# Specifying Conversation Shape

The conversation shape of a Web Service control is the specific configuration of conversation phases for the service’s various methods or callbacks. If you change the conversation phase of any method or callback, you have changed the conversation shape of the service.

Modifying the conversational shape of a Web Service control is not recommended. It is easy to inadvertently introduce incompatibilities with the target application's public contract.

In particular, WebLogic Workshop web services that use conversations expect special SOAP headers containing conversation parameters to be included in every conversational message. If the target web service is not capable of understanding WebLogic Workshop conversation SOAP headers, including them in messages by adding @jc:conversation annotations to the Web Service control's methods will violate the web service's contract and prevent successful communication with the web service.

However, if you do choose to change the conversational shape of a Service control, you can do so by adding @jc:conversation annotations to individual operations in the Web Service control.

To learn more about conversations, see Designing Conversational Web Services.

To learn more about the @jc:conversation annotation, see @jws:conversation annotation, which exposes the same functionality.

Related Topics

Designing Conversational Web Services

Implementing Conversations