All posts by : BiztalkBlogs.com

1 of 89 | Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 - Developer Experience Series: Recurring "IPC Port Cannot be Opened" exception - This is the fourth in a series of eight articles reviewing my experiences with the Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006.  In the second article, I reviewed an issue with IPC Ports.   While the IPC Port issue referred to in the second article prevents the Dynamics AX adapter from working at all, the issue described in this article seems to suggests that the adapter tends to destabilizes over time.   The failure that is encountered reads "IPC Port cannot be opened".  My observations suggests that this failure is related to how exceptions are managed by the Dynamics AX adapter. If an exception occurs when importing a message in Dynamics AX, the excepti......

2 of 89 | Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 - Message Context Properties - This is the third in a series of eight articles reviewing my experiences with the Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006.  This articles reviews the message context information that is required in order for Dynamics AX 4.0 to accept an inbound message. The Dynamics AX 4.0 interface specification indicates that the actual inbound message that Dynamics AX 4.0 receives is an envelope, which contains a header and a body.  The header of the message contains five attributes, as listed below.    The body contains the actual contents of the message.  Header Attributes  - MessageId   - Action  - SourceEndPoint  - DestinationEndpoin......

3 of 89 | BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Posters - I found these earlier this week but after I printed them on poster size paper everyone who sees them wants a copy. http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=34F41573-C552-466F-B531-32CB09A57CDD&displaylang=en  Enjoy....

4 of 89 | Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 - Developer Experience Series: Failure to Connect to an IPC Port - This is the second in a series of articles on the developer experience with the Dynamics AX 4.0 adapter for BizTalk Server 2006.  This article focuses on a show stopper issue that showed up as my team started testing our integration solution. The early webcast showing how to use the Dynamics AX 4.0 adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 was a very trivial example full of assumptions about the development environment.  Most notable of the assumptions was that BizTalk Server and Dynamics AX reside on the same server.  With everything on the same server, everything worked just fine. At my client, things worked well during development until we deployed our solution to a working test e......

5 of 89 | Dynamics AX 4.0 Adapter for BizTalk Server 2006 - Developer Experience Series - This article begins a series of eight planned articles discussing various aspects and experiences using the Dynamics AX 4.0 adapter for BizTalk Server 2006.  The topics for upcoming articles include "Failure to Connect to an IPC Port" and "Integrating Commerce Server 2007 and Dynamics AX 4.0".  Today's article reviews the project I have been working on and outlines a few key developer experiences. My current project is a social networking site where customers may buy items and make recommendations.  When a member purchases items, other related members receive commissions based on proprietary rules.  The concept is called Multi-Level Marketing.  Central to the web......

6 of 89 | Zero byte output - We occasionally have the need to generate a zero byte file, usually as a trigger file. The File Receive Adapter will "helpfully" delete any zero byte files given to it and write a warning to the event log.The basic solution is to create a new flat-file schema with a single element node. Set the "Generate Instance Type" to "XML", generate the instance, ctrl-click in the results to view the XML, and right-click to select "View Source". Copy the XML as the parameter of a LoadXML method call on an XMLDocument object in an Expression shape. (You'll probably have to escape the quotation marks for the namespace, although you could also opt to use single quotes or declare the schema without a names......

7 of 89 | ESB Guidance August 2007 (CTP3) Release -   The third CTP release of the ESB Guidance has been posted to CodePlex. From Marty Wasznicky's email, some of the new features include: New Resolver and Adapter Provider Framework provides messaging-level and end point resolution for: UDDI WS-MetaDataExchange Business Rules Engine XPath STATIC Messaging-Level Transformation services (using the new Resolver Framework) allows BizTalk maps to be executed in pipelines based on the following resolution methods: UDDI WS-MetaDataExchange Business Rules Engine XPath STATIC Request-Response support for on and off ramps (partial) WCF Adapter integration UDDI publishing and query service BizTalk runtime query service New Dynamic......

8 of 89 | Microsoft BizTalk 2006 R2 Available on Tech Net - BizTalk 2006 R2 is now available on TechNet.  It's the free trial version good for 120 days.   The Dev version should be available to MSDN Subscribers on Wednesday, September 26th. Download is here:  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/bb738059.aspx Also available is the BizTalk 2006 R2 Installation and Update Guide...

9 of 89 | Learning WCF: A Hands-On Guide - Well Learning WCF: A Hands-on Guide has finally made it to the shelves at Amazon.  This book was highly recommended me while I was attending the BizTalk 2006 R2 Jumpstart Training back in March. I have been awaiting it's arrival since then so you would not believe my excitement when I saw it at the TechED Store here in Orlando. I am just starting reading it and so far it has been well worth the wait. ...

10 of 89 | BizTalk Server 2006 Developers Guide - While perusing through the BizTalk Blog I found this posting on Stephen Thomas's blog announcing Microsoft's release of the BizTalk Server 2006 Developers Guide. As usual, Stephen proclaims the guide as being "awesome", and as usual he is not wrong. It is a must have!  ...

11 of 89 | What do you want me to do....I'm sorry...I'M BACK!! - Wow! It has been a very long time since I posted anything. I am too embarrased to comment on how long it has been so let's just say it has been many moons. Be on the look out for a great deal of exciting information. I have been working on 3 project with BizTalk 2006 R2 and have a number of things to share around the new WCF functionaility and RFID (my favorite)...

12 of 89 | Custom pipeline component debugging - Here goes a nice tip about custom pipelines debugging.   We have to ways to do this:   The hard way: Open your custom pipeline code on Visual Studio and place the breakpoint in the desired line. Click on the menu Debug >> Attach to process. Select the process BTSNTSvc.exe and click on the Attach button. Drop a message in a configured port and wait until the code hit the breakpoint. The other way: Open your custom pipeline code on Visual Studio and place the breakpoint in the desired line. Go to the custom pipeline project properties page and click on the Debug tab. On the “Start Action” property, select Start external program and then type “Driveletter$\Pr......

13 of 89 | Peeping Inside BizTalk - Developers can easily develop Interfaces using BizTalk. On the Stage the BizTalk Show looks cool but have you thought about who writes the Scripts in background. Its only Drag and Drop for developers and once the solution is deployed and it's up to be tested. At times one must have thought what happens when I drop a message, where it goes and how the whole mechanism works. Just go through the artifacts below ….its worth having a look and I bet you would say….”Hey I dint knew this at all”. Message 1.      Information about the promoted properties is extracted and stored in the bts_documentSpec table in the Management database. 2.      Ite......

14 of 89 | Socket Adapter for Biztalk 2006 - At first time, I tried to create a completely new socket adapter for biztalk 2006 using new adapter wizard for biztalk 2006. But suddenly I thought it would be great if I can recompile the old socket adapter for biztalk 2004 and work it out on Biztalk 2006 platform. So here it is.. Recompiled version of socket adapter. :)...

15 of 89 | WSS Adapter for Biztalk 2006 Usage against MOSS2007 - Thanks to Adrian, I've worked native wss adapter of Biztalk 2006 to talk to MOSS2007. From his experience, I started to test his workaround on my own. There's only few differences and problems I found. --An alternative is to configure the adapter web service manually. I haven't tried this approach but it should work. In this case you need to create a virtual folder on the IIS site hosting SharePoint and name that virtual folder BTSharePointAdapterWS. The virtual folder should point to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006\Business Activity Services\BTSharePointAdapterWS folder. This virtual folder must run in its own application pool and this app pool needs to be a copy......

16 of 89 | Output validation error: Root element is missing....Biztalk Map - Recently while I was working on a map I constantly used to get this error Error 3 Output validation error: Root element is missing I thought that since I have not mapped few Destination fields it might be throwing such error. I tried setting Output Validation False for the Map. Still I was getting the same error. The Map was a simple one to one link map. I was confident that my input xml file was perfect and  I did confirm it by Validating it against the Input Schema again. It got succeeded.No errors at all. Now where could be the problem be. So I just googled and got this link by Stephen. http://geekswithblogs.net/sthomas/archive/2006/08/15/88094.aspx And then I cros......

17 of 89 | BizTalk 2006 Consuming Web Services - Considerations when you try to consume web services. http://www.biztalkgurus.com/blogs/biztalksyn/archive/2006/12/18/BizTalk-2006-Consuming-Web-Services.aspx...

18 of 89 | Using macro for receiveLocation - macro list for receive location in Biztalk. How to set a custom file name using the file adapter in BizTalk...

19 of 89 | Passed 70-235 Exam - Today, I cleared Biztalk Server 2006 Exam. Scored 928. Exam was pretty tough.Stressing more on BAM,BRE,Trouble shooting. Its better one refers msdn for technical articles.You need to be prepared technically before you take it up or else it would be just a waste of money. Hardly any questions on Orchestration.I cant disclose more as we sign an NDA before we appear for the exam. Anyways Best of Luck for the ones who plan to take it up. Now I need to get back to work as I took 1 week off to prepare for this....

20 of 89 | Storing Usernames, Passwords in SSODB Database using MMC 3.0 - Whenever we work on BizTalk projects we feel why there is no provision for App.Config file so that one can store Key/Value pairs in it. So to have a work around for it we save key/value pair in Btsntsvc.config file. It is one of the easiest work around. 1. But can you store sensitive data like your domain password in a  place which is visible and accessible to all.2. Do you feel changing btsntsvc.config file is right from developer point of view. I do feel your answer is No…not at all. Well in such scenario SSODB comes in picture. The key/value pair is stored in encrypted format so nobody can access sensitive data. No btsntsvc.config file is involved in it. Single Sign-On database ......

21 of 89 | "Build failed. Compiler for the type '*.xsd' failed. Value cannot be null. Parameter name:pUnk" - If you encounter this error when you try to build biztalk project that has some .xsd files, it means Visual Studio lost a link to a Biztalk .xsd compiler. Thus, you can just repair Biztalk Server then it will be fixed. ...

22 of 89 | BizTalk 2006 Server - Automatic Account and Group Creation - This is a great time saver, a script that will create the Active Directory Groups, Users, and Assign Users to Groups for a multi computer install of BizTalk 2006.BizTalk 2006 Server - Automatic Account and Group Creation ...

23 of 89 | New Blog site for Dwight Goins - You can find new posts about BizTalk, R2, vNext, WCF, Ajax and WF here: http://dwightgoins.blogspot.com/...

24 of 89 | Anyone familiar with ebXML? - My company developed ebXML Accelerator for Biztalk 2004 and I'm working on a project using the Accelerator for building eTrade system of one of the national banks in Korea. I wonder if any of you familiar with this ebXML. Any personal experience or any opinion would be appreciated. :)...

25 of 89 | Biztalk 2004 script - A few script usages that I've used last project.It covers,--BizTalk Assembly DeployBizTalk Assembly StartGAC Un/InstallBizTalk Assembly Unenlist, StopBizTalk Assembly Undeploy...

26 of 89 | Performance counter for Biztalk Server - Isn't performace all about Biztalk Server? Performance Counters in BizTalk 2004 by Stephen W. Thomas is defenitely worthwhile to read. ...

27 of 89 | Good reason why we should not use Constants in BizTalk Server maps - I've always advocated to other BizTalk Server developers not to use constants in BizTalk Server maps, but I could not present a valid argument.   At my current client, the existing BizTalk Server 2004 implementation makes heavy use of the SQL Server adapter.  Because of bad practices, the underlying stored procedures were renamed causing breaking changes to the XML schema files in the BizTalk Server implementation.  I made the appropriate changes, refreshed the maps, and reset missing links. Upon testing the implementation in the test environment, the stored procedures were failing miserably due to missing required fields.  My investigation found that many of ......

28 of 89 | New Adapters in Biztalk Server 2006-For Beginners only - To get complete information about configuring and which property means what in the new Adapters available, just download the document from the site below.It gives you brief knowledge about configuring POP3 adapter,WSS adapter etc.Its a good article for beginners. http://www.microsoft.com/biztalk/techinfo/whitepapers/adapterwp.mspx...

29 of 89 | The Crucial "Gotcha" of the Business Rule Engine - I always remember that there's a big "gotcha" for using the Business Rule Engine (BRE) within BizTalk, but I always forget what it is -- until it gets me. Most of the time, we're passing a message, a.k.a. an XML document, into the BRE. It's quite handy that we can reference the same .XSD schema created in BizTalk when setting up our BRE vocabulary. Just remember this when you create a vocabulary element: The document type must be set to the fully qualified document type (for example, MyProject.MyMessage). The default is the schema file name with no extension. ...which generally means that the default is the document name/type in your BizTalk project, but without the project qualifier......

30 of 89 | Cheap Tricks with the Business Rule Engine - The "immutable" nature of Policies and Vocabularies tends to clash with the development cycle of design-develop-test-debug.First, from a webcast from Microsoft plus some of my own tweaking, here's the SQL to toggle the Published status of a PolicyUPDATE re_ruleset SET nStatus = nStatus ^ 1 WHERE strName = 'policyName'AND nMajor = majorVersionNumber AND nMinor = minorVersionNumberThe same for toggling a Vocabulary:UPDATE re_vocabulary SET nStatus = nStatus ^ 1 WHERE strName = 'vocabularyName 'AND nMajor = majorVersionNumber AND nMinor = minorVersionNumberThe last trick is to note how Import and Export work. You can Export a Policy (or Vocabulary), but if you try to Import it......

31 of 89 | Biztalk 2006 Map Advanced Properties - It's a been a while I blogged. I literally did not have time even to check the blogosphere for past few months. My projects are going very very busy and having fun with Biztalk. In the midst of work, I learnt a few advanced properties in Biztalk mapping which can be set directly by editing the Biztalk map file. As usual use this at your own risk. These are not tested fully to use in Production/Live environments. Optimizing Value Mapping Functoid Code Generation If you have worked with Value mapping Functoids in Biztalk maps and had a chance to look at the generated XSLT, you can notice that there are a bunch of variables declared which may not be used if the xsl:if condition evaluates fal......

32 of 89 | BizTalk Deployment Wizard thronging error while deploying a BizTalk Assembly. (SOX051116700042) - This is known bug of Biztalk 2004. I'm not sure this would happen in Biztalk 2006 environment again but I just want to make a memento of the issue. When the Biztalk server has a NNTP service, above error will defenitely come up, due to the nntpsvc.dll which is NNTP service component. Biztalk deployment wizard loads the dll and try to call function, NNTPSVC_LPC ( this calls LookupAccountName ) using security context of NNTPSVC. But deployment wizard doesn't actually have a permission to do so, one of the parameters will be empty and this AllocateCCall will throw an exception "Out of memory."This error does look like has something to do with DTC, but it doesn't. It's simply a matter NNTP svc.......

33 of 89 | Biztalk Resources - Biztalk 2006 Resourcesby ganeshpSelf Paces Trainingby biztalk server teamBiztalk 2006 Learning Resourcesby luke nyswongerBiztalk Wikiby biztalkwiki...

34 of 89 | Constructing BizTalk 2004 XML Messages (In an Orchestration) - Choices - This one is very well organized tutorial for constructing Biztalk Messages. I just want to put it here and come back to reference. Constructing BizTalk 2004 XML Messages (In an Orchestration) - Choices...

35 of 89 | Flat file tutorials - Even though we have Flat file wizard in Biztalk 2006, it's still worth to know basic of flat file. Here's flat file tutorials. BizTalk 2004 Flat File Schema Tutorial 1 BizTalk 2004 Flat File Schema Tutorial 2 BizTalk Flat File Parsing AnnotationsThis next one is a good overview of property setting on a flat file schema it is taken from this blog post: http://weblogs.ilg.com/brumfieldb/archive/2004/08/09/440.aspxExtending the flat file disassembler pipeline Component Test your flat file processingThe Anatomy of a Positional Flat-File...

36 of 89 | Use SOAP - First lesson: you don't need WSE to consume a web service.  Just add the web reference. Second lesson: if you have a web service that only exposes simple types (e.g., strings), you don't get a Reference.xsd created when you add the web reference.  Therefore, you can't use a map to set the values of your web service's parameters.  You need to use a Message Assignment shape inside a Construct Message shape to set your parameters.  This also means that you have to promote or distinguish any value in your incoming message that you need to pass to the web service.  See my previous post about promoting strings >256 characters. Third lesson: the Request-Response port ......

37 of 89 | Web service parameters by reference - My customer's web service has two (string) parameters passed by reference so that they can return multiple pieces of information from a single call.  (Let's leave design issues to the side for now.)  In some cases, one of these strings is empty (" "). What I'm observing, in these cases, is that my orchestration hangs waiting for the response from the web service. For now, I've put up a fascade web service that passes the call through to my customer, and on return, checks for the empty string.  The fascade replaces the empty string with a single space.  This seems to work. My guess is that the SOAP response doesn't contain the node for the blank string, and the port do......

38 of 89 | Don't promote a string >256 characters - The limitation doesn't apply to distiguished fields. Thanks to another blogger, I didn't waste a lot of time on this, and as he points out, it's documented.  Still, it's one of those things that can trip you up.  The error you get is: There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: "Microsoft.Biztalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive". Source: "XML Disassembler" Receive Location: "C:\ReceiveLocation" The property 'propertyname' has a value with length greater than 256 characters According to the help, ms-help://BTS_2004/SDK/htm/ebiz_sdk_editor_props_simn.htm Property field promotion is subject to the following limitations: Promoting a string value that is lon......

39 of 89 | MSBuild tasks for Biztalk - Looks like Microsoft's UK team has released a new version of MSBuild Tasks for Biztalk Server 2006/2004. This is going to be of great use for deployments!!! Take a look at http://blogs.msdn.com/pkelcey/archive/2006/07/12/663398.aspx...

40 of 89 | Introduction To devMode - Thanks for stopping by.  I'm beginning this blog as more of a catalog of "lessons learned" than anything else.  This blog will perpetually be in "dev mode".  I don't expect it to contain a lot of original material, but rather links to what I've found useful and why.  I've been working with BizTalk since right around when BizTalk 2002 launched.  I have my COM/COM+ MCSD, with BizTalk 2002 as my elective.  I've spent the last year working in BizTalk 2004.  I'm in an unusual situation in that I work primarily with BizTalk development for a single employer rather than as a consultant.  I'm hopeful that visitors may find some answers or contribute some.&nbs......

41 of 89 | Zero Byte files through FTP - I've seen a number of places where it's documented that zero byte files pulled in through the FTP adapter throw an error.  It would probably be more factual to say that zero byte files pulled in through the FTP adapter are passed on to the Flat File Disassembler, which fails.  Either way, this behavior is often an annoyance, since the File Receive adapter manages some voodoo that doesn't generate the error.I've taken the BizTalk Server Pipeline Component Wizard and done something very simple in the Execute method:if (inmsg.Body.Data.Length == 0)     return null;else    return inmsg;I've seen other people suggest creating a custom pipeline component, b......

42 of 89 | New Biztalk Server Samples from Microsoft - Looks like there are a bunch of new samples posted on the Biztalk Developer center in MSDN. Check out http://msdn.microsoft.com/biztalk/downloads/samples/...

43 of 89 | 1.1. Identify the application requirements. Exam Aid - 1.1. Identify the application requirements. Exam Aid A BizTalk "Application" is a general term that can refer to many different designed implementations.  BizTalk Server 2006 can implement Messaging Solutions, Orchestration or "Process" solutions, Workflow "Process" Solutions and a plethera of many others. Specifically, when referring to Messaging Solutions, the BizTalk Orchestration engine is not used. BizTalk relies solely on the internal Messaging engine, the BizTalk SQL databases. Given a specific scenario, let's see if we can identify applicaiton requirements and extract out all of the posibilities that merit a good BizTalk Design. Let's say you are designing a BizTalk me......

44 of 89 | Exam 70-235 Review - Just finished up a review process for the BizTalk 2006 exam.  Things appear to be on track. One thing I learned today, is the BizTalk trainer and consulting world is a small world. Every one barrows each other concepts and functionality.  Where you think one thing started from, you learn was from something else, which was barrowed from another product.... Gotta love the life cyle of software design, and we thought OOP is all about reusability, just take a look at life.  ...

45 of 89 | Thoughts on Testing a candidate on the BRE-Exam Aid -1 - The Business Rule Engine. If you are a BizTalk enthusiasts, hobbyist, developer, architect, or  implementer, the BRE is definitely something that you are going to come across.  I'm not going to explain what the BRE is, there are many resources on the web, just google away for this topic. However, if you claim to know about the BRE, how does one test this knowledge? Naturally, one could sit down at a developer configured system, and you can say, "Build me a BizTalk app that uses the BRE, you have an hour to do so." This would test knowledge of implementation.  If the candidate performs the task, then we exclaim, they know BRE. But how do you put the literal simulation into ......

46 of 89 | BizTalk Beta Exam 71-235 thoughts... - A couple of weeks back, the Beta exam for BizTalk 2006 was running, now I can't wait to hear the feedback about what candidates thought about the exam. If you have some thoughts, please record them here, any feedback will be greatly appreciated. Personally, there was about 3 questions or so which I really didn't remember. At least this is what I think. Hopefully, I did well enough warrant the title of "Author" of the exam. P.S. I'd just like to know overall if you felt the exam was too easy, to hard, or fair.  Did the questions represent real life situations and etc.  My invested interest in this is that, I help create some of the exam items. Thanks....

47 of 89 | Biztalk 2004 Certification - While I was at TechED last week, I found that Pearson vue is giving 50% off for all Microsoft certification exams taken onsite in TechED. I have always wanted to take Biztalk 2004 exam but did not have a chance to do that. Last morning I just gave a shot and passed the Biztalk Server 2004 exam 74-135. Whew! It was tough, most of the questions were not directly related to Biztalk Development but more on configuration/interfaces/settings etc. My 5 cents advices for anybody who wants to take this exam Learn different interfaces/methods used in Pipeline components/Custom Functoids etc There were quite a few questions on BAM, so read the BAM docs or try out the End-To-End BAM sample w......

48 of 89 | EDI Features in Biztalk Server 2006 R2 - I was in TechED all this week and it was a great week so far. The important thing I learnt in this week was about the new EDI changes for Biztalk Server 2006 R2. Some of my observations and notes Architecture: Looks like the EDI piece is written from scratch and follows the Biztalk base architecture. Biztalk Administration console has a new “EDI” section for management. This includes managing Trading Partner configuration and reporting/Auditing for EDI transactions. The EDI Parser/Serializer follows the existing Biztalk Pipeline Architecture and supports both EDI/ AS2 transactions. Schemas: More than approximately 7000 EDI X12/Edifact/HIPPA schemas out of the box (The guy actually showe......

49 of 89 | BizTalk® Server 2006 for Beginners - For beginners, who interested in learning BizTalk® Server 2006, the best place is Microsoft® BizTalk® Server 2006 for Developers...

50 of 89 | Creation of Adapter MSMQ Configuration Store entries failed: Access is Denied - A previous client of mine ran into this problem while installing the MSMQ adapter during a production push.  They were logged into the server using a Host instance login, which happened to be a local administrator. The minimum security requirements for adding an adapter is that the user has to be in two BizTalk Server domain groups, the BizTalk Server Administrator and the SSO Affiliate Administrators groups. In this case, the user was not in the SSO Affiliate Administrators group.  Logging in as a user that is in both of the aforementioned groups resolved the issue.  ...