Add WCF web service to web page

Question

I am a little confused by web services and how they're used. I have created a WCF web service that has an operation contract taking 3 parameters. Then I interrogate our database and return an object matching the data contract. All seems to be good. But how does a third party use our web service? What do I need to provide to them in order for them to use it? Do I need to put a link on my web site? What should that link look like? Thanks!

Answer 1

For third party, you need to share:

1. Path of Hosted service : it is needed to add service reference.

2. Information about Service Contract methods : documentation of what exposed operation contracts actually do.

3. DataContract dll : Only if you are reusing DataContracts.

4. Some information some times needed to add endpoint if you have to customize default endpoint for client (something like service timeout, packet size etc).

Hope it helps.