Is there a way to configure one send port to send a message to a document library based on a parameter?

by | Mar 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

This question comes up quite often that it deserves its own post. Is there a way to configure one send port to send a message to a variable destination based on a parameter? For instance when using WSS adapter, can you send a message to a different document library based on the message that’s being processed?


The answer is yes, it’s possible to do this in two ways:



  • using dynamic send ports, the destination URI and the configuration of the send port can be set programatically in the orchestration for every outgoing message. This method has the advantage that no ports have to be pre-created.

  • using role-links and parties. For each party you need to pre-create and configure a pyshical send port. You will have pretty much a party per destination. You enlist the parties in the appropriate role. Then, in the orchestration the only thing that you need to do is set the party associated with the role-link. The physical send port of the party associated with the role-link will be used to process the outgoing message.

I included below more information on how to do this using dynamic send ports which is the more simple & frequent approach.


The URL for a WSS adapter dynamic send port will be something like this:
     ‘wss://ServerName/sites/MySite/MyDocumentLibrary/’  if you installed the web service on an HTTP site
     ‘wsss://ServerName/sites/MySite/MyDocumentLibrary/’ if you installed the web service on an HTTPS site (notice the additional s in wsss://).
 
and you can set it programatically from the orchestration (like below) every time you sent out a message
     dynamicSendPortName(Microsoft.XLANGs.BaseTypes.Address) = “wss://ServerName/sites/MySite/” + lookedupDocLibName;
 
The rest of the send port configuration information must be set on the outgoing message using the Config* context properties documented here
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa547920.aspx


For instance:
    outgoingMsg(WSS.Filename) = “file1.xml”;
    outgoingMsg(WSS.ConfigOverwrite) = “yes”;
    etc.
 
Video 04-WSSAdapter-PropsInOrchestration.wmv shared here includes one such dynamic send port example
http://blogs.msdn.com/ahamza/archive/2006/04/18/WssAdapterVideosWebcasts.aspx

Machinima, Scott Guthrie and WPF/E

Machinima, Scott Guthrie and WPF/E

by | Mar 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

On April Fools day 4 years ago Red vs. Blue smashed onto the Internet.


It has been credited with bringing new popularity to machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form.


In the world of user generated content the machinima technique involves synchronising video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio.


Scott Guthrie, stars in a special episode describing ASP.NET AJAX… Check it out at http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/wpfe/rvbplayer (it uses the Feb CTP version of WPF/E).



Incidently… 60,000 unique sites deployed pages using the final ASP.NET AJAX V1.0 bits within the first month of release!.


Scott Guthrie and the DPE team at Tech.Ed 2006 NZ.


Scott Guthrie and the DPE team at Tech.Ed 2006 NZ.


Full series are available at http://rvb.roosterteeth.com

Some more detail on the Business Process Alliance

by | Mar 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out last week’s announcement of Microsoft’s Business Process Alliance.


You can get some more detail on some of the capabilities provided by the alliance partners in this whitepaper.


And, Steven Martin shares some insight on what is needed for BPM to go main stream, how the Business Process Alliance helps, and why customers should be skeptical of vendors that claim to be a “one stop shop” for BPM.


– Kris

Blog Intro – BizUnit Has Now Moved

by | Mar 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Welcome to my blog! 


 My name is Ewan Fairweather and in this blog I’ll be blogging about BizTalk and the other technology I work with at Microsoft.  Expect about 80% of the content to be BizTalk related, I’ll include posts on SQL and .NET as appropriate.


I’ve been working for Microsoft for three years now and currently work in the Premier Field Engineering team. In this role I get to work with enterprise customers, helping them to maintain and optimise their BizTalk applications.  This involves providing both proactive (i.e. making sure it doesn’t break) and reactive (helping them fix it when its broken) onsite assistance within the UK and the rest of Europe. I’ve also worked in a dedicated capacity on some of the world’s largest BizTalk deployments, predominantly within financial services.  I hope to use this blog as a means to pass on my knowledge and experience to a wider audience than I alone can reach!


Most recently I’ve had the honour of writing the administration section for the upcoming Professional BizTalk Server 2006 book by Darren Jefford, Kevin Smith and myself.  Although I’m very biased I must say that the content is looking great.  The reviews that we’ve had back of the final versions of each chapter have been very positive. Yossi, one of the key reviewers for the book, has posted his comments here and Darren’s latest post on the book is here.


 Now that my intro is complete, lets move onto my first post.


 BizUnit


This is a flexible and extensible test framework which enables rapid automated testing of distributed systems.  This has been used on many of the world’s biggest BizTalk projects and has been key to their sucess.  It was developed by Kevin Smith whilst he was working on mission critical BizTalk projects for Microsoft Consulting Services.  In my opinion this is a  must do for all large BizTalk projects, I’ve seen many projects that have avoided this type of automated testing fail.  This was originally hosted on gotdotnet, but Kevin has now moved this to codeplex and has added some really great intro text.  I encourage you all to review it at http://www.codeplex.com/bizunit

Screensaver never activates on Vista? It’s the wireless mouse, stupid.

by | Mar 7, 2007 | BizTalk Community Blogs via Syndication

Time for another annoying Vista issue… I recently realized that my screensaver never activates on Vista. It used to work just fine when I had XP on this box. But now for some reason Vista thinks my computer has a human being sitting in front of it all the time. The problem is caused by using a wireless mouse, even a Microsoft-brand wireless mouse like mine. Besides the obvious negative impact on my two LCD’s, this unfortunate problem has probably convinced several of my colleagues that I’ve been ignoring them when they ping via chat in the wee hours of the morning, since chat says I’m always online. Sorry guys.
Anyway, when I first diagnosed this problem there was no solution other than moving back to a wired mouse. Today, when doing a Windows update, I saw the following update that gave me some hope:
Microsoft – Other Hardware – HID Non-User Input Data Filter
And sure enough, after the update, things started working the way they’re supposed to again. So if you’re experiencing this problem, run to Windows Update and make sure you grab this one.