XML and XM Schemas in BizTalk Server Concepts

Article
1/17/2024

When you start a career in the systems integration area using BizTalk there are many concepts that you probably never saw. However, and because I believe that is more difficult to memorize the names than what they mean , I decided to provide a short glossary to facilitate your start into the world of XML within BizTalk.

Note that these concepts are simplified and they are only for the reader get a sense of the names and definitions of artefacts which may arise during the development in BizTalk. Should also be noted that these are just concepts related to XML in BizTalk Server, I say this because some concepts do not applied to XML out of Biztalk.

Record

Repository logical nodes. It may be of four types:

Complex (grouped other records)
Simple (string, int, date, etc.)
Any (any node A, may be even a Schema)
Attributes usergroups

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Envelope Schema

Batch Schema for messages. Contains one or more messages based on other Schemas

Data type

Type values (int, string). We can create our own value types.

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Schema

Corresponds to an abstraction of XML, describing the same. Specifying its nodes, data type, and namespace hierarchies of nodes.

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Target Namespace

Allows BizTalk to distinguish entities that may occur N times in an integration.
Ex: two schemas named "Purchase Order" where only some nodes differ by targetName is that BizTalk makes the distinction between them.

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Namespace

Name of the BizTlk project

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Type Name

Name of a Project Schema (XSD file)

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Message Type

All messages parsed by a recognized Disasssembler have a message type. This is the message type that identifies each message. It is the combination of targetNamespace#rootNode.

rootNode

First element of the XML and it involves all other nodes.

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Xml Identity

Identifies the identity of the Schema and the identity of the body of the message based on the Schema. Tell us if the schema is based on BizTalk componenetes or not.

Promoted Properties

Become an accessible node within a XML message. It is often used for message routing. We can only promote properties which occur only once.

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Distinguished Properties

Makes a node available within an orchestration. For the purpose of accessing and manipulating message context properties within orchestrations we should use distinguished properties instead of promoted properties because this way we managed to have intellisense and dot syntax facilitating programming.

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Schema import

Create new schemas from existing ones. Lets do this even with different schemas with targetNamespaces.

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Schema Include

Allows you to extend an existing schema to another. They need to have the same targetNamespaces.

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Schema Redefine

Allows you to reset and reuse datatypes created in other schemas. They need to have the same targetNamespaces.

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Thanks

Rui Pedro Machado

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