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Home > Archive > BizTalk Server Applications Integration > November 2004 > Where to begin, Biztalk & VBA
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Where to begin, Biztalk & VBA
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| Ronald 2004-11-08, 2:46 am |
| Hi,
I really don't know if this is the correct group for my question, but you
probably will be able to point me in the right direction:
We have to connect to Biztalk with our Word-VBA application. Our customer
says it's just XML talk going on, but XML is no protocol, or am I wrong?
Anyway, how do you talk to biztalk with xml? Is it similar like SQL, with
connections and adapters? Are there any starting point websites for this
VBA-Biztalk talk?
I hope you can help.
Ronald
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| TheNortonZ 2004-11-08, 5:47 pm |
| If you customer is truly just sending you an XML document, and not a Word
document, the BizTalk can be used to process the document. BizTalk does have
connectors, and for plain XML the pickup of the document is quite simple.
Maybe you could explain what you want to do when you get the document?
Norton
"Ronald" <rpothuiz@noneedforthis.gmx.net> wrote in message
news:418f2d89$0$19134$802e34e2@news.novaxess.net...
> Hi,
>
> I really don't know if this is the correct group for my question, but you
> probably will be able to point me in the right direction:
>
> We have to connect to Biztalk with our Word-VBA application. Our customer
> says it's just XML talk going on, but XML is no protocol, or am I wrong?
> Anyway, how do you talk to biztalk with xml? Is it similar like SQL, with
> connections and adapters? Are there any starting point websites for this
> VBA-Biztalk talk?
>
> I hope you can help.
>
> Ronald
>
>
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| Ronald 2004-11-09, 2:48 am |
| "TheNortonZ" <thenortonz@hotmail.com> schreef in bericht
news:%23Hj5YDbxEHA.2016@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> If you customer is truly just sending you an XML document, and not a Word
> document, the BizTalk can be used to process the document. BizTalk does
have
> connectors, and for plain XML the pickup of the document is quite simple.
> Maybe you could explain what you want to do when you get the document?
Norton, thanks for your reply, I see now I wasn't very clear on the exact
subject.
My needed connection has nothing to do (yet) with documents themselfs, The
client has Microsoft CRM and they want that our documentcreation application
(VBA-WORD) reads the contacts from Microsoft CRM. The thing is, they want it
read through Biztalk. I know it may look like a wrong turn, but you must
understand that there are many parties and software involved, and they want
to manage everything through Biztalk. Don't ask me why, I don't even really
know what Biztalk does.
So what needs to be done:
Version 1: (network intensive?)
- My Word application needs to ask Biztalk for a list which includes all
contact data (addresses and such).
Or
Version 2: (less network intensive?)
- My Word application asks Biztalk for a list with all contact names
- My user selects one
- My application asks Biztalk for the corresponding contact data.
My problem is: can I ask Biztalk to give me those things, if so, how? If I
cannot ask Biztalk this, do I need to get it myself from Biztalk (SQL data
or so?)?
I Hope this clarify's my problem.
Ronald
> "Ronald" <rpothuiz@noneedforthis.gmx.net> wrote in message
> news:418f2d89$0$19134$802e34e2@news.novaxess.net...
you[vbcol=seagreen]
customer[vbcol=seagreen]
with[vbcol=seagreen]
>
>
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| Hugo Rodger-Brown 2004-11-10, 7:47 am |
| Ronald - if you want to do it through BizTalk you'll need to take a couple
of things into account.
BizTalk is based on messaging, and therefore implicitly with loosely-coupled
asynchronous communication. What you want to do is akin to synchronous
function calling, which can be achieved through BizTalk in a couple of ways.
The first is to impersonate synchronous messaging using an orchestration
that is exposed as a web service / through HTTP. Take a look at
http://www.eaipatterns.com/ComposedMessagingWS.html for a general
description of the pattern required for a "Synchronous Implementation using
Web Services".
See also the help topic ms-help://BTS_2004/SDK/htm/ebiz_sdk_samples_yzhk.htm
in the BizTalk documentation, which describes the sample available
("HTTPRequestResponse (BizTalk Server Sample)").
This implementation, being synchronous, means that the client connection is
held open for the duration required for BizTalk to perform the processing
necessary to retrieve the data.
The second method is to go asynchronous, in which case you'll need some kind
of callback mechanism - your application will need to have some way of
receiving the data from BizTalk. In this model, you'll still call BizTalk in
the same way, but you won't receive any data at that time. Instead, BizTalk
will retrieve the data, then return it to your application when it has got
everything it needs - so your app would need to expose a web service that
BizTalk can call, or monitor a file store / message queue (whatever is
appropriate) for the response. This method is more robust, and network
friendly (as it's not hogging bandwidth or connections), but more complex to
implement.
Either way, the issue of whether you ask for everything at once, or in two
calls, is a separate issue.
I'm afraid the root of this lies in understanding what BizTalk does, and how
it works - it isn't a product that you can really get anything out of
without putting the time in first...
Hugo
http://hugo.rodger-brown.com
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| Hugo Rodger-Brown 2004-11-11, 2:46 am |
| There is of course a third solution that combines the other two - calling
the BizTalk web service asynchronously and then polling a separate web
service for the result. This is much less satisfactory, and complex to
implement, but may be required if you are unable to host web services for
the callback.
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