Property aliases

An alias tells you how to match properties with a business process that have identical values but different names.

Abstract business processes can't always fully expose their data. They need to make all of the business logic apparent to each of the partners, but often can't afford to reveal sensitive business data. This is where aliases become useful. They allow for the fact that two message parts may have the same value, but are called something by one partner, and something entirely different by another. In other words, aliases recognize that the partners may be using the same data in the process but are labelling it differently.

You use aliases most every time that you use a snack-based vending machine. When you look through the window of the vending machine to choose the snack that you want to buy, you don't identify the snack by its proper name, you identify it with a code, usually a combination of a letter and a number. For instance, you may want to buy an oatmeal cookie, but you don't enter the word "cookie" on the keypad, you enter a code that is unique to that item (for example F6). The vending machine then knows exactly which snack to dispense.

For another example, imagine that you've written a process that interacts with a customer who is ordering paint directly from your warehouse. The partner representing the customer has a message part that is named off-white. The partner representing the warehouse has a message part for the exact same colour of paint, yet it is labelled beige. It is up to you to use an alias to tell the process that both message parts refer to the same can of paint.

Related tasks
Configuring correlation sets
Configuring query properties

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