Adapter Message Types
Each of the four BizTalk adapters that are provided with Commerce Server 2009, also known informally as the Commerce Server 2009 adapters, defines a distinct set of messages that it is capable of processing. Within each type, the corresponding receive adapter is capable of producing a single type of message, used for exporting data from the relevant Commerce Server 2009 system. On the other hand, the send adapter for each type of Commerce Server 2009 adapter handles multiple pairs of solicit and response messages, each with purposes that are specific to that type of adapter.
The messages generated and consumed by the Commerce Server 2009 adapters are BizTalk messages and, as such, have a message context and message body. The message context is a collection of name/value pairs, each of which is known as a context property, and the message body is expressed using XML, governed by a particular schema. Context properties may be promoted, after which they can be used for message routing within BizTalk Server.
Note
To see the association of Commerce Server 2009 adapter message types and the message body schemas that they use, organized by schema, see the tables within the topic Adapter Message Schemas.
An important context property with respect to message types is CommerceServerMessageType, which defines the type of the message. All of the Commerce Server 2009 adapters, both receive and send, write and promote this property. Further, if the send adapter endpoint transport property Endpoint Message Type is set to From Context, solicit messages sent to that endpoint must also have the message context property CommerceServerMessageType, set to one of the valid solicit message values for that type of send adapter.
This section provides an overview of the message types for the four types of Commerce Server 2009 adapters.