We implement the WS-Security standard for authenticating users of our web services. Since we use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for our web services, consumers can rest assured that their credentials will remain secure.

With WS-Security, the username/password is sent in the SOAP header of a web service request. Following is what a sample SOAP header looks like with the information. The body of the request is different depending on whether you're looking up an address or zip code.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<SOAP-ENV:Envelope xmlns:SOAP-ENV="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
  xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xmlns:SOAP-ENC="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/"
  xmlns:si="http://soapinterop.org/xsd"
  xmlns:ns5925="https://thefinder.tax.ohio.gov/OHFinderService">
<SOAP-ENV:Header>
    <wsse:Security>
        <wsse:UsernameToken>
            <wsse:Username>USERNAME</wsse:Username>
            <wsse:Password Type="wsse:PasswordText">PASSWORD</wsse:Password>
        </wsse:UsernameToken>
    </wsse:Security>
</SOAP-ENV:Header>
<SOAP-ENV:Body>
  ...
</SOAP-ENV:Body>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Following are some additional resources on WS-Security:

1. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnglobspec/html/ws-security.asp
2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnwssecur/html/understw.asp
3. http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices/library/ws-secure/
4. http://docs.oasis-open.org/wss/2004/01/oasis-200401-wss-soap-message-security-1.0.pdf

1. Install the latest version of Microsoft's Web Services Extensions (WSE)
2. Create a new project in Visual Studio.Net
3. From within Visual Studio, add a web reference to https://thefinder.tax.ohio.gov/OHFinderService/OHFinderService.asmx.
   With WSE installed, it will also generate WSE versions of web service stubs.
4. Try out the sample code, substituting valid login/address data for the values in [brackets].

Apache Axis is an open source SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) implementation that bills itself as a "reliable and stable base on which to build web services". While it is used primarily in building web services, it can also be used at the client level to facilitate calling web services. Sample code utilizing this tool is provided as one example of how a Java client can call a web service. It is particularly noteworthy in Java to mention that different toolsets can provide alternative approaches to calling web services. Please consult with your toolset vendor if you have questions about whether it can call web services.

The following instructions are for Java developers who are familiar with setting up and configuring Java for their particular platform:

1. Download and install JDK 1.4+ or later if you do not already have it.
2. Add a PATH entry to point to the Java "bin" directory. (optional)
3. Download Axis Apache and install files to directory.
4. Download Axis-wsse Apache and install files.
5. Add CLASSPATH entry to point to the individual jar files within the Axis Apache "lib" directory and to the Axis-wsse jar file.
6. Call the WSDL2Java utility in wsdl4j.jar to generate stub classes off of the WSDL.
7. Modify OHFinderServiceSoapStub.java to include authentication information (see below).
8. Create a test client to call the web services (see below).

Put together a client (TestClient.java)

import java.util.Calendar; import gov.ohio.tax.thefinder.OHFinderService.*; public class TestClient {   public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {     OHFinderServiceLocator locator = new OHFinderServiceLocator();     OHFinderServiceSoap stub = locator.getOHFinderServiceSoap();     Calendar cal = Calendar.getInstance();     cal.clear();     cal.set(2005,0,1);  // Or some other date     // Get tax amount for zip     ZipCodeReturn resp = stub.getOHSalesTaxByZipCode("[zipcode]", [amount],         cal, [true/false]);     System.out.println(         resp.getTaxResponse().getTaxResponse(0).getTotalSalesTaxAmount());     // Get tax amount for address     AddressReturn resp2 = stub.getOHSalesTaxByAddress("[address]", "[city]",         "OH", "[zipcode]", "US", [amount], cal, [true/false]);     System.out.println(         resp2.getTaxResponse().getTaxResponse(0).getTotalSalesTaxAmount());   } }

This is a simple test used to illustrate how to call the web services using Java and Apache Axis.