Outbound Acknowledgment task

Outbound acknowledgment is an automated system for handling the reporting of status among institutions. Distribution has an event-based engine that sends, without user interaction, outbound acknowledgment messages that conform to industry standards. It is implemented as a task that adheres to the Services Framework architecture and must be configured to run in Services Framework. Services Framework uses a plug in architecture, which runs in a Java™ Platform, Enterprise Edition environment, to access service engine for the task with a web-based user interface. This user interface provides a monitoring page that allows outbound acknowledgment tasks to be checked for failure and restarted when needed.

Common Services automates the processing of financial information as it arrives at the processing center. Financial information arrives in the form of transmissions that are sent by financial institutions. A transmission might contain multiple batches (ICLs). Each batch (ICL) can have multiple segments that, in turn, can contain multiple transactions. The quality of the financial information is checked. The processing options are determined and the information is saved in a database so it can be managed as it makes its way through the financial accounting system. Batches (ICLs) exiting the system for presentment to participants for reconciliation are called outbound batches (ICLs).

Gateway Server and Transaction Server load the incoming batches (ICLs) and save the financial information in a database. After the batches (ICLs) are processed, the Distribution engine creates and sends the outbound transmission to Gateway. Gateway initiates delivery of the transmission to the customer by sending the transmission to the channel. As the transmission is being sent, Gateway tracks its status and updates the database with status information and the timestamp.

The Distribution engine can be configured to create an outbound acknowledgment request when an outbound transmission is sent. This request is sent to the message queue on which Services Framework is listening for notifications. After the message is received, an outbound acknowledgment task is run. The task processes the content of the message, queries the database to get participant information, and constructs the acknowledgment XML message. The XML message is put in a target directory along with routing information and a signal file that indicates the files are ready.

The target directory is the Gateway outgoing directory, where Gateway scans for work to process. When the outbound acknowledgment file set is available, Gateway Server uses the delivery specification in the routing information file to transfer the file set to the receiver.