Scenario: Receiving an AS4 inbound two-way synchronous request

In an inbound exchange, a synchronous exchange pattern is used when the sender needs an immediate processing and acknowledgement or response of the request that is sent. The sender must wait until B2B Advanced Communications and the business application process the request and send an appropriate response.

The following scenarios demonstrate two use cases for the AS4 Inbound Two-Way/Sync exchange pattern:

A tax practitioner wants to receive a response for the tax returns that are submitted to be immediately acknowledged and validated.
A tax practitioner lodges an activity statement and requests for prelodge validation.

Note: If Sterling B2B Integrator is the business application, you must install the Sterling B2B Integrator bridge and configure the required adapters and business processes. For more information about Sterling B2B Integrator bridge adapters and business processes, see Configuring B2B Advanced Communications integration module.

Configuration requirements

The following table provides information about the configuration that is required to complete the AS4 inbound two-way synchronous exchange.

Table 1. Configuration required to complete an AS4 inbound two-way synchronous exchange
Configuration	Requirement
Conformance policy	You must define the security, error handling, and reception awareness settings. You configure the conformance policy that is based on the agreement with the trading partner. For more information about configuring a conformance policy, see Configuring custom AS4 conformance policies.
Organizations	You must configure the owner and trading partner organizations that are participating in the exchange. The owner organization is specified by default from the owner organization in the conformance policy of the exchange profile. For information about configuring a trading partner organization, see Creating an organization
Organization credentials	If user name token authentication is enabled, you must configure organization credentials. For information about configuring organization credentials, see Adding organization credentials
Message queues	A message queue must be configured by a System Administrator. A Master Account Administrator can use the message queue definition to configure a messaging receiver and error notification destination. You can also choose to use the default error notification destination. For information about configuring message queue definition, see Configuring a message queue
Trading partner certificates	If signing is enabled for inbound exchanges (including receipts), the public key of the certificate that is used to verify and validate the signature of the message that is received must be added toB2B Advanced Communications. For information about configuring trading partner certificates, see Adding a trading partner digital certificate
Owner organization certificates	If user authentication checking with X.509 certificate is enabled, the required certificate alias and private and public key pair must be added to B2B Advanced Communications and the public key must be shared with the trading partner. For information about configuring owner organization certificates, see Adding a CA digital certificate and Adding a private and public key pair digital certificate
HTTP or HTTPS server	An HTTP or HTTPS server is an endpoint that is associated with an AS2 or AS4 receiver. For information about configuring an HTTP or HTTPS server, see Configuring an HTTP server or Configuring an HTTPS server
Thread pool	A thread pool is a collection of threads. A thread pool manages the threads in the pool to process the tasks. To handle large files or a large volume of files, you can have a thread pool with more number of threads and associate the thread pool to the HTTPS server and destination. For information about configuring a thread pool, see Configuring a thread pool
Retry policy	You must configure appropriate retry policy and associate it with the HTTP or HTTPS destination. The retry settings that are specified in the retry policy are used when an HTTP or HTTPS destination is not available (down) during the transmission. For information about configuring a retry policy, see Configuring a retry policy.
Messaging destination	You must configure where B2B Advanced Communications sends the unpackaged business document object (BDO), payload, and attachments to be picked by the business application. For information about configuring a messaging destination, see Configuring a messaging destination.
AS4 receiver	You must configure an endpoint to receive the incoming message. For information about configuring an AS4 receiver, see Configuring an AS4 receiver
Error notification destination	You must configure a messaging destination that is used to notify errors during transaction to the business application. For information about configuring a messaging destination, see Configuring a messaging destination.
Storage settings	You must configure appropriate and required storage settings. For information about configuring storage, see Configuring storage.

The following table lists the users permissions that are required to complete the AS4 inbound two-way synchronous exchange.

Table 2. Permissions required to complete an AS4 inbound two-way synchronous exchange
User permissions	Requirement
User with Master Account Administrator permissions	To create or configure the following components: Conformance policy AS4 inbound two-way sync exchange profile Messaging destination Certificate alias (trading partner certificates and owner organization certificates) HTTP or HTTPS server AS4 receiver Retry policy Organization credentials Trading partner and owner organizations
User with System Administrator permissions	To create message queues and thread pools.

AS4 inbound two-way sync exchange profile configuration

To create an exchange profile (prevalidation_profile) that can be used to receive the activity statement from the tax practitioner and send it to the business application and send back a prevalidation response to the tax practitioner, you must complete the following tasks in B2B Advanced Communications:

Note: The following list provides information about the mandatory fields or configuration that is required for the inbound exchange profile. For information about other fields, see Configuring an AS4 inbound two-way synchronous exchange profile.

Profile name – A unique name for the exchange profile – prevalidation_profile.
Conformance policy – A conformance policy defines guidelines for secure and payload-agnostic exchange. Depending on the agreement with the tax practitioner, you can use the default conformance policies or create a custom conformance policy.
Service details – A service defines the usage of the exchange profile. You must know the service for which the exchange profile is used. In this case, prevalidation as the service.
Owner organization configuration – In an inbound flow, owner organization (owner organization A) is the organization that receives the inbound request.
Sender ID – Sender ID is a unique identifier that is used to identify the tax practitioner. Specify the mutually agreed sender ID in the Sender ID field.
Trading partner configuration – Select the trading partner (tax practitioner) organization from whom the request is received.
Receiver ID – Receiver ID is a unique identifier that is used to identify the owner organization. Specify the mutually agreed receiver ID in the Receiver ID field.
Messaging destination – Where B2B Advanced Communications sends the unpackaged message.
AS4 receiver - The AS4 receiver receives the message from the tax practitioner. If user name token authentication is enabled in the conformance policy, you must select the appropriate credential.
Synchronous response settings – You can configure signing and encryption settings for the response that is sent to the tax practitioner. Select the certificate that you can be used to sign the response.

Using the AS4 two-way sync exchange profile to receive a message from the tax practitioner and send a response.

The following list describes the steps that are involved in receiving a two-way sync message from a tax practitioner:

The HTTP server (associated with the AS4 receiver that is configured in the prevalidation_profile) receives the AS4 message. This is the trigger for the message exchange.
The HTTP server determines the appropriate AS4 receiver from the URI in the message and sends the message to the receiver.
Based on the storage and nonrepudiation settings, the raw message is stored in the nonrepudiation bucket.
The message service handler (MSH) unpacks the message and determines the message queue destination to which the unpacked message (BDO, payload, and attachments) is sent.
The business application picks up the BDO, payload, and attachments from the message queue destination, completes the necessary processing, and sends a response to a message queue receiver.
The MSH packages the response and sends it to the tax practitioner.