AS2 Predefined Business Processes

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The AS2 implementation uses predefined business processes (in conjunction with predefined services) to implement the AS2 EDIINT protocol. These predefined business processes are automatically installed and configured when you install the Sterling B2B Integrator AS2 Edition or the Sterling B2B Integrator.

The AS2 implementation uses these predefined business processes along with services to build and transmit messages to trading partners. Data files are collected from the file system or extracted from mailboxes, or they are sent to be processed using a Direct Processing business process. After the Sterling B2B Integrator collects files from the file system, extracts files from mailboxes, or if sending files directly, it launches business processes that:
  • Encapsulate the data files into AS2-compliant messages.
  • Attempt to transmit those messages through HTTP or HTTPS.
  • Potentially process responses or acknowledgments to those messages.

Sterling B2B Integrator provides business processes for sending messages and checking for acknowledgments (MDNs). These business processes contain built-in error notification mechanisms that can continue to send e-mails if an MDN is not received, or if a negative MDN is received.

Existing predefined AS2 business processes include enhanced retry logic for each partner, and a parameter that enables you to specify how many files to retrieve from a partner's file system during each scheduled interval. This enables the Sterling B2B Integrator to stop send attempts to a partner's system when it is down. This limits how many processes the system starts at any one time, and prevents the Sterling B2B Integrator from overloading itself and your partner's system.

These business processes can detect several types of errors and can inform users and restage data files if errors occur. The business processes attempt to retry in the following situations:
  • When what is potentially a transient HTTP error is detected based on the return code (408, 503, or 504).
  • When an asynchronous Message Disposition Notification (MDN) is requested, and the MDN does not show up in the MDN timeout interval.
  • When you are collecting and saving data using the file system, a scheduled business process, AS2 File System Adapter.bpml, invokes the Schedule_<TP Name>_FS.bpml, which collects data files from the file system. The EDIINT Message Service is used to build AS2 messages and process acknowledgments. The HTTPClientSend business process is used to transmit messages using HTTP. The Wait service is used to wait for acknowledgments or for an interval to expire before a retry, and the EDIINT Acknowledge Check Service is used to check for acknowledgments.
The following steps summarize the activities completed by business processes when sending messages:
  1. Business processes send messages requesting synchronous receipts, asynchronous receipts, or no receipts.
  2. Based on the receipt options specified for a trading partner, the business processes handle business documents, as appropriate.
  3. The following provide an overview of activities completed by predefined business processes when receiving messages:
    • Business processes parse messages, generate and send receipts.
    • Using the File System adapter, the business processes extract business documents.
    • Predefined business processes run up to three times if the message transaction is not completed within a specified amount of time. The Sterling B2B Integrator AS2 Edition enables you to monitor the predefined business processes and perform manual activities, such as starting and stopping predefined business processes.
The following types of business processes enable document transactions with the Sterling B2B Integrator AS2 Edition:
  • Extraction business process
  • Message sending business process