Configurations under the Messages tab allow configuring different messages which are communicated by the organization.
Message Type Configuration
Supported Message Types are 'XML' and 'Plain Text' messages in the initial version. The Plain Text message category encapsulates different industry standards such as EDI, X12, HL7, and JSON. For XML messages, the validation is done within the Fiorano B2B. For other standards which are treated as Plain Text by Fiorano B2B, presently, the validation/transformation can be done in the Microservices Platform Layer with custom applications and Prebuilt Microservices.
In the figure below, Message Type ID defines the use case of the message. Message Type specifies whether the message is communicated as XML or Plain Text format. If the message type is XML, the schema details to which the XML conforms can be provided for validation.
Figure 1: Message Type Configuration
Message Type Binding Configuration
Message Type Bindings can be defined to associate a particular message type with a business agreement. It captures the entire information about the communication with a partner since it is a combination of business agreement and message type. The business agreement constitutes information about Send or Receive, the partner details, and Channel (Protocol) details. Message type has information about the format of the message. An organization can communicate the same Message Type with multiple business partners.
Example
A Message Type can be of the format: 'Computers' (see Figure below) and this can be sent to various bidders. Similarly, the bidding responses could comply with a standard format.
In the figure below, ReceiveComputersFromPartner1 encapsulates the data about the message: 'Computers' and agreement to receive Documents via AS2 from Partner1. Apart from the encryption at the protocol level, it is possible to encrypt/sign the data transmitted for enhanced security. Validation of messages can be enabled for XML messages. User identifiers can be used to identify a particular Message Type when multiple Message Types are bound to an agreement.
Figure 2: Message Type Binding Configuration