XML

Pipelines

Pipelines connect an inbound agreement to an outbound agreement. For example, you could have an inbound agreement created from an order application that takes orders and sends them to BizTalk Server 2000. Once they arrive on BizTalk Server 2000, an outbound agreement is used to send these orders to a distributor. The connection of the inbound and outbound agreements creates a pipeline.

To create a pipeline, you must always select the outbound agreement first. Click on the Northwind Traders Europe Outbound agreement. On the File menu, choose New, and then choose Pipeline. The Pipeline Editor opens in the lower-right pane of the BizTalk Management Desk. In this example, orders will be sent from the Internal Orders department to BizTalk Server 2000 and then forwarded to the European offices. We will use the two agreements we have created to do this.

In the Pipeline Editor, type PO Pipeline as the pipeline name. Click the Inbound Agreement icon to open the Select An Inbound Agreement screen. Choose Northwind Internal, and then choose CommonPO.xml as the inbound and outbound document definitions. Click Save. To view the pipeline you have created, go to the View menu and choose Pipeline. This will open the Pipeline Viewer, where you can view the available pipelines.

Distribution Lists

A distribution list consists of a set of complete outbound agreements that you can use to send the same document to a group of different trading partner organizations. A distribution list can support only one outbound document definition. When a distribution list is created, the default organization automatically becomes the source organization.

To create a distribution list, on the File menu, click New, and then click Distribution List to open the Distribution List Editor. Type Northwind Distribution List for the Distribution List Name field. Click the Browse button and select the CommonPO.xml document definition in the Select An Outbound Document Definition screen. Click OK. This will enable the Refresh button for the agreements. In the Distribution List Editor, click Refresh. The only outbound agreement that we have created is Northwind Traders Europe. Click this agreement in the Available Agreements window and click Add. If we had other agreements, we could add them, too. Click OK.