All posts by : Nigel Parkers Outside Line

51 of 81 | Using XML schemas effectively within the BizTalk 2004 XSD Schema Editor - I was reading this article http://devresource.hp.com/drc/slide_presentations/schemaWSDL/index.jsp and it got me thinking about how I have been designing schemas in BizTalk… Yes I know I can already hear your groans about the “BizTalk XSD schema editor”. Well contrary to popular believe you don’t need to use monolithic structures in BizTalk schema design. From the BizTalk Server 2004 book… p78 – Building Message Specifications – Imports – “Only schemas that are part of the current project may be imported”… I thought I’d take on building the xsd structure described in the above article using Visual Studio armed with only the BizTalk Editor and the XML Schema Editor. TIP For those that don’......

52 of 81 | Using XML schemas effectively within the BizTalk 2004 XSD Schema Editor - I was reading this article http://devresource.hp.com/drc/slide_presentations/schemaWSDL/index.jsp and it got me thinking about how I have been designing schemas in BizTalk… Yes I know I can already hear your groans about the “BizTalk XSD schema editor”. Well contrary to popular believe you don’t need to use monolithic structures in BizTalk schema design. From the BizTalk Server 2004 book… p78 – Building Message Specifications – Imports – “Only schemas that are part of the current project may be imported”… I thought I’d take on building the xsd structure described in the above article using Visual Studio armed with only the BizTalk Editor and the XML Schema Editor. TIP For those that don’......

53 of 81 | Using XML schemas effectively within the BizTalk 2004 XSD Schema Editor - I was reading this article http://devresource.hp.com/drc/slide_presentations/schemaWSDL/index.jsp and it got me thinking about how I have been designing schemas in BizTalk… Yes I know I can already hear your groans about the “BizTalk XSD schema editor”. Well contrary to popular believe you don’t need to use monolithic structures in BizTalk schema design. From the BizTalk Server 2004 book… p78 – Building Message Specifications – Imports – “Only schemas that are part of the current project may be imported”… I thought I’d take on building the xsd structure described in the above article using Visual Studio armed with only the BizTalk Editor and the XML Schema Editor. TIP For those that don’......

54 of 81 | My solution won`t compile after applying BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) - Exception Caught: Cannot use a prefix with an empty namespace - I ran into an interesting problem this afternoon with one of my BizTalk soltuions that I was porting to SP1. The problem was fairly generic so I thought I would share it. In my solution I had a map that had two schema`s on the left-hand side (described below) : http://schema2ns" /> The first schema was a trading partners schema (which I didn`t have control over) and it didn`t have a namespace... After applying SP1 this map would no longer build; I started getting an error saying “Exception Caught: Cannot use a prefix with an empty namespace“. I understand what this error is saying and yes I was using a prefix with and empty namespace but what got me was that before SP1, this solution built ......

55 of 81 | My solution won`t compile after applying BizTalk Server 2004 Service Pack 1 (SP1) - Exception Caught: Cannot use a prefix with an empty namespace - I ran into an interesting problem this afternoon with one of my BizTalk soltuions that I was porting to SP1. The problem was fairly generic so I thought I would share it. In my solution I had a map that had two schema`s on the left-hand side (described below) : http://schema2ns" /> The first schema was a trading partners schema (which I didn`t have control over) and it didn`t have a namespace... After applying SP1 this map would no longer build; I started getting an error saying “Exception Caught: Cannot use a prefix with an empty namespace“. I understand what this error is saying and yes I was using a prefix with and empty namespace but what got me was that before SP1, this solution built ......

56 of 81 | BizTalk 2004 Service Pack 1 - BizTalk 2004 Service Pack 1 came out today… http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspxdisplaylang=en&FamilyID=f4a5ab9e-d599-4cc8-abdf-ae6ae68bac3d I`m in the process of installing it on a VM at the moment. Nigel...

57 of 81 | BizTalk 2004 Service Pack 1 - BizTalk 2004 Service Pack 1 came out today… http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspxdisplaylang=en&FamilyID=f4a5ab9e-d599-4cc8-abdf-ae6ae68bac3d I`m in the process of installing it on a VM at the moment. Nigel...

58 of 81 | Microsoft BizTalk 2004 Business Rules Engine Utility to Create Updated Policy Versions From Updated Voacbularies. - Hi all and a happy new year, Sorry I haven`t posted in a while but I`ve had a great Summer Holiday, wedding and honeymoon in Bali :) I`m re-energised and ready for a great 05, I might even sit the new BizTalk 2004 Partner Exam. Having worked a while with the Rules Engine now, and having used Vocabularies to describe my XSD schemas. I have discovered that there is no easy way to update a deployed policy to use an updated vocabulary. What do I mean by this Take the following scenario: I have a Vocabulary “Client.Project.Configuration.Vocabulary” Version 1.0 published and being used by a couple of deployed Policies. Both Policies “Client.Project.Configuration.Policy” and “AnotherClient.Proje......

59 of 81 | Microsoft BizTalk 2004 Business Rules Engine Utility to Create Updated Policy Versions From Updated Voacbularies. - Hi all and a happy new year, Sorry I haven`t posted in a while but I`ve had a great Summer Holiday, wedding and honeymoon in Bali :) I`m re-energised and ready for a great 05, I might even sit the new BizTalk 2004 Partner Exam. Having worked a while with the Rules Engine now, and having used Vocabularies to describe my XSD schemas. I have discovered that there is no easy way to update a deployed policy to use an updated vocabulary. What do I mean by this Take the following scenario: I have a Vocabulary “Client.Project.Configuration.Vocabulary” Version 1.0 published and being used by a couple of deployed Policies. Both Policies “Client.Project.Configuration.Policy” and “AnotherClient.Proje......

60 of 81 | Using test driven assemblies inside transformations *BizTalk 2004 Sample* - Nikolai a colleague of mine at Intergen is a huge advocate for “Test  Driven” development using nunit .   He has been using a technique which includes wrapping unit tests around methods written in C# assemblies that called from within the mapper in BizTalk.   An example of a method that you might like to use in an assembly is to convert from one DateTime format to another e.g.   public string convertDateTimeFormat(string dateIn, string dateInPattern, string dateOutPattern) { string dateOut = null;          try        {               DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact(dateIn,dateInPattern,new DateTimeFormatInfo(),DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces);               dateOut = d.ToString(dateOutPa......

61 of 81 | Using test driven assemblies inside transformations *BizTalk 2004 Sample* - Nikolai a colleague of mine at Intergen is a huge advocate for “Test  Driven” development using nunit .   He has been using a technique which includes wrapping unit tests around methods written in C# assemblies that called from within the mapper in BizTalk.   An example of a method that you might like to use in an assembly is to convert from one DateTime format to another e.g.   public string convertDateTimeFormat(string dateIn, string dateInPattern, string dateOutPattern) { string dateOut = null;          try        {               DateTime d = DateTime.ParseExact(dateIn,dateInPattern,new DateTimeFormatInfo(),DateTimeStyles.AllowWhiteSpaces);               dateOut = d.ToString(dateOutPa......

62 of 81 | Processes for invoking BizTalk orchestrations both synchronously and asynchronously - I know this is pretty straight forward stuff… but I have found that naming conventions chosen for these two distinct shapes (“Call” & “Start”) can lead to some confusion on how they operate. For this reason I’m going to attempt to clarify a few things here.   BizTalk 2004 has two different Orchestrations Shapes for invoking orchestrations from within an orchestration.   The Call Orchestration - Enables your orchestration to call another orchestration synchronously (BizTalk help - ms-help://BTS_2004/SDK/htm/ebiz_prog_orch_vont.htm).   A common use for the Call Orchestration shape would be to take a common piece of functionality that completes quickly and returns information to the calling or......

63 of 81 | Processes for invoking BizTalk orchestrations both synchronously and asynchronously - I know this is pretty straight forward stuff… but I have found that naming conventions chosen for these two distinct shapes (“Call” & “Start”) can lead to some confusion on how they operate. For this reason I’m going to attempt to clarify a few things here.   BizTalk 2004 has two different Orchestrations Shapes for invoking orchestrations from within an orchestration.   The Call Orchestration - Enables your orchestration to call another orchestration synchronously (BizTalk help - ms-help://BTS_2004/SDK/htm/ebiz_prog_orch_vont.htm).   A common use for the Call Orchestration shape would be to take a common piece of functionality that completes quickly and returns information to the calling or......

64 of 81 | Interesting "gotcha" when working with xs:date fields in BizTalk 2004 - I was working with a schema this week that had an type in it. I loaded the schema into BizTalk and set the field to be a distinguished property. When accessing the property I noticed that it had converted the xs:date property to a System.DateTime type. What had happened was that the date had been converted to UTC format behind the scenes; From the bizTalk docs (If the datetime format does not specify time zone or UTC format, the time is assumed to be local and is converted to UTC based on the current time zone.) e.g. Say the date that was passed in was ‘2004-10-26’ when I accessed it by the distinguished property it’s value was ‘2004-10-25 11:00:00’ (UTC-13) - New Zealand timezone… theref......

65 of 81 | Interesting "gotcha" when working with xs:date fields in BizTalk 2004 - I was working with a schema this week that had an type in it. I loaded the schema into BizTalk and set the field to be a distinguished property. When accessing the property I noticed that it had converted the xs:date property to a System.DateTime type. What had happened was that the date had been converted to UTC format behind the scenes; From the bizTalk docs (If the datetime format does not specify time zone or UTC format, the time is assumed to be local and is converted to UTC based on the current time zone.) e.g. Say the date that was passed in was ‘2004-10-26’ when I accessed it by the distinguished property it’s value was ‘2004-10-25 11:00:00’ (UTC-13) - New Zealand timezone… theref......

66 of 81 | Overwriting the %SourceFileName% macro to build dynamic filenames in BizTalk 2004 - I have a scenario where I receive a Purchase Order named as PO_.xml where ID is a unique identifier contained within the message. I need to send back POCAN_.xml or POACK_.xml through the same send port where ID is the same ID I received with the original PO. I could use a dynamic port to achieve this but I want to be able to define my transfer type at run time through a binding file. I also want to be able to support numerous transfer methods without changing any code.   The solution overwrite the %SourceFileName% macro.   Within a construct message block inside the orchestration use something like the following:   Message_2 = Message_1; Message_2(FILE.ReceivedFileName) = ”POCAN_”+System.Co......

67 of 81 | Overwriting the %SourceFileName% macro to build dynamic filenames in BizTalk 2004 - I have a scenario where I receive a Purchase Order named as PO_.xml where ID is a unique identifier contained within the message. I need to send back POCAN_.xml or POACK_.xml through the same send port where ID is the same ID I received with the original PO. I could use a dynamic port to achieve this but I want to be able to define my transfer type at run time through a binding file. I also want to be able to support numerous transfer methods without changing any code.   The solution overwrite the %SourceFileName% macro.   Within a construct message block inside the orchestration use something like the following:   Message_2 = Message_1; Message_2(FILE.ReceivedFileName) = ”POCAN_”+System.Co......

68 of 81 | BizTalk 2004 Enterprise Integration Patterns... - A couple of excellent resources, that I am now using to help document integration architectures: Integration Patterns with BizTalk Server 2004 - http://www.eaipatterns.com/docs/integrationpatterns_biztalk.pdf Test-Driven Development in Integration Projects - http://www.eaipatterns.com/docs/TestDrivenEAI.pdf ...

69 of 81 | BizTalk 2004 Enterprise Integration Patterns... - A couple of excellent resources, that I am now using to help document integration architectures: Integration Patterns with BizTalk Server 2004 - http://www.eaipatterns.com/docs/integrationpatterns_biztalk.pdf Test-Driven Development in Integration Projects - http://www.eaipatterns.com/docs/TestDrivenEAI.pdf ...

70 of 81 | Using the Rules Engine for orchestration configuration values *BizTalk Sample*... - I have been working on a few BizTalk solutions recently that don`t have dependencies on SQL or external assemblies. Within these projects I have needed to get access to configuration information such as “process time out value” or “notification email address”. I have found it particularly useful to use the Rules Engine that ships with BizTalk to store such values.   Why   The rules engine is installed by default on any machine running BizTalk. There is no need to modify the “BTSNTSvc.exe.config” to use the rules engine… modifying this file is difficult to do via deployment scripts and if done incorrectly can cause the whole BizTalk service to stop responding. A small helper class can be ......

71 of 81 | Using the Rules Engine for orchestration configuration values *BizTalk Sample*... - I have been working on a few BizTalk solutions recently that don`t have dependencies on SQL or external assemblies. Within these projects I have needed to get access to configuration information such as “process time out value” or “notification email address”. I have found it particularly useful to use the Rules Engine that ships with BizTalk to store such values.   Why   The rules engine is installed by default on any machine running BizTalk. There is no need to modify the “BTSNTSvc.exe.config” to use the rules engine… modifying this file is difficult to do via deployment scripts and if done incorrectly can cause the whole BizTalk service to stop responding. A small helper class can be ......

72 of 81 | My Orchestration enlists but my Win2K3 box "Blue Screens" now sometimes when i bounce the BizTalk service... - This one is a particularly annoying problem especially if you are using the Nant build (thanks again Scott Colestock http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspxid=d66e1651-98e5-4ef4-9158-ac030a9b8a32)... If you have as a final step in your build a “bounce BizTalk service step” or when I un-enlist Orchestrations and tick the box to stop the BizTalk host... you will no doubt have encountered this wee gem on at least one occasion...  I know it has been flying round our office like the plague :)   The solution... well i think it`s the solution I have applied the hot fix and the blue screens “appear to have disappeared” but I haven`t been doing too many builds of late so it may just be a ......

73 of 81 | My Orchestration enlists but my Win2K3 box "Blue Screens" now sometimes when i bounce the BizTalk service... - This one is a particularly annoying problem especially if you are using the Nant build (thanks again Scott Colestock http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspxid=d66e1651-98e5-4ef4-9158-ac030a9b8a32)... If you have as a final step in your build a “bounce BizTalk service step” or when I un-enlist Orchestrations and tick the box to stop the BizTalk host... you will no doubt have encountered this wee gem on at least one occasion...  I know it has been flying round our office like the plague :)   The solution... well i think it`s the solution I have applied the hot fix and the blue screens “appear to have disappeared” but I haven`t been doing too many builds of late so it may just be a ......

74 of 81 | On Enlistment in BizTalk 2004 the WMI process is using more than the default memory quota of 128MB... - This one will get you when you start working with large schema`s like XCBL... http://www.xcb.org don`t get me started on those recursive imports... Windows WMI isused to enlist orchestrations when you use the BizTalk administration window on a server or a Nant build thanks Scott Colestock http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspxid=d66e1651-98e5-4ef4-9158-ac030a9b8a32... By defalult WMI is set to use a memory quota of 128MB and when you try to enlist an orchestration that uses more memory than this “Ka Boom” you will not be able to deploy your solution on the server ever again! OK so it`s not that bad here is the solution.... 1) Run "wbemtest" on cmd prompt2) Connect to the "root" ......

75 of 81 | On Enlistment in BizTalk 2004 the WMI process is using more than the default memory quota of 128MB... - This one will get you when you start working with large schema`s like XCBL... http://www.xcb.org don`t get me started on those recursive imports... Windows WMI isused to enlist orchestrations when you use the BizTalk administration window on a server or a Nant build thanks Scott Colestock http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspxid=d66e1651-98e5-4ef4-9158-ac030a9b8a32... By defalult WMI is set to use a memory quota of 128MB and when you try to enlist an orchestration that uses more memory than this “Ka Boom” you will not be able to deploy your solution on the server ever again! OK so it`s not that bad here is the solution.... 1) Run "wbemtest" on cmd prompt2) Connect to the "root" ......

76 of 81 | RuleSetTranslationComplexityException - Scenario... - I have a large number of messages that are passed into an orchestration/ split in the incoming pipeline and then passed one by one into a Rules Engine policy. I have discovered when I am processing hundreds of instances at once I ocassionally get the following exception raised in HAT. "Microsoft.RuleEngine.RuleSetTranslationComplexityException Ruleset is too complex and translation cannot complete within the configured translation timeout interval." This is because BizTalk 2004 does not throttle the calls to the rules engine and the rules engine queues the inbound message and processes them in FIFO order. The solution: "Increase the time out in the registry for the rules engine from 1 min......

77 of 81 | RuleSetTranslationComplexityException - Scenario... - I have a large number of messages that are passed into an orchestration/ split in the incoming pipeline and then passed one by one into a Rules Engine policy. I have discovered when I am processing hundreds of instances at once I ocassionally get the following exception raised in HAT. "Microsoft.RuleEngine.RuleSetTranslationComplexityException Ruleset is too complex and translation cannot complete within the configured translation timeout interval." This is because BizTalk 2004 does not throttle the calls to the rules engine and the rules engine queues the inbound message and processes them in FIFO order. The solution: "Increase the time out in the registry for the rules engine from 1 min......

78 of 81 | Using the BizTalk 2004 HTTP adapter with a trading partner that doesn`t support HTTP Chunked Encoding (Introduced in HTTP 1.1)... - I was working on a project where we needed to send messages from BizTalk to and HTTPS web page on a server that was running HTTP 1.0 and didn`t support HTTP Chunked Encoding... http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html... The BizTalk 2004 HTTP adapter automatically chucks http posts into 48kb blocks, it has been discovered that when sendingmessages larger than 48kb towebservers that don`t support chucking the following error will be raised in the event log - "The adapter failed to transmit message going to send port ““. It will be retransmitted after the retry interval specified for this Send Port. Details: "Chunked encoding upload is not supported on the HTTP/1.0 protocol."... ......

79 of 81 | Using the BizTalk 2004 HTTP adapter with a trading partner that doesn`t support HTTP Chunked Encoding (Introduced in HTTP 1.1)... - I was working on a project where we needed to send messages from BizTalk to and HTTPS web page on a server that was running HTTP 1.0 and didn`t support HTTP Chunked Encoding... http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec3.html... The BizTalk 2004 HTTP adapter automatically chucks http posts into 48kb blocks, it has been discovered that when sendingmessages larger than 48kb towebservers that don`t support chucking the following error will be raised in the event log - "The adapter failed to transmit message going to send port ““. It will be retransmitted after the retry interval specified for this Send Port. Details: "Chunked encoding upload is not supported on the HTTP/1.0 protocol."... ......

80 of 81 | Welcome to my BizTalk Blog - A bit about me... I live in Auckland, New Zealand... I am a senior developer for www.intergen.co.nz... I have been building solutions in BizTalk 2004 since the beta version was released at the start of the year… I’ve put together this blog to share with the community some of the knowledge I’ve gained over working with BizTalk over the last 12-18 months... I`m going to use this blog to talk specifically about BizTalk and I will break off into categories to help keep some sort of structure to my ramblings... i have another site www.gobeyond.net.nz whereI share my photos... another passion of mine.... oh yeah the last BizTalk project that I was lead developer on got some press on Scott Woodga......

81 of 81 | Welcome to my BizTalk Blog - A bit about me... I live in Auckland, New Zealand... I am a senior developer for www.intergen.co.nz... I have been building solutions in BizTalk 2004 since the beta version was released at the start of the year… I’ve put together this blog to share with the community some of the knowledge I’ve gained over working with BizTalk over the last 12-18 months... I`m going to use this blog to talk specifically about BizTalk and I will break off into categories to help keep some sort of structure to my ramblings... i have another site www.gobeyond.net.nz whereI share my photos... another passion of mine.... oh yeah the last BizTalk project that I was lead developer on got some press on Scott Woodga......