ProductCatalog Collaboration Template

The ProductCatalog collaboration template enables applications to share product catalog information. This ensures that each application provides a consistent view of the available products and prices. ProductCatalog uses the generic ProductBundle business object to synchronize product data.

Collaboration object setup

This section includes information on port bindings and required steps for setting up collaboration objects based on ProductCatalog. 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

Figure 1 illustrates ProductCatalog's ports, as they are displayed in System Manager.

Figure 1. ProductCatalog collaboration's ports

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: DestinationAppRetrieve
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
ProductBundle The destination application's connector Sends a reference-valued business object to retrieve the full-valued business object.

Retrieve


Port name: From
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
ProductBundle Source application's connector or calling collaboration 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 ends successfully.

Create Retrieve Update Delete


Port name: To
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
ProductBundle The destination application's connector

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration.

Create Update Delete

Setting up the collaboration object

Using ProductCatalog as stand-alone

ProductCatalog is designed to be used as a stand-alone collaboration. To set up ProductCatalog as a stand-alone collaboration object, follow these steps:

  1. Create the ProductCatalog collaboration object.
  2. Bind each of the collaboration object's ports as described in Port information.
  3. Set the Configuration properties for ProductCatalog. Using PriceManager in a collaboration-object group

Collaboration template processes

This section illustrates the process logic for this collaboration template:

Overall process logic

Figure 2 illustrates ProductCatalog's process logic.

Figure 2. ProductCatalog Collaboration's process logic

Inherited process logic

This collaboration template uses the following standard collaboration business processes:

For information on these processes, see Required Documents for Creating Collaboration Objects.

Compensation processing

InterChange Server can roll back a transaction when any step in a transactional collaboration fails. For example, when ProductCatalog is a member of a collaboration-object group that participates in a transactional collaboration, its actions are one subtransactional step of a larger transaction. If any step in the collaboration-object group's business process fails, the transactional collaboration details how InterChange Server should roll back the processing of every collaboration in the group.

When a ProductCatalog collaboration object is used independently of other collaboration objects or the collaboration object's From port is bound to a source application rather than to another collaboration, its process comprises a single transactional step. In such a situation, it is not necessary to perform rollback.

To cause a collaboration object or a collaboration-object group to perform rollback requires modifying the collaboration template. To understand transaction processing in the WebSphere business integration system, see the Technical Introduction to IBM WebSphere InterChange Server. For information on adding transaction processing to the collaboration template, see Required Documents for Creating Collaboration Objects.

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 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 this collaboration object and other 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 other members of the collaboration-object group to "true". Forcing the collaboration objects to retrieve values before changing them allows the collaboration objects to restore the original values in an Update or Delete process.

Configuration properties

Note: ProductCatalog does not have unique configuration properties. All of its properties are standard.

Standard properties

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

For information on these configuration properties, see Required Documents for Creating Collaboration Objects.

Collaboration messages

To view an explanation of the messages of this collaboration template, launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file. To launch the Log Viewer and open the collaboration template's message file:

  1. In the Start menu, click Programs > IBM WebSphere InterChange Server >IBM WebSphere Business Integration Toolset > Administrative > Log Viewer.
  2. On the File menu, click Open.
  3. Use the Look In field to change the current folder to WebSphere_ICS_root_dir \collaborations \messages and select the message file for this collaboration template.