The Profile Data Services API is contained in the interface iInteractProfileDataService. This interface allows you to import hierarchical data into an Interact session via one or more external data sources (such as a flat file, web service, and so on) at the time the Interact session starts or the audience ID of an Interact session changes.

To develop hierarchical data import using the Profile Data Services API, you must write a Java class that pulls information from any data source and maps it to an ISessionDataRootNode object, then refer to that mapped data using the EXTERNALCALLOUT macro in a Select process of an interactive flowchart.

You must compile your implementation against interact_externalcallout.jar located in the lib directory of your IBM® Interact runtime environment installation.

For a complete set of Javadoc documentation for using this interface, view the files in Interact_home/docs/externalCalloutJavaDoc with any web browser.

For a sample implementation of how to use the Profile Data Service, including commented descriptions of how the example was implemented, see Interact_home/samples/externalcallout/XMLProfileDataService.java.