Client Automation Protocol

Version 1.0
Last changed: January 31, 2008

Technical Overview

WCAP defines a set of XML messages that are exchanged between DIAL and your application. The table below lists all of the messages you can send to DIAL (shown by a right-facing arrow ), along with the responses and other messages you can receive from DIAL (shown by a left-facing arrow ).

Your App Message Document Type DIAL Client Description

Hello DIAL sends version info on connect.

SetClientProperties You send DIAL a short caption to display in the status bar.

ShowCatalog You ask DIAL to show the catalog for a given year, make, model, and category.
ProductQuote

DIAL responds with zero or more products as they are selected by the user


ShowPnA You ask DIAL to show brands, prices and availability for a given product
ProductQuote

DIAL responds with zero or more products as they are selected by the user


GetProductQuote You ask DIAL for the price and availability of a given product and brand
ProductQuote

DIAL responds with one or more ProductQuotes's


ProductQuote DIAL notifies you of products selected independently by the user

CreateOrder You ask DIAL to create an order
Order DIAL responds when the order is submitted

Order DIAL also notifies you of orders submitted independently by the user

 

WCAP.DLL

If your application is a Win32 or Win64 Windows program, you send and receive these messages using the functions which are provided in WCAP.DLL, which is installed with every copy of DIAL. Download the WCAP SDK or see the API reference for further details.

 

About Requests and Responses

The XP Request and ResponseTo attributes in all of the message document samples show how DIAL tells you exactly which of your requests it is answering.

The value of the Request attribute is generated by you and must be unique for every request you send during a connection. If the connection breaks and is then reestablished, it's ok for the values to repeat.

Responses sent by DIAL contain an XP ResponseTo attribute that matches the Request attribute you sent in the original request. Often, you will need to remember the value you assign to the Request attribute and associate some other data with it, so that you can locate that data when you get a response. If the user action is not a result of a previous request, you will receive a document without a ResponseTo attribute. For example, you may be notified that the user has submitted an order to Worldpac at any time -- not just when the order was created by a previous CreateOrder request.

The <?xp /?> tag is called a terminator and must be present in each document you send. It will also appear at the end of each document you receive.

 

Make/Model and Other Tables

Up-to-date listings of Worldpac Makes, Models, Part Categories and Brands are available here. Note that on a ShowCatalog request, you may specify an AAIA model ID rather than a Worldpac Year/Make/Model ID triplet.

 

XP

If your application is NOT a 32-bit Windows program, you can use the TCP sockets functions in your native programming language to connect to DIAL, and to send and receive messages. WCAP is available after the user logs on to DIAL

By default, DIAL listens on TCP port 17943. This setting is configurable in DIAL.

WCAP is derived from XP, a simple protocol on which nothing but complete XML documents are sent back and forth.

 

Errors

If DIAL is unable to fulfill a request, it does not return the normal response document. Instead, it returns an Error document.

Communications errors or malformed documents are never conveyed through an Error document. In these cases, the connection is simply dropped. It is up to you to reestablish the connection to DIAL.

 

How to Contact Us

For questions about WCAP, please contact Worldpac e-Services. We want to hear from you!

 

Legal

The specifications, terminology, content, schema (DTD's) and general parlance contained herein are proprietary to WORLDPAC and its affiliates, and are copyrighted. Trademarks include, but are not limited to, the words "DIAL," "WCAP," and "WORLDPAC DIAL." ©2014 WORLDPAC