HandleMessaging (HandleProtocolMessaging) Activity
The HandleMessaging activity works in conjunction with the IdentifyProtocolOperations activity.
The activity generates the XML message per marketplace requirements based on operations identified by the IdentifyProtocolOperations activity. The generated message is in MLXML format.
The generated XML includes three parts:
- The message header – This contains the credential information and is common to all marketplaces.
- The message structure – This section defines packaging of the outgoing message. It also defines transaction boundaries (where transactions are supported by channel). This section is marketplace specific.
- The item data – This contains the record data as required by the targeted marketplace.
The activity also takes parameters which indicate the number of operations/commands to be sent as part of a single message.
Typically, after this activity you would have a translate activity, followed by a SendProtocolMessage activity. After SendProtocolMessage, the HandleMessaging is called again to send any additional messages that need to be sent.
Based on the ProtocolMessagingCommand given to the activity, the activity behaves differently. START and CONTINUE are used for normal operations. SUSPEND is a request to suspend the process. ABORT is issued in cases where the entire process is to be aborted. TIMEOUT allows handling of cases where responses for a message sent are not received within a set amount of time. During normal processing, the ProtocolMessagingNextCommand generated by the activity as part of a ‘send’ loop is used as the ProtocolMessagingCommand in the next ‘send’ loop.