJECT SERVICES
Request
Description
The Request operation gives you the ability to select a learning object on behalf of a user. It
places the item in the user’s transcript without registering it.
All business rules configured in the portal are observed for this call. The user must have proper
permission and availability configured in the portal for this call to succeed.
The method receives object_id, corporation name, user name, it method returns success/failed
according to request status. In case of failure, error + reason will be also included in the
returned message
Register
Description
The Register operation gives you the ability to register the user into a learning object that is
already in the user’s transcript.
All business rules configured on the portal are observed by this operation. The user must have
be approved to take this training.
The Register operation receives object_id, corporation name, username, comment and credit
card fee amount.
Note: The Request operation must be invoked prior to the Register operation.
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LaunchLO
Description
The LaunchLo operation retrieves the launch URL to the a material training which a user has
already requested and registered in.
All business rules configured on the portal are observed by this operation. The user must be
registered in the material item and the item must be active and can be launched in the
Cornerstone application.
The LaunchLO operation expects the object_id, corporation name and username, it returns the
download URL of the material item.
Note: This Operation currently only supports material objects. The request and register
operations must be called before LaunchLo.
Complete
Description
The Complete operation gives you the ability to mark a learning object in a user’s transcript
complete.
The operation attempts to mark the learning object completed, a “success” status is returned if
it succeeds a “failed” if it does not.
All business rules configured on the portal are observed by this operation.
The operation expects the object_id, corporation name and username of the user for which you
wish to mark the learning object complete.
Note: The learning object must exist in the user’s transcript.
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TRANSCRIPT AND TASK SERVICE
GetTranscriptAndTasks
Description
The GetTranscriptAndTasks operation gives you the ability to retrieves user’s information from
the following modules:
 User Inbox
 Upcoming sessions
 Learning activities in progress
 Assigned Learning
 Manager tasks
 Manager Pending Approvals
All business rules configured on the portal are observed by this operation.
Cornerstone also has “Deep linking” capabilities that will allow a client to access hyperlinked
materials on their Cornerstone portal directly off their homepage. This is achieved through a
combination of Cornerstone proprietary SSO technology plus a scripted destination launch URL
that can be dynamically modified
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 Inbox node:
Has no fields or attributes, it retrieves all items in the user’s inbox as shown on the
welcome page. It represents a summary result set of other modules.
 Transcript node:
Represents all transcript items currently in the user’s transcript.
 Session node:
Represents the upcoming Instructor Lead Training sessions the user is registered in.
If this XML element is not included in the request, no Session details will be returned in
the response message.
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 Assigned node:
Represents any training that has been assigned to the user.
If this XML element is not included in the request, no Assigned Training details will be
returned in the response message.
 Approval node:
If approvals are used in the system and the user is a manager or approver, this
represents the pending approvals for his or her subordinates.
If this XML element is not included in the request, no items awaiting approval will be
returned in the response message.
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 Task node:
Represents all incomplete tasks assigned to the user.
If this XML element is not included in the request, no tasks will be returned in the
response message.
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Cornerstone OnDemand ©1999-2008.
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CATALOG SEARCH SERVICE
Search
Description
The Search operation enables you to browse your content catalog in the Cornerstone
application.
The data returned reflects the records found according to search query.
Data is available on-demand as and when the client consumer requests it.
All business rules configured on the portal are observed by this operation.
The Search operation receives a query structure that contains parameters for the LO catalog
search
Use the Title parameter most often for searching. If you’d like a broader search, use the
description parameter.
*Type field can be one of the following, and MUST be capitalized: (see WSDL for more
information)
E.g. - Title field (Word 2003:Graphic Elements in Documents) + Provider field + Description field
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In case of type equals curriculum
The response will contain a list of courses
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CLIENT DATA SERVICES
EchoOus
Description
The EchoOus operation gives you the ability to send an organizational units XML payload to the
server to validate your message against the schema. The server echos your XML payload back
to you in the exact format you send it, if the message passes validation successfully.
If the schema is violated the server will respond back with an exception with a message
describing the error.
EchoUsers
Description
The EchoUsers operation gives you the ability to send an users XML payload to the server to
validate your message against the schema. The server echos your XML payload back to you in
the exact format you send it, if the message passes validation successfully.
If the schema is violated the server will respond back with an exception with a message
describing the error.
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ReconcileOus
Description
The ReconcileOus operation gives you the ability to deactivate a set of records based on a last
modification date in the system. The operation works in conjunction with the Allow Reconcile
flag in the system.
A record must meet the following criteria to be deactivated:
1. It must be active
2. It must have the allow reconcile flag set to true
3. It’s creation date or modify date < TimeStamp
ReconcileUsers
Description
The ReconcileUsers operation gives you the ability to deactivate a set of user records based on
the last modification date in the system. The operation works in conjunction with the Allow
Reconcile flag in the system.
A record must meet the following criteria to be deactivated:
1. It must be active
2. It must have the allow reconcile flag set to true
It’s creation date or modify date < TimeStamp
SetOus
Description
SetOus allows you to perform insert and update operations on Orgnanizational Units in the
Cornerstone system. SetOus uses the Reference ID, your own internal identifier for the unit to
locate the records. If the record is located it is updated, if a record is not found it is inserted.
SetUsers
Description
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SetUsers allows you to perform insert and update operations on users in the Cornerstone
system. SetUsers uses the Reference ID, your own internal identifier for the unit to locate the
records. If the record is located it is updated, if a record is not found it is inserted.
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ASSUMPTIONS
The web service is made available at the specified URL and no client software is offered for its
use.
Developers can use this document as a guide to develop code to consume Cornerstone On
Demand web services. It assumes that he or she is familiar with the following technologies:
 XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
 XSD (XML Schema Definition)
 SOAP Web Services technology
 WS-Security specifications
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Cornerstone OnDemand ©1999-2008.
17