Scenario: Sending an AS4 outbound one-way push request

An outbound one-way push message exchange pattern (asynchronous) is used when you want to send catalog updates, product promotions, or periodical status updates on order status or tax return submits to the trading partner.

The following scenarios demonstrate two use cases for the AS4 outbound one-way push pull exchange pattern:
  • Your organization (owner organization A) sends (push) promotions about the new products to your trading partner (organization B).
  • Your organization (owner organization A) sends (push) updates about the status of the tax returns that were submitted by a trading partner (organization B).
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 an AS4 outbound one-way push exchange profile configuration.
Table 1. AS4 outbound one-way push exchange profile configuration
Configuration Requirement

Conformance policy

A conformance policy defines guidelines for secure and payload-agnostic exchange. Depending on the agreement with your trading partner, you can use the default conformance policies or create a custom conformance policy. If you are using a custom conformance policy, check if the conformance policy is configured. You can configure a new custom conformance policy, or use the default conformance policy to configure a custom conformance policy. For more information about configuring a conformance policy, see Configuring custom AS4 conformance policies.

Organizations

You must configure 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 trading partner organizations, see Creating an organization.

Organization credentials

If user name token authentication is enabled in the conformance policy, you must configure organization credentials.

When configuring connection settings for the outbound push request and outbound pull response, you must select appropriate organization credentials.

For information about configuring organization credentials, see Adding organization credentials.

Message queues

A message queue is required to configure a messaging receiver and error notification destination. A message queue must be configured by a System Administrator.

For information about configuring a message queue, see Configuring a message queue.

Trading partner certificates

If signing is enabled for outbound exchanges, the response received from the trading partner is signed. You must add the public key of the certificate (shared by the trading partner) that is used to sign the response to B2B Advanced Communications. In an outbound exchange, the trading partner certificate is used to verify the signature of the response.

For information about adding trading partner certificates, see Adding a trading partner digital certificate.

Owner organization certificates

If user authentication checking with X.509 certificate and signing of outbound exchanges is enabled in the conformance policy, the certificate alias must be added to B2B Advanced Communications and the public key must be shared with the trading partner.

For information about adding CA certificates and private public key pair, see Adding a CA digital certificate and Adding a private and public key pair digital certificate.

Messaging receiver

You must configure the messaging receiver where the business application writes the business document object (BDO), message, payload, and attachments to trigger the outbound push request.

For information about configuring a messaging receiver, see Configuring a messaging receiver.

Error notification destination

If error notification is configured in the conformance policy, you must configure a notification queue for sending errors to the business application.

For information about configuring a messaging destination to send notifications to the business application, see Configuring a messaging destination.

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 volumes of files or large files, you can have a thread pool with more number of threads and associate the thread pool to the HTTPS destination.

For information about configuring a thread pool, see Configuring a thread pool

HTTP or HTTPS destination

The trading partner destination where the outbound push request is sent.

For information about configuring an HTTPS or HTTP destination, see Configuring an HTTP or HTTPS destination.

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 creating a retry policy, see Configuring a retry policy.

Messaging destination

To send the unpacked receipt and response to business application to complete the exchange.

For information about configuring a messaging destination, see Configuring a message queue.

Storage settings

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 outbound one-way push exchange.
Table 2. Permissions required to complete an AS4 outbound one-way push exchange
User permission Requirement

User with Master Account Administrator permissions

To create or configure the following components:
  • Conformance policy
  • AS4 outbound one-way push exchange profile
  • Messaging receiver and destination
  • Certificate alias (both trading partner certificates and owner organization certificates)
  • HTTP or HTTPS destination
  • Organization credential
  • Trading partner and owner organization
  • Retry policy

User with System Administrator permissions

To create message queue and thread pool.

Creating a sample AS4 outbound one-way push exchange profile

To create an exchange profile that can be used to send (push) new product promotions to your trading partner, you must complete the following tasks in B2B Advanced Communications:
Note: The following list provides information about the mandatory fields or configuration that are required for an AS4 one-way push exchange profile. For information about other fields, see Configuring an AS4 outbound one-way push exchange profile.
Note: This procedure assumes that the following components are created in B2B Advanced Communications:
  • Message queues
  • Thread pool
  • Messaging receiver - outboundproductpromo_msgrcvr
  • Retry policy - orgBretrypolicy
  • HTTPS destinations - outboundproductpromo_dest
  • Participating organizations - Organization A and Organization B
  • Organization credentials - outboundproductpromouser and associated with Organization A (master org)
  • Certificate alias of Organization A - orgacertalias (usage - HTTPS client authentication and signing/signature verification)
  • Certificate alias of Organization B - orgbcertalias (usage - HTTPS client authentication and signing/signature verification)
  • AS4 receiver - outboundproductpromo_as4rcptrcvr and outboundproductpromo_as4errorrcvr.
  1. Log in to B2B Advanced Communications with Master Account Permissions.
  2. Click Exchanges > Exchange Profiles.
  3. On the Exchange Profiles page, click New and select AS4 Outbound.
  4. On the New Exchange Profile dialog box, specify values for the following fields and click Save.
    Field Description

    Profile name

    Type outboundproductpromoprofile as the profile name.

    Choose a conformance policy

    Select Default EbHandler PMode Conformance Policy.

    Configuration of the Default EbHandler PMode Conformance Policy is as follows:
    1. User authentication is enabled with user name token and X.509 certificate. Password type for user name token authentication is password digest.
    2. Signing is enabled for outbound and inbound exchanges.
    3. Receipts and Retries are configured.
    4. Error reporting to the trading partner, Organization B) and error notification to the business application are configured.

    Select the message exchange pattern for the profile

    Select AS4 Outbound One-Way/Push message exchange pattern from the Exchange pattern list.

  5. Click Edit corresponding to the Basic Properties section, specify values for the following fields, and click Save.
    Field Description

    Name

    The name, outboundproductpromoprofile, that you entered in the Profile name field is populated here.

    Description

    Optional: Type exchange profile for sending product promotions

    .

    Service

    Type product promotion.

    Agreement URI

    Optional: Type http://registry.example.com/cpa/123456.

    The agreement URI is the location of the agreement (related to the p-mode parameter configuration and operation) between your organization (Organization A) and the partner Organization B). The URI must be agreed on by both the partners.

    P-Mode ID

    Optional: Type productpromotionpmodeID

    The mutually agreed on p-mode ID is used to identify the p-mode configuration of the conformance policy.

  6. Click Participating Organizations to specify the participating organizations.
    Field Description

    Owner Organization

    The owner organization is specified by default from the owner organization in the conformance policy of the exchange profile.

    Sender ID

    Click New and type orgA.

    Trading Partner Organization

    Click Select and select Organization B.

    Receiver ID

    Click New and type orgB.

  7. Click Outbound Push Request and specify Trigger and Action settings for the outbound push request.
    Field Description

    Receiver

    Click Select and select outboundproductpromo_msgrcvr to receive BDO, payload, message, and attachments from the business application.

    Destination

    Click Select and select outboundproductpromo_dest to send the push request.

    Configure connection

    Click Configure and complete the following steps:
    1. Authentication - Click Select and select outboundproductpromouser.
    2. Select AS4 receiver to which ebMS Receipt Signal messages are sent by Trading Partner - Select outboundproductpromo_as4rcptrcvr.
    3. Select AS4 receiver to which ebMS Error Signal messages are sent by Trading Partner - Select outboundproductpromo_as4errorrcvr.
    4. Click OK to save the connection settings.
  8. In the Deploy Exchange Profile section, click Deploy to deploy or enable the exchange profile.
    Attention: The Deploy button is enabled only when all the sections of the exchange profile are in Complete status.

Using outboundproductpromoprofile to send a push request

The following list describes the steps that are involved in sending a push request from Organization A to Organization B to send product promotion messages:
  1. The business application sends a BDO, payload, attachments, and message to outboundproductpromo_msgrcvr.
  2. outboundproductpromo_msgrcvr uses the information (such as the sender ID, receiver ID, service, and protocol) in the BDO to look for outboundproductpromoprofile and starts the AS4 sender service.
  3. The AS4 sender service retrieves the information that is required to package the message, payload, and attachments from outboundproductpromoprofile and packages the message.
  4. The AS4 sender service uses the HTTP or HTTPS destination information in the exchange profile, and sends the message to outboundproductpromo_dest.
  5. The AS4 receiver of Organization B receives the push request and sends an HTTP 200 OK message to Organization A.
  6. As the conformance policy configuration requires receipts, Organization B sends a receipt (eb:Signal message) to Organization A (outboundproductpromo_as4rcptrcvr). If any errors are encountered during the processing of the push request message, an error message is sent to outboundproductpromo_as4errorrcvr.