ValidateCredit collaboration template

The ValidateCredit collaboration template validates credit for a customer. ValidateCredit sends credit information for a customer to a credit validation application synchronously and returns the result to the caller.

ValidateCredit uses the Generic CreditAuthorizationRequestInformation business object to represent credit information for a customer.

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 ValidateCredit's ports:

ProvisionForContents 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: From
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CreditAuthorization RequestInformation

Caller application

Receives the triggering business object

Validate


Port name: To
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CreditAuthorization RequestInformation

Connector to credit validation application

Sends the triggering business object out of the collaboration object Validate
 
Port name: SourceApp
Business object Bound to Function Verbs used
CreditAuthorization RequestInformation Source application 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, 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
CreditAuthorization RequestInformation Caller or other application Returns the result of the collaboration object's processing to an application before the collaboration object ends its process.

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 ValidateCredit as a stand-alone collaboration object, complete the following steps:

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

Collaboration template processes

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

Overall process logic

This section illustrates ValidateCredit'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:

Validate

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

ValidateCredit Validate 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.

ValidateCredit 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.

ValidateCredit USE_RETURN process logic

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 this collaboration object 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 this 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 IBM WebSphere InterChange 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:

Properties specific to this collaboration template

The following properties are specific to this collaboration template:

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.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2002, 2003