PartyManager collaboration template

The PartyManager collaboration template is used to synchronize data objects representing customers or suppliers across applications in the telecommunications industry. Each application represents a different business function, including the following functions:

PartyManager uses the Generic Party business object to represent a customer or supplier. Each customer or supplier may be a person, a company or a household.

This collaboration template uses the ProcessContext attribute of generic business objects to maintain process information between two or more collaboration objects. In order to maintain this information, the collaboration object performs the following actions, starting from when it receives a triggering business object:

Collaboration object setup

This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on this collaboration template. For information on standard features, ports, and configuration properties for collaboration templates, and for general information on creating collaboration objects refer to the documents listed in Required documents for creating collaboration objects.

Port information

The following diagram illustrates PartyManager's ports:

PartyManager collaboration's ports

This collaboration template uses multiple destination ports, instead of a single DestinationAppRetrieve port. The DestinationAppRetrieveMain port is used for the business object sent to the ToMain port, and the DestinationAppRetrieveSub port is used for the business object sent to the ToSub port. The DestinationAppRetrieveMain port is also used for the Retrieve process and the AdditionalRetrieve process.

Note: To keep the collaboration object from using a port, bind that port to the Port connector. Doing so indicates that the port is unused without causing the collaboration object to provide additional functionality.

Port name: From
Business Object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party WebSphere MQ Workflow Receives the triggering business object. At the end of a synchronous call, this port also returns the triggering business object to the source application when the collaboration object ends successfully. Create, Update, Retrieve, Delete
 
Port name: ToMain
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party

Customer management system

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration object Create, Update, Delete

Port name: ToSub
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party

Provisioning system

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration object

Note:
Since this port is closely related to USE_SUB_PORT property, see the USE_SUB_PORT property.
Create, Update, Delete

Port name: DestinationAppRetrieveMain
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party

Customer management system

Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object. The result determines which verb to use when synchronizing the Party Retrieve
 
Port name: DestinationAppRetrieveSub
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party

Provisioning system

Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object. The result determines which verb to use when synchronizing the Party

Note:

Since this port is closely related to USE_SUB_PORT property, see the USE_SUB_PORT property.
Retrieve

Port name: SourceApp
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party Customer management system Retrieves the source data from the master application. When the collaboration object is used in a sync mode, where it receives only the key information from the From port, it retrieves the source data from the master application, and synchronizes that data with other applications.

Note:
Since this port is closely related to SYNC_FROM_SOURCE property, see the SYNC_FROM_SOURCE property.
Retrieve

Port name: Return
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
Party WebSphere MQ Workflow Returns the result of the collaboration object's processing to an application before the collaboration object ends its process. This is typically used with a WebSphere MQ Workflow connector to return the result of the business process to the WebSphere MQ Workflow activity.

Note:
Since this port is closely related to USE_RETURN property, see the USE_RETURN property.
Update

Setting up the collaboration object

To set up PartyManager as a stand-alone collaboration object, complete the following steps:

  1. Create the PartyManager collaboration object.
  2. Bind the ports as described in Port information.
  3. Set the configuration properties for PartyManager.

Collaboration template processes

This section illustrates the following business processes for this collaboration template:

Overall process logic

This section illustrates this collaboration template's process logic for its supported verbs indicated below, as well as additional process logic that will be executed if the SYNC_FROM_SOURCE or USE_RETURN configuration properties are set to true:

Create, Delete, and Update

The following diagram shows the process logic for this collaboration template's Create, Delete, and Update verbs.

PartyManager Create, Update and Delete process logic

Retrieve

The following diagram shows the process logic for this collaboration template's Retrieve verb.

TelcoProductManager Retrieve process logic

SYNC_FROM_SOURCE

The following diagram shows the additional process logic that is executed when the collaboration object's SYNC_FROM_SOURCE configuration property is set to true.

TelcoProductManager SYNC_FROM_SOURCE  process logic

USE_RETURN

The following diagram shows the additional process logic that is executed when the collaboration object's USE_RETURN configuration property is set to true.

TelcoProductManager USE_RETURN process logic

Standard business processes

This collaboration template uses the following standard business processes:

Compensation processing

IBM WebSphere InterChange Server provides the ability to roll back a transaction upon the failure of any step in the transaction. For example, when TelcoItemSync is a member of a collaboration object group, its process is one subtransactional step in a larger process. If any step fails in the collaboration object group's processes, IBM WebSphere Business InterChange Server allows you to roll back the processing of every collaboration object in the group.

When a TelcoItemSync collaboration object is used independently of other collaboration objects, its process comprises a single transactional step. In such a situation, it is not necessary to perform a rollback.

To cause a collaboration object or a collaboration object group to perform rollback requires modifying the collaboration template. To understand transaction processing by WebSphere Business Integration Server, see the Technical Introduction to IBM WebSphere InterChange Server. For information on adding transaction processing to the collaboration template, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

To extend the collaboration object to handle transaction processing, complete the following steps:

  1. Add this capability to the collaboration template and to every other collaboration template used in the collaboration object group.
  2. Set the minimum transaction level of the collaboration object and all members of the collaboration object group to a value higher than None. If a failure occurs in any subtransaction step, settings of Minimal Effort or higher cause the collaboration object and member collaboration objects in the group to execute compensation for Create, Update, and Delete operations performed on all business objects.
  3. Set the USE_RETRIEVE property of the collaboration object and all members of a collaboration object group to true. Forcing the collaboration objects to retrieve values before changing them allows the collaborations objects to restore the original values in an Update or Delete process.

Configuration properties

This section describes the following properties for this collaboration template:

Standard properties

This collaboration template uses the following standard configuration properties for collaboration templates:

Properties specific to this collaboration template

The following properties are specific to this collaboration template:

EXCEPTION_WHEN_BO_NOT_FOUND_ON_RETRIEVE

This property specifies how to handle an exception raised by the destination application when no records are found that match the search criteria.

EXCEPTION_WHEN_BO_NOT_FOUND_ON_RETRIEVE  configuration property
Possible values Usage
true (default value) Handles the exception as an error, and causes this collaboration object to fail and to raise an exception.
false Handles the exception as a zero result, and causes this collaboration object to finish successfully and to return an empty list.

SYNC_FROM_SOURCE

This property specifies whether to retrieve the source data from the master application through the SourceApp port before sending the data to another application. When the triggering business object has only the key information, this property should be set to true.

SYNC_FROM_SOURCE configuration property
Possible values Usage
true Causes this collaboration object to retrieve the full-value business object and use it as triggering business object.
false (default value) Causes this collaboration object to use the triggering business object directly. In this case, the SourceApp port is bound to the Port connector.

USE_RETURN

This property specifies whether to return the processed business object through the Return port.

Note: Exceptions from USE_RETURN process are not handled as INFORMATIONAL_EXCEPTIONS, because of the nature of the process.

USE_RETURN configuration property
Possible values Usage
true (default value) Causes this collaboration object to return the processed business object through the Return port after the completion of  processing. This is typically used when this collaboration object is called to return the result from the preceding asynchronous request.
false Causes this collaboration object not to return through the Return port. In this case, the Return port is bound to the Port connector.

USE_SUB_PORT

This property specifies whether to use Sub ports (ToSub ports and DestinationAppRetrieveSub ports). You can use sub ports to synchronize data between three or more applications: the source, main destination and one or more sub destination applications.

USE_SUB_PORT configuration property
Possible values Usage
all (default value) Causes this collaboration object to synchronize the data between four applications.
For example, for a business object with the Create verb, the collaboration completes the following actions:
  1. Receives the triggering business object with the Create verb from the From port.
  2. Sends the business object with the Create verb to the main destination application.
  3. Sends the business object with the Create verb to the sub destination application.
none Causes this collaboration object to synchronize the data only between the source and main destination applications, using steps 1 and 2 in the list above. In this case, Sub ports are bound to the Port connector.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2002, 2003