With the exception of the identity service, all services that use the above-mentioned APIs (SOAP and remote Enterprise JavaBeans) require authentication to be invoked. All the above channels support passing the user identity using the human workflow context. The human workflow context contains either of the following:

• Login and password

• Token

The task query service exposes the authenticate operation that takes the login and password and returns the human workflow context used for all services. Optionally, with each request, an administrator can pass the human workflow context with the login and password.

The authenticate operation also supports the concept of creating the context on behalf of a user with the admin ID and admin password. This operation enables you to create the context for a logged-in user to the Oracle BPM Worklist if the password for that user is not available.

Oracle recommends that you get the workflow context one time and use it everywhere. There are performance implications for getting the workflow context for every request.

A realm is an identity service context from the identity configuration. The realm name can be null if the default configuration is used.