synBoogaloo - BizTalk/.Net 3.0

More Geek Humour - What Da

Rob Addis — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 06:08:09 GMT

Simon an architect I work with was talking to a developer this morning. The conversation went as so…

Simon: Are you sure you want to use FTP to transfer this data I’m not sure it will be fast enough

Developer: Well FTP is faster than TCPIP

Simon (to himself): I have now entered the twilight zone

Geek Humour - Do you want to call me ... do you really want to call me

Rob Addis — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 22:18:29 GMT

We finally got an EJB Web Service today from a Trading Partner the interface looked something like this ...

public Asset ReturnAsset(bool ReturnAsset)

We surmised that due to cronic shortages of quality developers they have finally begun to teach chimpanzees Java, not bad for a chimp.

Also liked this newsgroup thread Simon found yesterday...

Jesus Built My Hotrod

Rob Addis — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 02:36:16 GMT

A new online BizTalk mag has come out, a more pleasent read than most whitepapers, especially if you're a motor head or a fan of that Ministry song.

Screen Shots Missing

Rob Addis — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 01:08:08 GMT

I just noticed that in GeeksWithBlogs move to SubText some of my old screen shots have been lost, I'll fix these as soon as I get time.

Unable to open Orchestration Designer in Visual Studio

Rob Addis — Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:55:30 GMT

We are developing BizTalk applications with Visual Studio Team Edition and every now and then for some reason the Orchestration Designer is removed from the "Open With" dialog, thus when one double clicks on an orchestration it is opened with the Xml Editor. Although I'm not sure why this happens, I suspected the items in this dialog were configured in the Windows Registry ... and so they were, so to fix:

1) Open RegEdit
2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Editors and find the BizTalk Orchestration Designer for us it was under Guid {679b7fd6-2104-42b2-8d87-86dd575fc269}
3) Get the package key Guid, for us this was {2f926337-2bfb-46ab-bbc4-a955ce25ff6f}
4) Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\8.0\Packages\{Package Key Guid}\SkipLoading
5) Set the SkipLoading key to 0
6) Restart Visual Studio and the Orchestration Designer should show up in the "Open With" list

Does anyone know why the SkipLoading key is mysterously turned on for the Orchestration Designer?

System Testing BizTalk Applications with BAM & Xlsb File Generation

Rob Addis — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 11:37:00 GMT

In the past I have noticed that system testers find it difficult to test middleware applications such as those implemented using BizTalk. System testers generally don't want to read BizTalk xml messages dumped out to disk, they like to be able to query for their test results via some form of GUI. Many are adept at writing SQL to return result sets containing the test data they want to analyze.

I came up with the idea of using BAM relationships between different activities within a single view to log before and after snapshots of BizTalk messages. So when messages were transformed by maps, orchestrations or the BRE system testers could test those transforms. You can then give system testers’ access to the BAM Portal Website where they could view and query these before and after snapshots and match the actuals against the expected results to pass or fail their tests.

This solution for system testing only works for certain scenarios’ with certain types of schemas as each message logged cannot contain repeating records if it is to be logged to BAM.

So what am I on about? Take a single record schema which validates an xml message like the one below as I said before this technique won't work with messages which contain multiple records.

<ns1:SampleTransaction TransactionID="123456" ProductName="ABC" Amount="1234.56" Quantity="24" xmlns:ns1="http://SynbogalooSamples/SampleTransaction/1.0.0.0" />

Each time a map, orchestration or business rules were applied to a message I wanted to send messages to BAM so I was basically just logging messages to BAM each time the contents of the message changed. I used BAM relationships to associate the message before it was transformed to the message after it was transformed so the tester could assess whether the transformation worked.

OK this was all easy but very time consuming using the Excel add-in to create the xlsb files for each schema so I wrote a simple xlsb file generator. Note: For this code to work with schemas that have xsd types other than DateTime, Integer, Double and String you will need to add to the switch statement in the CreateActivity method.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Xml;
using System.IO;

namespace BAMXslbGenerator
{
    class Program
    {
        private const string UCName = "Name";
        private const string LCName = "name";
        private const string View = "View";
        private const string BAMDefinition = "BAMDefinition";
        private const string BAMDefinitionNamespace = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/BizTalkServer/2004/10/BAM";
        private const string Extension = "Extension";
        private const string OWC = "OWC";
        private const string OWCNamespace = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:excel";
        private const string ActivityView = "ActivityView";
        private const string ActivityRef = "ActivityRef";
        private const string Activity = "Activity";
        private const string Alias = "Alias";
        private const string CheckpointRef = "CheckpointRef";
        private const string Id = "ID";
        private const string Checkpoint = "Checkpoint";
        private const string XpathToAttribute =
            "(//*[local-name()='element'])[last()]/*[local-name()='complexType']/*[local-name()='attribute']";
        private const string DataType = "DataType";
        private const string DataLength = "DataLength";
        private const string Length = "length";
        private const string MaxLength = "maxLength";
        private const string XpathToLength = "*[local-name()='simpleType']/*[local-name()='restriction']/*[local-name()='length']/@value";
        private const string XpathToMaxLength = "*[local-name()='simpleType']/*[local-name()='restriction']/*[local-name()='maxLength']/@value";
        private const string SqlDateTime = "DATETIME";
        private const string SqlNvarchar = "NVARCHAR";
        private const string SqlInt = "INT";
        private const string SqlFloat = "FLOAT";
        private const string XsdDateTime = "xs:dateTime";
        private const string XsdString = "xs:string";
        private const string XsdInteger = "xs:int";
        private const string XsdDouble = "xs:double";

private static StringBuilder xlsbText = null;

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            try
            {
                //Check for help
                if (args.Length == 0)
                {
                    ShowUsageMessage();
                }
                else if ((args[0] == "/?") || (args[0] == "/help"))
                {
                    ShowUsageMessage();
                }
                else
                {
                    //Parse out command line arguements
                    string xlsbFileNameArg = GetCommand("/x", args);
                    string viewNameArg = GetCommand("/v", args);
                    string activityNameArg = GetCommand("/a", args).Replace("[","").Replace("]","");
                    string schemaArg = GetCommand("/s", args).Replace("[", "").Replace("]", ""); ;

                    if (xlsbFileNameArg != string.Empty && viewNameArg != string.Empty
                        && activityNameArg != string.Empty && schemaArg != string.Empty)
                    {
                        string[] activityNames = activityNameArg.Split(new string[] { "," }, StringSplitOptions.None);
                        string[] schemas = schemaArg.Split(new string[] { "," }, StringSplitOptions.None);

                        GenerateXlsbXml(viewNameArg, activityNames, schemas);

                        //Write out the file
                        File.Delete(xlsbFileNameArg);
                        File.AppendAllText(xlsbFileNameArg, xlsbText.ToString(), Encoding.Unicode);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        Console.WriteLine("Incorrect arguements!");
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (System.Exception ex)
            {
                Console.Write(ex.ToString());
            }
        }

        private static string GetCommand(string commandToken, string[] args)
        {
            string commandValue = string.Empty;

            for (int i = 0; i < args.Length; i++)
            {
                if (args[i] == commandToken)
                {
                    commandValue = args[i + 1];
                    break;
                }
            }
            return commandValue;
        }

        private static void ShowUsageMessage()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Generates an xlsb BAM definition file conaining one view and multiple schema definitions to log to BAM.");
            Console.WriteLine("Syntax: BAMXlsbGenerator");
            Console.WriteLine("Commands:");
            Console.WriteLine("\t/x \txlsb file name");
            Console.WriteLine("\t/v \tBAM View definition name");
            Console.WriteLine("\t/a[] \tActivity names enclosed in [] comma separated, there must be one activity name per schema.");
            Console.WriteLine("\t/s[] \tSchema names enclosed in [] comma separated, there must be one schema name per activity.");
            Console.WriteLine("\t/? or /help \tDisplay this usage message");
        }

        private static void GenerateXlsbXml(string viewName, string[] activityNames, string[] schemas)
        {
            //Create an writer for building the xlsb
            xlsbText = new StringBuilder();
            XmlWriterSettings xmlWriterSettings = new XmlWriterSettings();
            xmlWriterSettings.Indent = true;
            XmlWriter xlsbWriter = XmlWriter.Create(xlsbText, xmlWriterSettings);

            //Start building xml
            xlsbWriter.WriteStartDocument();
            xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(BAMDefinition, BAMDefinitionNamespace);

            if (schemas.Length != activityNames.Length)
            {
                throw new ApplicationException("The number of activity names and schemas don't match.");
            }

Dictionary<string, string>[] checkpointIDsForSchemas = new Dictionary<string, string>[schemas.Length];
string[] activityIDs = new string[schemas.Length];

            //Create the activities
            for (int i = 0; i < schemas.Length; i++)
            {
                Dictionary<string, string> checkpointIDs;
                string activityID;
                CreateActivity(xlsbWriter, schemas[i], activityNames[i],
                    out checkpointIDs, out activityID);
                checkpointIDsForSchemas[i] = checkpointIDs;
                activityIDs[i] = activityID;
            }

            //Now create the view
            xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(View);
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, viewName);
            string viewID = Id + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, viewID);

            //Create Activity Views
            for (int i = 0; i < schemas.Length; i++)
            {
                CreateActivityView(xlsbWriter, activityNames[i],
                    checkpointIDsForSchemas[i], activityIDs[i]);
            }

xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //END View

xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Extension);
xlsbWriter.WriteElementString(OWC, OWCNamespace, "");

            xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //END Extension
            xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //END BAMDefinition
            xlsbWriter.WriteEndDocument();
            xlsbWriter.Flush();
        }

        private static void CreateActivityView(XmlWriter xlsbWriter, string activityName,
            Dictionary<string, string> checkpointIDs, string activityID)
        {
            xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(ActivityView);
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, View + activityName);
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, Id + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N"));
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(ActivityRef, activityID);

            //Loop through the dictionary and create the Aliases
            foreach (string key in checkpointIDs.Keys)
            {
                xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Alias);
                xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, key);
                xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, Id + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N"));
                xlsbWriter.WriteElementString(CheckpointRef, checkpointIDs[key]);
                xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //END Alias
            }

xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //END ActivityView
}

        private static void CreateActivity(XmlWriter xlsbWriter, string schema,
            string activityName, out Dictionary<string, string> checkpointIDs,
            out string activityID)
        {
            xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Activity);
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, activityName);
            activityID = Id + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");
            xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, activityID);

//Create a dictionary object to store the IDs in
checkpointIDs = new Dictionary<string, string>();

            //Open the schema
            XmlDocument xmlDocument = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDocument.Load(schema);

//The rules are

XmlNodeList xmlNodeList = xmlDocument.SelectNodes(XpathToAttribute);

            //Loop through all the attributes and create the new xslb schema
            foreach (XmlNode xmlNode in xmlNodeList)
            {
                string checkpointID = Id + Guid.NewGuid().ToString("N");
                checkpointIDs.Add(xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value, checkpointID);

                //Add the data type attributes
                if (xmlNode.OuterXml.Contains(XsdDateTime))
                {
                    xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Checkpoint);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, checkpointID);

xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataType, SqlDateTime);

                    xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Checkpoint
                }
                else if (xmlNode.OuterXml.Contains(XsdInteger))
                {
                    xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Checkpoint);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, checkpointID);

xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataType, SqlInt);

                    xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Checkpoint
                }
                else if (xmlNode.OuterXml.Contains(XsdDouble))
                {
                    xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Checkpoint);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, checkpointID);

xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataType, SqlFloat);

                    xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Checkpoint
                }
                else if (xmlNode.InnerXml.Contains(XsdString))
                {
                    xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Checkpoint);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, checkpointID);

xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataType, SqlNvarchar);

                    if (xmlNode.InnerXml.Contains(Length))
                    {
                        xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataLength,
                            xmlNode.SelectSingleNode(XpathToLength).InnerText);
                    }
                    else if (xmlNode.InnerXml.Contains(MaxLength))
                    {
                        xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataLength,
                            xmlNode.SelectSingleNode(XpathToMaxLength).InnerText);
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataLength, "255");
                    }

                    xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Checkpoint
                }
                else if (xmlNode.OuterXml.Contains(XsdString))
                {
                    xlsbWriter.WriteStartElement(Checkpoint);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(UCName, xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                    xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(Id, checkpointID);

xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataType, SqlNvarchar);
xlsbWriter.WriteAttributeString(DataLength, "255");

                    xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Checkpoint
                }
                else
                {
                    Console.Write("Unknown xsd datatype: " + xmlNode.OuterXml + " continuing to create xlsb.");
                    checkpointIDs.Remove(xmlNode.Attributes[LCName].Value);
                }
            }
            xlsbWriter.WriteEndElement(); //End Activity
        }
    }
}

How to call example: BAMXlsbGenerator /x "C:\Projects\SynboogalooSamples\Test.xlsb" /v TestView /a [TestActivityA,TestActivityB] /s [C:\Projects\SynboogalooSamples\SampleTransactionA.xsd,C:\Projects\SynboogalooSamples\SampleTransactionB.xsd]

This saved me a lot of time all I needed to do now to finish setting up BAM was deploy the xlsb BAM definition using the BM.exe tool and use the Tracking Profile Editor to associate the message payload with the BAM activity definition about 5 minutes of drag n' drop work. In the BAM Portal system testers can query transformed data and can even query the BAM tables if they want. They are able through BAM relationships to view the message contents each time it has been modified and logged to BAM.

I found this technique was a quick and simple way of empowering system testers to test BizTalk applications.

I should note another option for System Testing EAI solutions is to go with an implementation of FIT (Framework For Integration Testing) here is a blog with more info.

Rob

Passed the BizTalk 2006 Exam

Rob Addis — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 02:25:00 GMT

84% it wasn't that bad, but it should have been easy after 3+ years working with BizTalk, lots on BAM and the BRE. I think I lost marks on the drag and drop questions and there was a tricky question on coding a BRE fact retriever. I used Saravana's exam preparation diary.

BizTalk R2 Beta 2 is supposed to be a public release, so non-TAPpers can get their hands on it

Rob Addis — Wed, 04 Apr 2007 01:26:00 GMT

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Beta 2 released - Thanks Mike ;)

in a sequential convoy the ports must be identical

Rob Addis — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 01:46:00 GMT

A client was getting this compile error "in a sequential convoy the ports must be identical" when compiling an orchestration which had two consecutive receive ports in a sequential convoy. The answer was simple they needed to use a concurrent convoy not a sequential convoy.

A must have for WCF development

Rob Addis — Thu, 29 Mar 2007 09:30:00 GMT

If you haven't already download and install the Service Factory it really reduces the time taken to build and publish your WCF services to IIS letting you concentrate on implementing business logic. Unfortunately it doesn't come with any refactoring functionality.

Goodbye Synergy hello London

Rob Addis — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 01:33:00 GMT

I haven't posted for a while I've just finished work on a Banks SOA framework written with extensive use of WCF (which is very very extensible!). Started work implementing their Kiwisaver group investments initiative in BizTalk 2006 R2. We were one of the first out of the blocks in utilising the R2 WCF adapter (could be a bit more configurable), the WCF interceptor and AS2 adapter (interesting BAM continuations). Then after 3 years I decided to leave Synergy and go freelance for a while before moving back to the UK. On the same day I left Synergy I sold my bach and bought a new investment property so it's been busy.

It's been a truly fabulous 3 years working for Synergy International in New Zealand which has recently been re-branded as Fronde. For those of you looking for a change to kick start career development this professional organisation is continuing to grow in all the right directions, they offer great training opportunities, working and learning from very experienced people in a family oriented enviroment.

Well for the next few months I'm integrating a portfolio CRM to an investment banks core trading systems again in BizTalk and among other things using BAM for system testing which I will post on later.

Ciao

Rob

Implementation of Message Transformation Normaliser Pattern in the BizTalk 2004

Rob Addis — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 10:55:00 GMT

This is a simple explanation of how to join together two schemas with a 1:1 relationship between them in the Biztalk Mapper. I came across this problem when I had 2 legacy csv files which needed to be merged (using a unique identifier field in each file) before further processing could occur in a Biztalk Orchestration.

I will show by example. The example is a bit convoluted, but stay with me ;) different departments are ordering the same parts but are paying different prices we want to see the difference in price for the parts. There are also fields missing from each field which we want to add to the finished schema.

1) So first create 2 schemas one for each department, note the common PartID which is the unique identifier and price, but also not that one file comes with a Part name and another with a manufacturer:

2) Create the Output Schema

3) Now create an orchestration which will call the Map to join the two schemas by taking them both in and using a transform shape to map the two then it will output them

4) Set the transform properties as below create a new map set the destination to the output map

5) Which will create a map

6) Finally the biz … ok on the map join the common fields from the first schema (but not the second) with fields in the output schema now add a script functoid and set it up like this. Using an XSLT template it will search the second message for the values (simple xpath) where the PartID in the first message matches the PartID in the second message. It will then return the value of the price attribute in the second message. From this you can see how powerful using inline xslt is.

7) Add another script block to get the manufacturer field set the inline script buffer to:

9) Join up the schemas in the final map like so … THE END!

R. Addis

Building a custom Pipeline Decoder component to modify a Message Context Property

Rob Addis — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 11:05:00 GMT

An instance of the Biztalk MessageContext is created and stays with each message until the message leaves Biztalk. It contains properties such as RecievePortName, RecieveFileName, MessageType i.e. all the meta data for a message.

If you want to modify this meta data you need to modify the IBaseMessageContext using either the following methods, this may be done in either a custom pipeline component or inside an orchestration:

IBaseMessageContext.Promote: Make the Message Context property a promoted property

IBaseMessageContext.Write: Make the Message Context Property a distinguished property

Where you make the call to modify the message context depends on WHEN it should be modified. If you want to use a message context property to correlate two messages you should do it inside a custom pipeline component. If you want to set the message context during processing after some decision logic do so in a Message Assignment shape in an Orchestration. We are only looking at doing it in a custom pipeline component.

An example of using this would be if you had two input files which needed to be correlated in an orchestration based on an id or date in the filename which defined a relationship between those files. Another example of a problem this would solve is found here: http://www.eggheadcafe.com/ng/microsoft.public.biztalk.server/post21008841.asp

So in both these cases we want to look at the file name of the message, extract and promote part of it so we can either use that extracted information to either correlate two or more incoming messages or base some decision logic on those properties. The way I’m going to show you how to do it is to actually overwrite the RecieveFileName property with the extracted value from it.

Notes:

• I am going to show you how we did it instead of just giving you code or a solution.

• Although I think “Biztalk Server 2004 Unleashed” tries too cover too much in one book it does have a very good explanation of Pipelines and what the different stages of a pipeline should implement.

1) Download Martijn Hoogendoorns’ Pipeline Component Wizard http://www.gotdotnet.com/Workspaces/Workspace.aspx?id=1d4f7d6b-7d27-4f05-a8ee-48cfcd5abf4a and install it:

a. Unzip the source code, open the Visual Studio sln file and rebuild the PipelineComponentWizardSetup project.

b. Right-click the PipelineComponentWizardSetup project and select “Install” to install it.

2) In your Biztalk project add a new project and select Biztalk Server Pipeline Component Project set the following properties in the wizard.

3) Explaining all of the Interfaces which are implemented in a pipeline component is not in the scope of this post. I will however advise you to take a quick look and familiarise your self with the following methods which implement the PropertyBag: Load, Save, ReadPropertyBag, WritePropertyBag.

The method of the Decode Pipeline Component which does the Biz is the Execute method to which we add the following code:

public Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage Execute(Microsoft.BizTalk.Component.Interop.IPipelineContext pc, Microsoft.BizTalk.Message.Interop.IBaseMessage inmsg)

{

//Make sure the message contexts property name isn't empty

if (_PropertyName != null)

{

//Get the current value of the property

object oPropertyValue = inmsg.Context.Read(_PropertyName, _PropertyNamespace);

if (oPropertyValue != null)

{

string sPropertyValue = (string)oPropertyValue;

System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex oReplaceRegularExpression =

new

System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex(_ReplaceRegularExpression);

//Replace the regular expression with the value specified

sPropertyValue =

oReplaceRegularExpression.Replace(sPropertyValue,_Value);

//Either promote or distinguish the property

if (_PromoteOrDistinguish == "Promote")

{

inmsg.Context.Promote(_PropertyName, _PropertyNamespace,

sPropertyValue);

}

else if (_PromoteOrDistinguish == "Distinguish")

{

inmsg.Context.Write(_PropertyName, _PropertyNamespace,

sPropertyValue);

}

return inmsg;

}

Note I have also changed the Value property to allow you replace with an empty string so you can remove characters using a regular expression.

public string Value

{

get

{

return _Value;

}

set

{

if (value == null)

{

_Value = string.Empty;

}

else

{

_Value = value;

}

4) Well that’s the development easy aye thanks to the Pipeline Component Wizard. As for testing I guess you could do this by STOP PRESS a much better way of debugging a pipeline:

• referencing the new pipeline component project in your Biztalk project

• change the output path in the pipeline components project properties dialog to C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\Pipeline Components

• adding the compiled pipeline dll as a component by right clicking on the pipeline component toolbar and choosing add new item then selecting the Biztalk Pipeline Components Tab

• placing a breakpoint in the Execute method code

• add the component to the decode stage of a pipeline where you want to use it set the properties on the decode component to (this is just a suggestion, the regular expression tries to remove all the characters around a date which was in a filename setting the ReceivedFileName property to a date)

• deploy your Biztalk project

• set up a receive port & location

• attach to the BTSNTSvc,exe process

• drop a file in the receive location and hopefully the debug runtime will stop at your breakpoint

5) To use the modified and promoted RecieveFileName property to correlate two messages

• create a Correlation Type and set the “Correlation Type Properties” property to FILE.ReceivedFileName

• create a Correlation Set based on this type

• initialise the correlation set property of the receive shape (for the messages which need to be correlated) to the name of the correlation set you created above

R. Addis

Business Activity Monitoring (BAM) and ASP.net 2.0 Web Parts

Rob Addis — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 06:49:00 GMT

Last year at the Microsoft BPI Conference in Seattle over a few beers Scott Alan (a Microsoft integration technology specialist) shared with me his idea about using ASP.net 2.0 Web Parts to present BAM data. The idea was to give managers a more precise, flexible and easy to use interface into their business processes, they could essentially go to one dashboard and get a historical and current view of how various areas of their business unit or organisation were doing.

I’ve searched the blogosphere half a year later and I’m surprised no one has written about this it’s so simple to build.

The only gripe I have is that ASP.net 2.0 Web Parts cannot be deployed to SharePoint Services 2003 you’ll have to wait until the next version out later this year. You can however get to grips with how build Web Parts to show BAM data on an ASP.net 2.0 page now. (you can use Son of SmartPart see feedback below)

This post isn’t going to cover how to enable BAM it also isn’t about how to build Web Parts the basics of which are covered in these 3 tutorials:

WebParts1

WebParts2

WebParts3

Here is a simple BAM dashboard (ok I’m not a graphic designer). From the right hand side of the page the manager selects what data in which format they want to view and where on the page it should sit. Once the web part is on the page they can drag it to where ever they want or get rid of it and display another one.

All the Web Parts

How to plug into BAM

I know of three ways to access BAM data the first is obvious just grab it from the Views in the BAMPrimaryImport database, the second is by accessing the cubes in SQL Server Anaylsis Services the third is by calling the Web Services which the BAM Portal uses to access BAM data (these are installed with BAM):

http://[server]/BAM/BAMQueryService/BamQueryService.asmx

http://[server]/BAM/BAMManagementService/BamManagementService.asmx

I developed 3 simple Web User Controls to display BAM Data, as a best practice I think it’s a good idea if you develop all your web parts as Web User Controls (these will be later wrapped up as Web Parts).

Web Part	Usage	Access method
Orders for Redmond	Graph of all the orders for the city of Redmond	BAM Query Service GetInstanceData web method
Subscribe to alert	Allows a user to subscribe to an existing alert	BAM Management Service GetAlertsSummary and AddSubscription web methods
Orders by city	Report with graph displaying the number of orders per city	View on BAMPrimaryDataBase

1) Orders for Redmond web part

Controls: an ASP.net 2.0 GridView

Code: (create a web reference to the BAMQueryService)

using System;

using System.Data;

using System.Configuration;

using System.Collections;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Security;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

using System.Security.Principal;

public partial class OrdersForRedmond : System.Web.UI.UserControl

{

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

//Create the instance query note that the ActivityID is always the first column returned

BamQueryService.InstanceQuery instanceQuery = new BamQueryService.InstanceQuery();

instanceQuery.SelectClauses = new string[] { "city", "product", "amount", "denied", "approved" };

//Create a filter expression and add it as a where clause

BamQueryService.ArrayOfWhereClausesFilterFilter whereClauseFilter = new BamQueryService.ArrayOfWhereClausesFilterFilter();

whereClauseFilter.Field = "City";

whereClauseFilter.Condition = "=";

whereClauseFilter.Logic = "And";

whereClauseFilter.Value = "Redmond";

instanceQuery.WhereClauses = new BamQueryService.ArrayOfWhereClausesFilterFilter[] { whereClauseFilter };

//Add credentials to call the WS (integrated security)

//Call the GetInstanceData web method and return the result

BamQueryService.BamQueryService bamQueryService = new BamQueryService.BamQueryService();

bamQueryService.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("administrator", "pass@word1");

BamQueryService.Column[][] result = bamQueryService.GetInstanceData("SalesManager", "OrderMgmt", instanceQuery, 30);

//Fill a data table this is a quick and dirty way of creating a datasource

//probably a better way to bind a 2d array

DataTable dataTable = new DataTable("OrdersTable");

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][0].Name);

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][1].Name);

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][2].Name);

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][3].Name);

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][4].Name);

dataTable.Columns.Add(result[0][5].Name);

for (int i = 0; result.GetUpperBound(0) >= i; i++)

{

DataRow dataRow = dataTable.NewRow();

dataRow[0] = result[i][0].Value;

dataRow[1] = result[i][1].Value;

dataRow[2] = result[i][2].Value;

dataRow[3] = result[i][3].Value;

dataRow[4] = result[i][4].Value;

dataRow[5] = result[i][5].Value;

dataTable.Rows.Add(dataRow);

}

//Fill the grid with the result

gvOrders.DataSource = dataTable;

gvOrders.DataBind();

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(), ex.ToString(), System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);

}

2) Subscribe to Alert web part

Note: some alerts must exist already in the BAM Portal

Controls: An ASP.net 2.0 Drop Down List, Text Box and a Button

Code: (create a web reference to the BAMManagementService)

using System;

using System.Data;

using System.Configuration;

using System.Collections;

using System.Web;

using System.Web.Security;

using System.Web.UI;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls;

using System.Web.UI.WebControls.WebParts;

using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls;

using System.Security.Principal;

public partial class SubscribeToAlert : System.Web.UI.UserControl

{

BamManagementService.BamManagementService _BamManagementService;

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

//Fill the subscriptions combo list box

//Add credentials to call the WS (integrated security)

//Call the GetAlertsSummary web method

_BamManagementService = new BamManagementService.BamManagementService();

_BamManagementService.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("administrator", "pass@word1");

BamManagementService.AlertSummary[] alertSummary =

_BamManagementService.GetAlertsSummary("SalesManager");

//Fill a data table this is a quick and dirty way of creating a datasource

//probably a better way to bind a 2d array

DataTable dataTable = new DataTable("AlertsTable");

dataTable.Columns.Add("Alerts");

for (int i = 0; alertSummary.GetUpperBound(0) >= i; i++)

{

DataRow dataRow = dataTable.NewRow();

dataRow[0] = alertSummary[i].Name;

dataTable.Rows.Add(dataRow);

}

//Fill the drop down list

ddlAlerts.DataSource = dataTable;

ddlAlerts.DataTextField = "Alerts";

ddlAlerts.DataValueField = "Alerts";

ddlAlerts.DataBind();

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(), ex.ToString(),

System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);

}

protected void btnSubscribeToAlert_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

try

{

//Create a subscription

BamManagementService.Subscription subscription = new BamManagementService.Subscription();

subscription.ID = new Guid().ToString();

subscription.Type = BamManagementService.SubscriptionType.email;

subscription.UserName = System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Name;

subscription.Address = txtEmailAddress.Text;

_BamManagementService = new BamManagementService.BamManagementService();

_BamManagementService.Credentials = new System.Net.NetworkCredential("administrator", "pass@word1");

_BamManagementService.AddSubscription("SalesManager", ddlAlerts.SelectedValue,

new BamManagementService.Subscription[] { subscription });

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(), ex.ToString(), System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);

}

3) Orders by City web part

Create a dataset and connect the BAMPrimaryImport database and select the View which contains the data you’re interested in.
Select add new item and choose report
Drag a Chart from the toolbox onto the report
Go to the Report menu and select Data Sources and then choose the dataset you created above
Play with the properties of the graph until you’re happy i.e. add x y cell data
Add a Web User Control to the project
Add a Report Viewer control and choose the report you just created

Code: none

Now you’ve got your Web User Controls (soon to be web Parts) if you haven’t already do the 3 web part tutorials above and build your page. This is just a simple example of how you can interface with BAM & use ASP.net 2.0 web parts to empower managers.

Windows Workflow Foundation, InfoPath and SharePoint Portal Server 2003

Rob Addis — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:22:00 GMT

I recently took a look at using Windows Workflow Foundation to create a simple Human Workflow to manage a procurement process on SharePoint Portal Server. So I set about integrating SharePoint Portal Server (SPS), InfoPath and Windows Workflow Foundation to achieve this goal was it easy … well yes.

Here are the blog entries I can remember which really helped me out.

Which Style of Workflow When

Windows Workflow + SharePoint 2003 + BizTalk Scenario Built Out (Unfortunately SharePoint Portal Server is not .net 2.0 compatible whereas SharePoint Services are)

Adventures with Windows Workflow – Hosting a Workflow with Tracing and Persistence

Windows Workflow Foundation ASP.Net State Machine

Basic user experience:

The InfoPath form was vaguely similar to the Purchase Request form which comes with InfoPath as a template.

Go to a SharePoint form library and enter a procurement request using an InfoPath form and submit it
An approver would then receive an email with a link to the InfoPath form asking them to click the link and then approve or reject the procurement they open the form, approve, reject and then submit it
Reject send email with form link back to requester
Approve send email to a higher approver or a PO issuer with form links they open the form, enter the PO number and then submit it

Note:

Only an approver can approve, only a PO issuer can issue PO numbers

I didn’t need to write a single line of code to create the InfoPath form it was super easy.

How it’s done

SharePoint Portal Server Event Sinks

As SPS 2003 is not .net 2.0 compatible I hosted my Win WF State Machine in an ASP.net 2.0 Web Service (I am going to go into greater detail of how to do this below).

I registered an ASP.net 1.0 event handler class (see following code) in the advanced settings of my Procurement Form Library on SPS. Each time an InfoPath from is saved or submitted this event handler is called. This just calls the ASP.net 2.0 Web Service passing the SPS site URL and the InfoPath file url so the State Machine can access, read and update properties on the InfoPath form.

Note you could just as easily not use the SPS event sink and call the web service from an InfoPath form, using the event sink just gave me an easy way of passing the SPS site URL and the InfoPath file url (from the SPListEvent arguement) to my Win WF hosting Web Service so I could gain control of the InfoPath form inside the state machine and modify it’s xml etc.

using System;

using System.Runtime.Serialization;

using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;

using System.IO;

using Microsoft.SharePoint;

using System.Security.Principal;

namespace Synergy.Procurement.Net1

{

public class SPEventHandler : Microsoft.SharePoint.IListEventSink

{

void IListEventSink.OnEvent(Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListEvent spEvent)

{

WindowsImpersonationContext wic = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Impersonate();

try

{

//Pass the enough information to instanciate the current SharePoint Task

//and the Microsoft.SharePoint.SPListEventType through a web service to Win Workflow

//this way all the workflow process logic is handeled by Win Workflow

//NOTE: need to call through a Web Service as only SPS runs on .Net 1.1 and

//Win Workflow on .Net 2.0

//Get the following information so we can reinstanciate the list item in the workflow

//site url

//list file url

SPWeb spActiveSite = spEvent.Site.OpenWeb();

string spSiteUrl = spActiveSite.Url;

string spFileUrl = spEvent.UrlAfter;

WSToWinWF.Service wsWWF = new Synergy.Procurement.Net1.WSToWinWF.Service();

wsWWF.Credentials = System.Net.CredentialCache.DefaultCredentials;

Boolean wsTestResult = wsWWF.Invoke(spSiteUrl, spFileUrl, System.Convert.ToByte(spEvent.Type));

}

catch (System.Exception e)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(),e.ToString());

}

finally

{

wic.Undo();

}

Hosting a State Machine in a Web Service

Once the .Net 2.0 Web Service is called its job is to:

Open the infopath form on the SPS Forms Library and deserialize the InfoPath xml into a serializable class (generated by the xsd utility in .net 2.0)

//Get the infopath file

SPWeb activeSite = new SPSite(spSiteUrl).OpenWeb();

SPFile spFile = activeSite.GetFile(spFileUrl);

//Get the infopath xml from the byte array of the file and read it into a memory //stream

Byte[] byteBuffer = spFile.OpenBinary();

MemoryStream xmlStream = new MemoryStream(byteBuffer);

//Now deserialise the infopath xml into a class

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(procurementRequest));

procurementRequest _pRequest;

_pRequest = (procurementRequest)serializer.Deserialize(xmlStream);

Start and stop the workflow runtime and add the ExternalDataExchangeService the in the Global.asax

void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

// NOTE: This requires the configuration section to be named "WorkflowRuntime".

System.Workflow.Runtime.WorkflowRuntime workflowRuntime = new System.Workflow.Runtime.WorkflowRuntime("WorkflowRuntime");

Application["WorkflowRuntime"] = workflowRuntime;

//Add the procurement service to the runtime

System.Workflow.Activities.ExternalDataExchangeService dataService = workflowRuntime.GetService();

Synergy.Procurement.Net2.LocalServices.ProcurementService procurementService = new Synergy.Procurement.Net2.LocalServices.ProcurementService();

dataService.AddService(procurementService);

//Start the runtime

workflowRuntime.StartRuntime();

}

void Application_End(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

System.Workflow.Runtime.WorkflowRuntime workflowRuntime = Application["WorkflowRuntime"] as System.Workflow.Runtime.WorkflowRuntime;

workflowRuntime.StopRuntime();

}

Create a new instance of the state machine or rehydrate an existing instance from SQL Server (I save the WorkFlow instance ID in the InfoPath Document) from the SqlWorkflowPersistenceService

private Guid StartWorkflowInstance()

{

WorkflowRuntime workflowRuntime = (WorkflowRuntime)Application["WorkflowRuntime"];

//Now get a reference to the ManualWorkflowSchedulerService

_schedulerService = workflowRuntime.GetService();

//Get the current procurement service if haven't already

if (_procurementService == null)

{

ExternalDataExchangeService dataService = workflowRuntime.GetService();

_procurementService = (ProcurementService)dataService.GetService(typeof(ProcurementService));

}

//Get the instanceid from the infopath document

System.Guid WorkflowInstanceId;

//Start the instance if not started

if (_spListEventType == SPListEventType.Insert)

{

WorkflowInstanceId = Guid.NewGuid();

_workflowInstance = workflowRuntime.CreateWorkflow(typeof(MainStateMachine), null, WorkflowInstanceId);

_workflowInstance.Start();

}

//Load an existing instance

else

{

//Get the instanceid from the infopath document

WorkflowInstanceId = new Guid(_pRequest.referenceNumber);

_workflowInstance = workflowRuntime.GetWorkflow(WorkflowInstanceId);

_workflowInstance.Load();

}

// Now run the workflow. This is necessary when

// ...using the ManualWorkflowSchedulerService

_schedulerService.RunWorkflow(WorkflowInstanceId);

return WorkflowInstanceId;

}

Decide upon which implemented ExternalDataExchange event to raise. This is based on the SPListEventType and the properties in the serializable class representing the InfoPath document (Windows Workflow Foundation ASP.Net State Machine). Create an ExternalDataExchange interface and class with which to call through to event handlers in the StateActivities on your state machine. I pass through the following event arguments:

o WorkFlow instance ID (GUID)

o SPS site URL

o InfoPath file url

o The serializable class representing the InfoPath document

Note:

o You will need to impersonate the current windows identity before accessing the SharePoint site (call the OpenWeb method etc) and the users must have access to SharePoint

WindowsImpersonationContext wic = WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent().Impersonate();

o It is important in your Service class to set the following ExternalDataEventArgs property before raising the event

e.WaitForIdle = true;

o The Win WF Beta2 ManualWorkflowSchedulerService has a bug which may be fixed by calling it’s RunWorkflow method after each time you raise an ExternalDataExchange event in the web service.

The State Machine

It looks like this (simple aye):

The purpose of the state machine is to send emails to various managers requesting approval for procurement, notify procurement requesters of approval or rejection and email office admin staff to assign a PO number. It also updates values on the InfoPath form hosted on the SharePoint site for example the WorkFlow instance ID I talked about earlier. It decides what emails/updates to make based on what events are raised in which particular state. A procurement may need to be approved by several managers up the management chain thus many approval events may be raised (by different managers) once in the ProcurementApproved State Activity.

Below is the code to save back the InfoPath document to the SharePoint site once various updates have been made.

private void SaveInfoPathDoc()

{

//Create an XmlTextWriter to add processing instructions and write the contents out to a memory stream

MemoryStream memoryStream = new MemoryStream();

XmlTextWriter xmlTextWriter = new XmlTextWriter(memoryStream, System.Text.Encoding.UTF8);

//FIX: Add the processing instructions to the top of the xml document this is

//because they are lost in the serialisation\deserialisation process

xmlTextWriter.WriteProcessingInstruction("mso-infoPathSolution",

ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("InfoPathPI_mso-infoPathSolution"));

xmlTextWriter.WriteProcessingInstruction("mso-application",

ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("InfoPathPI_mso-application"));

xmlTextWriter.WriteProcessingInstruction("mso-infoPath-file-attachment-present",

ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("InfoPathPI_mso-infoPath-file-attachment-present"));

//Serialise the xml flush the writer and get the byte array _supportEmail the stream

XmlSerializer serializer = new XmlSerializer(typeof(procurementRequest));

serializer.Serialize(xmlTextWriter, _pRequest);

xmlTextWriter.Flush();

Byte[] byteBuffer = memoryStream.ToArray();

//FIX: Sometimes sharepoint locks the infopath document even though it has been submitted

//in the config file are two appSettings values: RetrySaveInterval & TimesToRetrySave

//which are the retry parameters in case this occurs

int timesToRetrySave = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("TimesToRetrySave"));

//Convert seconds to milli seconds

int retrySaveInterval = Convert.ToInt32(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings.Get("RetrySaveInterval")) * 1000;

for (int i = 0; i < timesToRetrySave; i++)

{

try

{

//Get hold of the active site and infopath file

SPWeb activeSite = new SPSite(_pse.SharePointSiteUrl).OpenWeb();

SPFile spFile = activeSite.GetFile(_pse.SharePointFileUrl);

//Overwrite the infopath xml back

spFile.SaveBinary(byteBuffer);

break;

}

catch (Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException ex)

{

//If we've run out of retries then write an error to the event log

if (i >= timesToRetrySave - 1)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(), ex.ToString(), System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);

}

else

{

//Wait for the retry interval

System.Threading.Thread.Sleep(retrySaveInterval);

}

catch (Exception ex)

{

System.Diagnostics.EventLog.WriteEntry(this.ToString(), ex.ToString(), System.Diagnostics.EventLogEntryType.Error);

break;

}

Extras

Used the External RuleSet Demo to make decisions based on attributes in InfoPath doc instance like BusinessUnit, TotalCost on which manager should receive an email to approve\reject a procurement (I was surprised how easy it was to fit this in).
InfoPath form access security: I made active directory lookups on email addresses got user logons and updated them in the InfoPath doc which allowed me in InfoPath to ensure only authorised managers/systems administrator’s had access to update approval information in controls on the InfoPath form.
For debugging I found this invaluable Windows WorkFlow Tracing