XML —

The process Element

The process element provides information about the business process associated with the BizTalk message. The process element has two mandatory child elements, type and instance, and one optional element, handle. All the child elements may occur only once. A process element may look as shown in the following code:

  <prc:process SOAP-ENV:mustUnderstand="1"
     xmlns:prc="http://schema.biztalk.org/btf-2-0/process/">
     <prc:type>purchase:Food_Purchase_Order</prc:type>
     <prc:instance> purchase:Food_Purchase_Order:0001
     </prc:instance>
     <prc:handle>port:po_app</prc:handle>
  </prc:process>

The type element

The type element contains a URI that defines the type of business process the BizTalk message is associated with. The type element is usually defined by two or more business partners. The type element uses a pattern that is often used in many documents. For example, the purchase of an item would be an example of a pattern.

The instance element

The instance element contains a URI reference that uniquely identifies a particular instance of the business process that a business document is associated with. For example, the type element might identify the business process as a BizTalk document of type order, whereas the instance element might identify the business process as being order number 0001. Usually, the instance element's content is created by appending a unique identifier onto the end of the type element's content as shown above.

The handle element

The handle element is an optional element that can be used to give more information that can be used to identify a process. This information can be used to identify which step the BizTalk message might be within the overall business process.