Managing participant connections

Participant connections are the mechanism that enables the system to process and route documents between the Community Manager and its various participants. Connections contain the information necessary for the proper exchange of each document flow including RosettaNet TPA attributes, transport protocol, document processing action, gateway type, and participant gateway. A document cannot be routed unless a connection exists between the Community Manager and one of its participants.

The system automatically creates connections between the Community Manager and participants based on their B2B capabilities. The data typed in the B2B Capabilities module of the Community Console determines the functionality of each available connection. The configuration of each connection can be modified to fit the needs of the hub community.

Connection components

Individual connections are composed of four components:

Once the system creates a connection, all four components can be modified to tailor its routing and processing functionality. Table 6 describes each component.

Table 6. Manage participant components
Component Description

Attributes

Attributes are the information the connection uses for various document processing and routing functions such as validation, checking for encryption, and retry count.

To increase the efficiency when creating connections, the attributes for a new connection are inherited from the B2B capabilities of the Manager and participant automatically.

Action

Action is the sequence of steps the system uses to process a particular document. Each connection typically consists of one or more steps, including transformation, duplicate check, validation, or pass-through routing. You can select the appropriate action for each connection.

Gateway

Each connection contains a source and target gateway. The source gateway contains the URI and transport information of the participant initiating a document flow. Business signals such as receipt acknowledgments and general exceptions are sent to the initiating participant through the source gateway. The gateway options Validate Client IP and Validate Client SSL Cert apply to the source gateway.

The target gateway contains the URI and transport information of the participant receiving a document flow.

Gateway Type

Gateway type identifies the nature of a document being exchanged. A connection can contain multiple types of gateways to accommodate the routing and processing of the same document to more then one system. This improves connection efficiency by multiplying the use of a single connection for production, test, or routing to multiple systems within one organization.

Connection duplication

The system avoids the inadvertent duplication of RosettaNet connections by uniquely identifying each connection based on the following parameters:

In the example shown in Figure 1, the system will not activate two connections using the same source participant and attributes with the same target participant -- even though the target participant is using the RosettaNet protocol in one connection and the RNSC protocol in the other. In this case, the connection containing the target RosettaNet protocol must be deactivated before the system allows the other connection containing the target RNSC protocol to be used.

Note:
EDI documents can have an additional Connection Profile associated with them. The values configured for a Connection Profile will be used to uniquely identify a connection even with the same Source document.
Figure 1. Example connections

Searching for connections

To access connections, you search for them. There are two ways to search for connections:

Performing a basic search for connections

Use the following procedure to perform a basic search for connections. When selecting a Source and a Target, observe the following guidelines:

Performing an advanced search for connections

Use the following procedure to conduct an advanced search for connections. When selecting a Source and a Target, observe the following guidelines:

Changing connection configurations

To change the configuration of a connection, use the following procedure.

  1. Click Account Admin > Participant Connections. The Console displays the Manage Connections window.
  2. Perform a basic search for connections (see Performing a basic search for connections) or advanced search for connections (Performing an advanced search for connections).
  3. See the appropriate section:

Changing participant attribute values

To change participant attribute values, use the following procedure.

  1. Click Attributes for either the Source or Target participant.
  2. In the Scope drop-down list, select Connection if the attribute changes will apply to all the gateway types associated with the connection, or select a gateway type to which the changes will apply.
  3. Click the Expand icon and expand the node to the Document Flow Definition whose attribute values will be changed.
  4. Update the attribute value as needed.
  5. Click Save.

Selecting a new action

To select a new action, use the following procedure.

  1. Click Actions.
  2. Select the new action from the drop-down list.
  3. Click Save.

Selecting a new transformation map

To select a new transformation map, use the following procedure.

  1. Click Actions.
  2. Select the new transformation map from the drop-down list.
  3. Click Save.

Changing the source or target gateway

To change the source or gateway target, use the following procedure.

  1. Click Gateways.
  2. Select the source or target gateway from the drop-down list.
  3. Click Save.

Disabling or deactivating a connection

To disable a connection, click the Deactivate icon in the Enabled column. The connection display color changes to red, indicating that the connection has been disabled. To re-enable the connection, click the Delete icon.

To deactivate a connection, click the Delete icon. The connection display color changes to gray and the icon disappears. To re-enable the connection, click Activate.

For EDI documents, there can be several connections that apply to the same participants. The various connections are differentiated using connection profiles. Deleting a connection with an associated connection profile name will delete the connection from the system. Only a base-level connection without an associated connection profile can be deactivated. For more information about Connection Profiles, see the Hub Configuration Guide.

Copyright IBM Corp. 2003, 2005