Automatically generating messages to drive a flow

Using the TimeoutNotification node to automatically send a message into a message flow.

Aim

Use the TimeoutNotification node to automatically send a message into a message flow every 10 minutes.

Description of the flow

The diagram shows a TimeoutNotification node automatically generating messages every 10 minutes. A description of the diagram is given in the text.
The diagram shows a TimeoutNotification node automatically generating messages and propagating them every 10 minutes. To get the TimeoutNotification node to automatically generate messages, set the Operation Mode property of the node to automatic and specify a value for the Timeout Interval property. In this example the TimeoutNotification node has the following properties:
  • Operation Mode set to automatic
  • Timeout Interval set to 600

You can also use a Timer configurable service to control the timeout interval. A value set by the Timeout interval property of the Timer configurable service overrides the value specified on the TimeoutNotification node. For more information about the Timer configurable service, see Configurable services properties.

When the integration node has started, the TimeoutNotification node sends a message every 10 minutes (600 seconds). This message contains only a properties folder and a LocalEnvironment folder. A Compute node can then process this message to create a more meaningful message.

If the downstream processing is intensive, and the flow is still busy when the next timeout occurs, the TimeoutNotification node does not send a message immediately. When the flow completes current processing, all timeouts that were missed while the flow was busy are processed individually.