XMII Integration

Question

Hi there.
I am implementing xMII for integration to XI using B2MML.
Generally messages are fired at the end of a shift, and there are up to 11 interfaces fired for each production order in the plant.
eg:
Production Confirmations
Material Movements
Goods issues to Production Orders
Goods Issue to Cost Centre
Stock Transport Orders
  etc.
Some plants can have up to 20 concurrent production order, which means that based on a trigger of "End of Shift" I may need to initiate up to 220 messages to XI.
My question is, Has anyone developed a standard generic component for xMII that can handle scheduling of messages, Sequencing of messages (Where one message needs to be confirmed before the next is processed), error handling and guaranteed delivery? If so is this likely to be something that is added to the downloadable components on SDN?
Regards
Geoff Nunan

Answer 1

Hi, Geoffrey.
I have implemented both file-based and database-based storage queues for exactly the scenarios you describe.  In the case of a file based queue, the queue "name" is the directory, and the queue entries all have a unique file name.  In the case of a database queue, the table has three columns - queue name, item key, and item content (I've used wide character text fields or CLOBs).  The pattern is actually quite simple:
1) To place something in a queue (file directory or database), generate a unique ID (xMII's BLS has a guid function you can use), and write/insert the data. 
2) Create worker transaction(s) and add them to the scheduler to run at the required intervals (I usually use one minute or five minute intervals if things aren't time critical)
3) In these transactions, get a list of pending work (GetFileList or a DB query), use a repeater to iterate through, try the work, if it succeeds, remove from the queue (DeleteFile or DB command), if not, leave it there and terminate this execution of the loop and the transaction.  Sometimes I'll also add a "limiter" to each execution of the worker (e.g. process no more than 10 messages per execution).
4) A few nice enhancements that I like to use are to add a diagnostic mechanism using either the UserLog (EventLog action), a simple text file, or a database table.  You can then build a nice quick UI using xMII to view/filter these logs.
5) I also like to provide a couple of UI screens to see what is in each queue.
The first time I put this together using a file-based queuing system took a couple of hours for all of the above, and I've reused this pattern for lots of different kinds of applications.
It works well!
Best regards,
Rick