Web Service optimization

Is the returned data from the Web Service always changing or more of a static resource? One idea if the data is not changing constantly, would be to query the Web Service on the half hour or hour and hold and update the values in the local Appian Business DS. Still using rules, you could better optimize a query rule to only return the data needed for the Process Model.

This idea may/may not apply in your scenario, but it could be used to improve performance.

@avinashr i aggree with @Sally & adding to the above points mention by @Sally, performance also depends on the Response time of Target web Service which you are trying to consume as Client in Appian. If the Web service performance it self is slow then you cannot expect it to be good from your end, did you try Testing the same service using SoapUI, are you getting the response quickly compared to Appian

These are all great suggestions, I wanted to check if I was missing something glaringly obvious. I will definitely investigate the options mentioned by the both of you. Thanks again!

Another thing to think about would be to use REST based WS calls over the SOAP to minimise the defaultl load of header data and other obvious requisites of SOAP based WS calls.

Good call - unfortunately we are stuck with SOAP based web services in our legacy API layer.

If that's the case then there is no much pointers to differentiate in big time for WS called thru rules vs WS nodes. May be you can think of the designing aspects to minimize the calls where you fetch master data to be used across the PM like make it a one call for a Process Instance and so on.