You can access an attribute or element in two different ways within Biztalk using ‘Distinguished Fields’ and ‘Promoted Properties’. A basic rule for ‘which to use’ would be: Always use a Distinguished Field, unless you need to route, track, or correlate on the content, then use promoted fields.

Promoted Properties
Promoted properties are message context properties that are used by the BizTalk Messaging Engine for purposes of document routing, for message tracking, and for evaluation in Orchestrations. You can explicitly elevate a field in a document to the message context as a Property field by editing the schema for the document in the BizTalk Server Schema Editor that is available in Visual Studio. In order to write a field in a document to the message context as a property field, the document schema must have an associated property schema. Property fields are limited to 255 characters. The IsPromoted property of Property fields in the message context is set to True.

Distinguished Fields
Distinguished fields are message context properties that do not require a separate property schema and that are only accessible from Orchestrations. Distinguished fields cannot be used for routing or tracking. Since Distinguished fields do not require a separate property schema, the evaluation of Distinguished fields by the Orchestration engine consumes less overhead than the evaluation of Property fields by the Orchestration engine. The evaluation of Property fields requires an XPath query, the evaluation of Distinguished fields does not require an XPath query as the pipeline disassembler populates the Distinguished fields in the context and the orchestration engine reads the cached values. However, if the orchestration engine does not find the property in the context, it will then initiate an XPath query to find the value. Distinguished fields do not have a size limitation. The IsPromoted property of Distinguished fields in the Message context is set to False.

See here the Source

It’s possible to set the filename of a messages that your are going to send out in the orchestration. Just set the  ‘ReceivedFileName’ context property of the outbound messages that you created.

This should look like this:
OutboundMessage(FILE.ReceivedFileName) = "TheNewFancyFileName.xml";

After this you have to set the filemask in the sendport to %SourceFileName% (it’s case sensitive). The %SourceFileName% macro does not need an additional extension (like .xml or .txt) after it like the %MessageId% macro.

Other possible macros

%MessageID%
Unique identifier of the message in BizTalk Server (GUID). The value is taken directly from message context property BTS.MessageID

%datetime_bts2000%
UTC date time in format YYYYMMDDhhmmsss, where sss means seconds and milliseconds (e.g. 199707121035234 means 1997/07/12, 10:35:23 and 400 milliseconds)

%datetime%
UTC date time in format YYYY-MM-DDThhmmss (e.g. 1997-07-12T103508)

%datetime.tz%
Local date time + time zone from GMT in format YYYY-MM-DDThhmmssTZD, (e.g. 1997-07-12T103508+800)

%time%
UTC time in format hhmmss

%time.tz%
Local time + time zone from GMT in format hhmmssTZD (e.g. 124525+530)

When you’re sending EDI messages with Biztalk 2006 and you need to modify one of the standard edi message, just modify the schema for your needs. Add new enumerations, change the sequence and rename the elements, but always change the namespace. So you can work with the normal (original) schema and the custom schema at the same time / server.

When you receive a custom EDI message, you have to specify the namespace of the right custom edi schema in the edi properties of the sending party. You can find this setting at the next place: ‘Party as Interchange Sender’ / ‘EDIFACT Interchange Processing Properties’ / ‘Enable custom transaction set definitions’. Here you can set a custom namespace for a type of inbound edi message. For example:

You can find the UNH2.1 till 2.5 in the edi message:

UNB+UNOC:2+112233:ZZZ+445566:ZZZ+080902:0009+123'
UNH+1+IFTSTA:D:99B:UN'
BGM+23+IFTSTA+9'(...etc)

The visual mapper of BizTalk that allows you to map an xml message to another xml message can be very handy when we’re talking about little xml files, but when you need to map a bigger xml file it gets very unstructured and difficult to maintain!

So check out this nice picture about the visual mapper that realizes a mapping between two ‘little’ xml files… Here you see only five lines:

Oke, but what if you have two xsd’s with 200 elements in it (at both sides). You’ll get something like this:

As you can imagine, this mapping is very hard to maintain. You have to possibility to use tabs, but this is not going to make the mapping easier! So what can you do to simplify this?

1) Generate a code version of the XSD with a tool like XSD CodeGen
2) Create a new class with some public properties to Serialize and Deserialize the XmlDocuments.
3) Create a custom mapping to map one XmlDocument to the other. This will look like this:

oLine.Item.Item1 = Helpers.Left(oSource.Item1, 15);
oLine.Item.Item2 = Helpers.Left(oSource.Item2, 15);
oLine.Item.Item3 = Helpers.Left(oSource.Item3, 20);

So here you see every line under each other and I think this is a very easy way to maintain your mappings. You don’t have to deal with functoids because it’s a C# class and you can program whatever you like. When you put this mapping methods in a separate dll, you can easily deploy a mapping change with only a dll copy/gac method.

NOTE: Make sure that your mapping C# classes are Serializable. This is needed for the orchestrations and otherwise it won’t work!

So today I received the next error thrown by BizTalk Server in the eventlog. The problem is that there are two schemas deployed with the same namespaces. So after I checked all the projects that were installed, I found out that I added the same schema twice in one project…..

There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: “Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive” Source: “XML disassembler” Receive Location: ” C:\MessageStore\*.xml Reason: Cannot locate document specification as multiple schemas match the message type http://Schemas.InboundOrder#Root.

The tutorials explain how to automate business processes within your company and among business partners, how to use Web services, and how to implement trading partner management and monitor business activities.

The BizTalk Server Tutorial package includes Word documents, and BizTalk Server solution files. When you download and install the tutorial package the Word documents and the BizTalk Server solution files are installed by default in “C/Programs Files/Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004/SDK”.

Click here to download the tutorial

Start your BizTalk Server 2004 and 2006 experience with checking out all the virtual labs on MSDN. These labs really helps you to understand BizTalk Server.  Virtual Lab Express is the fastest and easiest way to test drive Microsoft products and the Virtual Lab environment. These are 30-minute hands-on overviews of some of your favorite Microsoft products and developer tools. Try them out on-line now – no need to download full trial versions or dedicate test machines

BizTalk Server 2006 Virtual Labs

• MSDN Virtual Lab Express: What’s New in BizTalk Server 2006 
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Schemas
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Working with Maps
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Working with Pipelines
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Processing Flat Files
• MSDN Virtual Lab: New Features for Processing Flat Files and Batch Messages using BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integration with POP3 and SharePoint and Routing Failed Messages
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating an Orchestration
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Implementing Transactions
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Business Rules in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Enabling Business Activity Monitoring
• MSDN Virtual Lab: New Features for Deploying and Managing a BizTalk Application in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: WCF Introduction – Building a WCF Service
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Using the WCF Adapters in BizTalk Server 2006 R2
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Using the BizTalk Server 2006 R2 WF and WCF BAM Interceptors
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Building a Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Adapter using the WCF LOB Adapter SDK
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Processing EDI messages with BizTalk Server 2006 R2
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Sending EDI Messages with BizTalk Server 2006 R2
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Building an RFID application with BizTalk Server 2006 R2
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Legacy Data with BizTalk Applications using BizTalk Adapters for Host Systems
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Legacy Data with .NET Framework applications using Host Integration Server 2006
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Legacy Applications with BizTalk Applications using BizTalk Adapter for Host Systems
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Integrating Legacy Applications with .NET Framework applications using Host Integration Server 2006

BizTalk Server 2004 Virtual Labs

• MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating Schemas using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Creating a Schema Map
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Enabling Message Routing in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Creating a Custom Encryption Pipeline
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Creating a Deployment Package
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Tracking and Debugging Messages in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating and Debugging an Orchestration using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Working with Orchestration Shapes in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Creating Transactions using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Consuming a Web Service
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Publishing a Web Service in Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004
• MSDN Virtual Lab: Enabling Business Activity Monitoring using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004

If you like to clean up the tracking database of Biztalk Server 2004, you can just do this by running some little queries.

Open Query Analyzer and connect to the (Biztalk Tracking) BizTalkDTADb database. Then open the file called Purge_DTADB.sql in the next directory: “C:\Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004\SDK\Samples\Admin\Database Maintenance”. Run this script (F5) and this script will create a storedprocedure called ‘dtasp_PruneTrackingDatabase’. This sp takes only a single parameter called: @PruneBeforeDate.  Executing this SP causes the tracking data to be purged that was older then the given date

This is the query to purge the tracking information  older than today:

DECLARE @Today datetime
SET @Today = GETDATE()

EXEC dtasp_PruneTrackingDatabase @Today

When you want to deploy the Covast Engine Input File (EIF) and you receive an error about an locked EDI repository, please read on for the solution. Covast locks his repository in the table called ‘parame’. So here lies also the possibility to ‘unlock’ your repository!

The solution is to connect with SQL Query Analyzer to the ‘CovastDB’ database and run the next query:

UPDATE parame
SET repolock = NULL
WHERE pc in (SELECT TOP 1 pc FROM parame) 

When you like to change the maxlength parameter of an numeric element of an EDI message, you’ll find out that there is a dirty, nasty little bug in Covast. It can take you weeks to find out how this is actually working.

So as an example, we’re going to change and fix (max) length value of the 9308 Seal_Number element located in the EDI ‘IFTMIN D 99B Default UN’ message. First we open Covast Studio and go to the document repository.

Then you need to find the Seal_Number element with the 9308 tag, or just some other numeric element that you like to change.

So you can open the detail selection of the Seal_Number element by right clicking on this row.

So what we want to achieve is that the Covast transforms the numeric value to a string (EDI)with a fixed length of 15 characters. The problem is that however you checked the ‘fixed length’ checkbox, it won’t work. Covast still translates every input seal number to a value with NO fixed length. The fix is to uncheck the ‘fixed length’ checkbox. Don’t ask me why but it works!

NOTE: don’t forget to recompile the Covast Engine Input File.!

Covast maxlength translation error:
Error encountered: ERROR (62), docnr 10888 :
The length of the element is not correct. Contact the sender.
source format: [101 0 ,XML 1.0]
source document: [IFTMIND 99BDEFAULT UN,Instruction message]
source segment: [data#203,def#1532,name=SEL_Seal_number_S133]
source element: [def#1,elm#0,comp#0,name=_9308_Seal_number_E1], value: [12345678
9012345], maximum length: [10] (msgnr:1 segnr:203)(line:290 pos:29 filepos:17269