Sequence of development tasks

Many integration components in an interface depend upon and reference one another, so the tasks of developing each of the components are intertwined and iterative.

It is recommended that you develop your integration components in the following order:

  1. Develop custom connectors
  2. Develop or modify application-specific business objects
  3. Configure connectors
  4. Test connectivity and application-specific business objects
  5. Develop or modify generic business objects
  6. Configure relationships
  7. Configure database connection pools
  8. Develop and test maps
  9. Develop and test collaboration templates
  10. Configure connectors for business object support and associated maps
  11. Create and configure collaboration objects
  12. Deploy the interface

Develop custom connectors

A developer with the required skillset should begin development of any required custom connectors as soon as the project begins.

For information on developing custom connectors, see the Connector Development Guide for C++ or Connector Development Guide for Java Server.

Develop or modify application-specific business objects

This topic provides a brief overview of developing application-specific business objects. For details about working with application-specific business object definitions, see the Business Object Development Guide.

When you create or modify an application-specific business object, do the following:

When you create the business object definition you should also create any source application triggers or other event detection mechanisms if necessary.

For details about designing and developing application-specific business object definitions, see the Business Object Development Guide.

Configure connectors

When you configure a connector for the purpose of unit testing an application-specific business object you may not yet have developed all of the business object definitions and maps that the connector requires to perform its role in the implementation. You can, however, add support for the business object definition you need to test and be able to test it successfully without those other components. When you have finished developing the other components you must then re-configure the connector definition to add support for the business object definitions and associate the required maps.

See the guide for your adapter for information about its application-specific properties. See Configuring connectors for information about connector standard properties and information on how to use Connector Configurator.

Test connectivity and application-specific business objects

Once you have developed the application-specific business object and added support for it to a connector definition you should unit-test the business object to make sure that the connector can use it to exchange data with the application successfully. You do not need the generic objects, maps, or collaboration template that the interface will eventually use in order to perform this test. Do the following to unit-test an application-specific business object:

  1. Create a pass-through collaboration template with the following design:
  2. Configure the properties of the connector definition, add support for the business object definition, and enable the Agent Support check box for the business object definition.
  3. Add support for the application-specific business object to another "dummy" connector definition. You do not have to configure this connector definition completely because you will only emulate it with testing tools. Ensure that the Agent Support check box is enabled for the business object definition.
  4. If the connector is responsible for event notification, do the following:
  5. If the connector is responsible for request processing, do the following:

Develop or modify generic business objects

Determine if there is an existing generic object that is appropriate for the business process. Ensure that the licensing terms for the site permit the use of the object.

If no existing generic business object can be used, you will need to either extend an existing generic business object or create a new one. For information on creating new business objects, see the Business Object Development Guide.

Configure relationships

Configure any relationships at this point so that you can use them when developing maps in a later stage.

See the Map Development Guide for information about configuring relationships.

Configure database connection pools

Just as you configured any relationships required by the maps, you should do the same for any database connection pools. Configuring database connection pools beforehand allows you to code use of them into the maps as you develop them.

For information on configuring database connection pools, see Configuring database connection pools.

Develop and test maps

With all of the required generic business objects, application-specific business objects, relationships, and database connection pools created, you can develop the maps that transform objects across the interface.

As you develop the maps you should unit-test them by using the debugging facilities of Map Designer. Unit-test your maps at the following points:

For more information on developing and testing maps, see the Map Development Guide.

Develop and test collaboration templates

Collaboration templates define the business process logic of an interface. You should research the existing collaboration templates available to determine if there is one that models your business process. If there is no collaboration that directly models the process, you should determine if there is one that is similar; if so, you may be able to modify it if the licensing conditions of the site permit that, and thereby accelerate the development process.

If there is no template that is similar then you must develop a new collaboration template. For information about how to develop a new collaboration template or modify an existing one, see the Collaboration Development Guide.

You can unit-test the collaboration template without using the maps, application-specific business objects, or connectors that you are developing for the interface. Do the following to unit-test a collaboration template:

  1. Add support for the generic business object that is processed by the collaboration template to the PortConnector definition.
  2. Create a collaboration object based on the collaboration template with the ports of the collaboration bound to the PortConnector.

    For more information on creating collaboration objects, see Configuring collaboration objects.

  3. Deploy the PortConnector, collaboration template, collaboration object, and business object definitions to the server.

    For more information about deploying components, see Exporting components to a package using System Manager.

  4. Start Test Connector, open the PortConnector definition, and connect Test Connector to the agent.

    For more information on Test Connector, see Using Test Connector.

  5. Create an instance of the generic business object with data in it and send the event as a request from Test Connector.

    The collaboration receives and processes the event and each service call sends the generic business object to Test Connector, where you can edit it to examine the data for modification.

  6. Examine the InterChange Server logging output to ensure that the collaboration logic executed as expected.

Configure connectors for business object support and associated maps

Before you can test all of the developed components together, you must reconfigure the connector definitions to add support for the application-specific and generic objects they require to participate in the interface. The system associates any maps that it can automatically, but in situations where there are multiple maps that could transform objects you must explicitly associate a map. For more information, see Configuring connectors.

Create and configure collaboration objects

Once you have added support for the required business object definitions to the connectors you can create a collaboration object based on the template and bind its ports to the proper components.

For more information on working with collaboration objects, see Configuring collaboration objects.

Deploy the interface

After you have created all of the required components for the interface you must deploy it to your local InterChange Server instance to test the interface. For more information on deployment, see Deploying components to a server.

Test the interface

After you have deployed the interface to your local InterChange Server instance you should test the interface as a whole to ensure that the components satisfy the business requirements when working together. Do the following to test the interface:

  1. Ensure that all of the required components are active.
  2. Trigger an event in the source system.
  3. Examine the logging output of InterChange Server to ensure that the components in the interface execute properly.
  4. Examine the destination system to ensure that the entity was processed successfully and that the data appears as it should.

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