Tools for collaboration development

The platform for collaboration development is Windows(R) 2000. Collaborations are written in Java. Table 4 lists the tools that WebSphere InterChange Server provides for collaboration development.

Table 4. Tools for collaboration development

Tool Description For more information
Process Designer Graphical tool that assists in the development of the collaboration template. Process Designer
IBM WebSphere InterChange Server Collaboration API Set of Java classes with which you can customize the generated collaboration code. (The methods in the API can also be accessed through the Activity Editor function blocks.) "Collaboration API"
System Manager Tool that provides graphical windows to create and configure a collaboration object. "System Manager"
Integrated Test Environment (Test Connector) A suite of tools used to test business processes. Use the Test Connector tool (available in the Integrated Test Environment and as a standalone tool) to simulate a generic connector so you can easily test a collaboration's design. "Test Connector"

Process Designer

Process Designer is used for creating, editing, compiling, and deleting collaboration templates. When modifying an existing template, you can use Process Designer to edit the template's properties, as well as to add or edit scenarios and activity diagrams.

For detailed information about the Process Designer interface, see Overview of Process Designer.

Collaboration API

The WebSphere InterChange Server collaboration API provides several classes whose methods you can use in a collaboration template.

Note:
You can access the API both through traditional Java calls and through the supported function blocks in the Activity Editor. See Using Activity Editor for more information.

Interacting with a collaboration object

The BaseCollaboration class generically defines the behavior and functions of a collaboration, such as obtaining the values of configuration properties, writing messages to a log file, and tracing.

When you create a collaboration template, you create a Java class that is a subclass of BaseCollaboration. As such, your collaboration inherits all of the methods of BaseCollaboration. These methods allow a collaboration to perform operations such as:

For more information on the methods of the BaseCollaboration class, see BaseCollaboration class.

Interacting with business objects

A collaboration generally interacts with and manipulates business objects. Methods of the BusObj class enable a collaboration to perform operations such as:

For more information on the methods of the BusObj class, see BusObj class.

Interacting with business object arrays

Collaborations frequently get and set the values of business object attributes. When a business object is hierarchical, one or more of its attributes is a child business object, or perhaps an array of child business objects. A child business object appears as an array to the collaboration.

Methods on the BusObjArray class let a collaboration interact with and manipulate business object arrays. These methods perform operations such as:

For more information on the methods of the BusObjArray class, see BusObjArray class.

Interacting with exceptions

When errors occur in a collaboration, the collaboration or the collaboration runtime environment raises an exception. The exception is contained in an object of the CollaborationException class. This class lets a collaboration object interact with an exception object and perform the following operations:

For more information on the methods of the CollaborationException class, see CollaborationException class.

System Manager

System Manager is a graphical tool that provides an interface to ICS and its repository. It enables you to do the following collaboration-related tasks:

For more information on how to use System Manager to create, configure, and deploy a collaboration object, see the Implementation Guide for WebSphere InterChange Server.

Test Connector

The Test Connector is a graphical tool for testing collaborations and connectors. It is available both in the Integrated Test Environment and as a standalone tool.

Note:
If you are testing access clients, you must use Test Connector through the Integrated Test Environment.

The Test Connector tool simulates an actual connector, allowing you to easily test the design of your collaborations by sending in a triggering event or sending a service call request. For more information on how to use Test Connector, see the Implementation Guide for WebSphere InterChange Server.

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