Creating the BizTalk Channel

When the Channel Wizard opens, enter a name for the channel in the Channel Properties section. Name this channel, Transaction from SunsetBank_Inc to BigBank_Co via HTTP, as shown in Figure 7.11. The next steps deal with creating the channel.

The Organization you are going to choose in the Source Organization section is Sunset Bank, so the Organization identifier will be Sunset Bank. At this point, we are not going to worry about receipts, so leave the other check boxes unchecked. Click Next.

Here is where the work we did earlier with document definitions and maps pays off. In the Inbound Document section, click Browse and select SunsetBank as your Inbound Document Definition Name, as displayed in Figure 7.12, and then click Next.

In the Outbound Document section, select BigBank as your Outbound Document Definition Name. Let's pause for a minute and figure out what we've just done. We've told BizTalk Server that the document coming into this channel will conform to the SunsetBank schema created earlier and that the output document will conform to the BigBank schema. Now we need to tell BizTalk how to map the one to the other—that is, the Sunset Bank document to the Big Bank document format.

While still in the Outbound Document section, check the Map Inbound Document to Outbound Document check box and Browse to the location where you saved the map called SunsetBanktoBigBank. This should be located in your WebDAV directory. The Outbound Document Channel Properties dialog is displayed in Figure 7.13.

Continue moving through the wizard leaving the default settings through the remainder of the wizard steps. You can browse through them if you want to become more familiar with them or just click Finish. After you have created a messaging port, you can use it to create additional channels in the BizTalk Messaging Manager.

Congratulations! You are almost ready to submit a document to BizTalk Server 2002.