BizTalk Document Tracking
From a user's perspective, the integration between Microsft CRM and Great Plains is invisible. All the work is done behind the scenes without alerting the user that information is moving between the two applications. From a usability standpoint this type of silent integration is ideal. However, there are times, for example, during troubleshooting or the initial setup, when it is important to track the information as it is sent from one system to the other. BizTalk Document Tracking is a tool that can help provide some visibility into the data's path though the integration.
BizTalk Document Tracking is a Web-based application that is installed with BizTalk Server 2002 during the Microsoft CRM Integration installation. The application can be launched from the Start menu. When using the tool, log into Windows with a user that is a member of the BizTalk Server Report User group on the machine where Microsoft CRM Integration is installed.
A few steps need to be taken to make using the BizTalk Document Tracking tool more useful. Tracking needs to be turned on for the BizTalk channel that is to be monitored. BizTalk Messaging Manager is used to turn on tracking for a channel. BizTalk Messaging Manager is a tool that is installed with BizTalk Server and provides configuration access to several components of BizTalk Server including channels and ports.
1. | Launch BizTalk Messaging Manager from the Start menu in Programs, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002. A dialog box appears when you first launch the tool. Select Manage previously configured channels. See Figure 13.17. Figure 13.17. Dialog box when BizTalk Messaging Manager is first opened.
BizTalk Messaging Manager automatically returns a list of channels currently setup in BizTalk Server. See Figure 13.18. The resulting list of channels are all the channels used by the Microsoft CRM Integration. The channel names make determining which entities the channel handles very easy to determine. The Messaging Port/Distribution List field displays the associated port for each channel and can be used to determine which direction the data flows through that channel. Figure 13.18. BizTalk Messaging Manager with all channels listed.
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2. | Double-click a channel to bring up the channel properties wizard shown in Figure 13.19. This wizard can be used to set the properties on a channel; however, for document tracking only two screens are of interest. Figure 13.19. Channel properties wizard.
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3. | Click next until the Inbound Document screen is displayed. Now check the Track inbound document check box on the Inbound Document screen. Additional steps are required to ensure that documents will be tracked, as shown in Figure 13.20. Figure 13.20. More steps are needed after selecting Track inbound documents to complete document tracking setup.
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4. | It is necessary to click the Tracking button to choose which fields will be tracked before any meaningful document tracking takes place, as shown in Figure 13.21. The tree view on the left side of the figure lists all the elements (or fields) of the inbound document. These fields incidently come from the document definition for the inbound document. Only fields that need to be searched need to be selected. Figure 13.21. Select fields that need to be searched.
After selecting the searchable fields for document tracking, it is helpful to turn on logging. By turning on logging the entire document with all its data will be available for viewing. See Figure 13.22. Figure 13.22. Select which documents to log.
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5. | Check In XML format for both the inbound and the outbound documents. It is helpful to log outbound documents when determining if there are problems with the mapping file. Because all documents sent by Microsoft CRM Integration to BizTalk Server are in an XML format, selecting In native format results in an XML document as well. |
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BizTalk Document Tracking tool can be launched from the Start menu in Programs, Microsoft BizTalk Server 2002. When lauching the tool for the first time, a prompt asking to install controls might be presented. These controls are necessary for the BizTalk Document Tracking user interface to operate properly and should be permitted to install. Another dialog box will pop up asking for permission to access data on another domain and again the response should be Yes to have the tool function properly.
Figure 13.23 shows the user interface to the BizTalk Document Tracking tool. The screen is broken down into six general areas. Five of these areas help narrow query results and the remaining area controls how the results are sorted.
Figure 13.23. BizTalk Document Tracking user interface.
To return all documents transferred during a time period simply enter the appropriate From date and To date values and press the Query button at the bottom of the page. A results window will pop up with all records meeting the criteria. See Figure 13.24.
Figure 13.24. Query results with logged document.
Because logging was turned on for the channel, the entire contents of the inbound file are available for viewing by clicking the icon in the column labeled data.
Searching strictly by date range can result in a lot of records being returned. The Advanced Query area can be helpful in trying to track down a specific document. By selecting the New button in the Advanced Query area, the Advanced Query Builder window opens. This window enables specific values to be entered in and will filter the search results. See Figure 13.25.
Figure 13.25. Advanced Query Builder allows for more granular searching of documents.
If you plan on using BizTalk document tracking as a long-term tracking solution, you should set up a tracking database. Consult the BizTalk documentation for instructions on how to set up and maintain a tracking database.