Promoted properties

A promoted property is a message flow node property that has been promoted to the level of the message flow in which it is included.

A message flow contains one or more message flow nodes. You can promote the properties of a message flow node to apply to the message flow to which it belongs. In this case, any user of the message flow can override these promoted properties at the message flow level, without being aware of the message flow's internal structure.

You can promote compatible properties (that is, properties that represent comparable values) from more than one node to the same promoted property; you can then set a single property that affects multiple nodes.

For example, you might want to set the name of a data source as a property of the message flow, rather than a property of each individual node in the message flow that references that data source. You create a message flow that accesses a database called SALESDATA. However, while you are testing the message flow, you want to use a test database called TESTDATA. If you set the data source properties of each individual node in the message flow to refer to SALESDATA, you can promote the data source property for each node in the flow that refers to it, and update the property to have the value TESTDATA; this value overrides the data source properties on the nodes while you test the message flow (the promoted property always takes precedence over the settings for the properties in any relevant nodes).

A subset of message flow node properties is also configurable (that is, the properties can be updated at deployment time). You can promote configurable properties: if you do so, the promoted property (which can have a different name from the property or properties that it represents) is the one that is available to update at deployment time. Configurable properties are those associated with system resources; for example, queues and data sources. An administrator can set these properties at deployment time, without the need for a message flow developer.