Genesys Cloud - Main

Dear Team,

Quick technical check needed before we respond to our client. Customer SMS gateway exposes a SOAP (XML-based web service) API  not a REST/JSON API. We need to confirm whether Genesys Cloud can integrate with a SOAP API via a Web Services Data Action for the SMS notifications in the callback flow.

Specifically:

1. Can a Genesys Data Action send a SOAP/XML request to an external SOAP endpoint?
2. If yes, does this require additional development?
3. If not natively supported, what is the recommended approach custom Data Action with XML body or a REST-to-SOAP middleware layer?

Hi Muhammed

Genesys Cloud's Web Services Data Actions integration is built for JSON-based web services, it doesn't natively support SOAP/XML request/response. The contract validation, request building, and response parsing in the Data Actions framework all assume JSON on both ends, so there's no out-of-the-box way to point it at a SOAP endpoint.

To answer your three points directly:

1. Can a Data Action send SOAP/XML natively? No. You'd be fighting the framework rather than working with it.
2. Does it require additional development? Yes, you need a translation layer between Genesys Cloud and the SOAP endpoint.
3. Recommended approach: Don't try to hand-craft an XML body inside a standard Web Services Data Action. Two supported paths instead:
   • AWS Lambda Data Actions integration - this is Genesys's own documented pattern for exactly this scenario (web service that "only uses XML with a SOAP API"). Your Lambda function converts the Genesys Cloud JSON request to XML, calls the SOAP service, converts the XML response back to JSON, and returns it. Gives you full control since it runs in your own AWS account.
   • REST-to-SOAP middleware/adapter - there are also purpose-built adapters that sit in front of a SOAP API and expose a REST/JSON endpoint, mapping JSON attributes to WSDL objects. A standard Web Services Data Action then just calls that translated REST endpoint like any normal JSON integration. Faster to stand up if your SMS gateway's WSDL is straightforward, but you'll still need WSDL familiarity to configure the mapping.

Either way, the pattern is the same: translate SOAP↔JSON outside Genesys Cloud, then let a standard Data Action talk to the translated REST layer. This has come up a few times on the dev forum over the years.

Hope this helps.

Regards