Configuring internal port bindings

To start a collaboration object, you must bind all of its ports. A collaboration object cannot run until you bind all of its port.

To bind a collaboration port to a connector or to the port of another collaboration object:

  1. In graphical or tree view, right-click the icon for a port and then choose Bind Port from the context menu. The port configuration dialog displays.
  2. Enable the radio button labeled Internal in the Type pane of the port configuration dialog.
  3. Select the appropriate component type, either Connector or Collaboration in the Bind With pane.
  4. Select the specific component from the list.
  5. Click OK.

Only the components that support the type of business object definition shown in the Business Object Definition field are listed in the dialog. If you do not see a component you expect to see listed, then it is either not of the specified type (and you should change the Bind With radio button), or the component does not support the business object definition. If the Bind With radio button is set to the proper component type and the component you expect to see is not shown, modify the definition for the particular component to add support for the business object definition and then launch the port configuration dialog.

Some collaboration templates have ports defined that support an optional course of business logic. For instance, many collaboration templates are designed so that they can attempt to retrieve the entity that might have just been created in the destination application to ensure that the operation was successful. This sort of behavior is frequently optional and configurable through the collaboration-specific properties of the collaboration. All of the ports of a collaboration object must be bound to a component for it to start, as mentioned earlier, so even if you do not intend to take advantage of the optional behavior you must configure ports that might exist only to support it. In this case, just add support for the business object definition to an unused component (such as the PortConnector) and be sure to configure the collaboration properties to not use the optional functionality.

See also

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