Configuring Business Profile Properties

A business profile represents a business division in an organization. Just like an organization can have many divisions (accounting, purchase, shipping, etc.), a party can have many business profiles, each representing a business division in an organization. Business profile properties contain the following information:

  • General information such as business profile name

  • Unique identities that can be associated with a business profile

  • Encoding settings (for X12 and EDIFACT messages) and protocol settings (AS2) that defines how the business profile can send or receive messages from another party.

    For more information about business profiles, see Business Profiles. For more information about encoding and transport protocol settings, see Protocol Settings.

Prerequisites

You must be logged on as a member of the BizTalk Server Administrators or BizTalk Server B2B Operators group.

Configure business profile properties

  1. In the BizTalk Server Administration Console, click the Parties node. In the Parties and Business Profiles pane, right-click a party, point to New, and then click Business Profile.

  2. In the General tab, on the General page, do the following:

    Use this To do this
    Name Enter a business profile name.
    Description Enter a description for the business profile.
    Additional Properties – Name / Value Enter a name-value pair to store any information about the party. You can add as many name-value pairs as you want. Note: The name-value pairs are not used by the BizTalk Server for any processing; this data is for information purposes only.
    Delete Click to delete the selected name-value pair.
  3. If required, add business identities for the business profiles. In the General tab, on the Identities page, do the following:

    Note

    Adding business identities at this stage is not mandatory. You can add the business identities later as well, as part of an agreement for the business profile. If you chose to add the business identifies now, they will be available while creating an agreement for this business profile.

    Use this To do this
    Name Click the empty cell, and from the drop-down grid, select an authenticating body that provides unique business identities to organizations. For example, D-U-N-S (Dun & Bradstreet). Two business partners can opt for a mutually agreed business identity. For such scenarios, select Mutually Defined (for EDIFACT) or Mutually Defined (X12) (for X12).
    Qualifier Displays a predefined value based on the value you selected for Name.
    Value Enter a value for the business identity. You must make the following considerations while providing a value for business identities.

    - For a given party, you can have more than one business profile using the same combination of identity name and identity value. For example, you can have two business profiles for a party with Name as Mutually Defined (X12) and Value as THEM.
    - Across parties, you cannot have two business profiles using the same combination of identity name and identity value.
    Delete Click to delete the selected identity.
  4. If required, add the protocol settings for X12-encoded messages.

    1. In the Profile Properties dialog box, from the top right corner, click Add Protocol Settings, point to Encoding Settings, and then click X12.

    2. A new tab gets added next to the General tab. On the Common page of the newly added tab, in the Protocol Settings Name text box, enter a name to identify this set of encoding protocol settings. The name of the tab is also set to the value you specify in the text box.

    3. You can define the X12 properties either as part of a business profile or directly in the agreement. If you define the properties as part of the business profile, the same settings will be available to you when you create an agreement. Because the same properties can be set at two locations, this document provides instructions on how to set the properties only as part of the agreement. If you want to set the properties as part of the business profile, the table below provides links to relevant sections that contain information about setting the properties.

      Note

      Inbound settings apply to all the messages received by a party. Outbound settings apply to all the messages sent by a party.

      Note

      Even if you specify the protocol settings as part of the business profile, you can always overwrite the settings for a specific agreement.

      Setting Description available at
      Inbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Validation Configuring Validation (X12-Interchange Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Local Host Settings Configuring Local Host Settings (X12-Interchange Settings) (Receiver’s Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Transaction Set List Configuring Transaction Set List (X12)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Validation Configuring Validation (X12-Transaction Set Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Local Host Settings Configuring Local Host Settings (X12-Transaction Set Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Additional Identifiers Configuring Identifiers (X12)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Acknowledgements Configuring Acknowledgements (X12)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Envelopes Configuring Envelopes (X12-Interchange Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Charset and Separators Configuring Charset and Separators (X12)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Control Numbers Configuring Local Host Settings (X12-Interchange Settings) (Sender’s Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Envelopes Configuring Envelopes (X12-Transaction Set Settings)

      Note

      You can have more than one X12 encoding protocol settings defined for a business profile.

  5. If required, add the protocol settings for EDIFACT-encoded messages.

    1. In the Profile Properties dialog box, from the top right corner, click Add Protocol Settings, point to Encoding Settings, and then click EDIFACT.

    2. A new tab gets added next to the General tab. On the Common page of the newly added tab, in the Protocol Settings Name text box, enter a name to identify this set of encoding protocol settings. The name of the tab is also set to the value you specify in the text box.

    3. You can define the EDIFACT properties either as part of a business profile or directly in the agreement. If you define the properties as part of the business profile, the same settings will be available to you when you create an agreement. Because the same properties can be set at two locations, this document provides instructions on how to set the properties only as part of the agreement. If you want to set the properties as part of the business profile, the table below provides links to relevant sections that contain information about setting the properties.

      Note

      Inbound settings apply to all the messages received by a party. Outbound settings apply to all the messages sent by a party.

      Note

      Even if you specify the protocol settings as part of the business profile, you can always overwrite the settings for a specific agreement.

      Setting Description available at
      Inbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Additional Identifiers Configuring Identifiers (EDIFACT)
      Inbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Validation Configuring Validation (EDIFACT-Interchange Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Local Host Settings Configuring Local Host Settings (EDIFACT-Interchange Settings) (Receiver’s Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Transaction Set List Configuring Transaction Set List (EDIFACT)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Validation Configuring Validation (EDIFACT-Transaction Set Settings)
      Inbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Local Host Settings Configuring Local Host Settings (EDIFACT-Transaction Set Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Additional Identifiers Configuring Identifiers (EDIFACT)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Acknowledgements Configuring Acknowledgements (EDIFACT)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Envelopes Configuring Envelopes (EDIFACT-Interchange Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Charset and Separators Configuring Charset and Separators (EDIFACT)
      Outbound Settings > Interchange Settings > Control Numbers Configuring Local Host Settings (EDIFACT-Interchange Settings) (Sender’s Settings)
      Outbound Settings > Transaction Set Settings > Envelopes Configuring Envelopes (EDIFACT-Transaction Set Settings)

      Note

      You can have more than one EDIFACT encoding protocol settings defined for a business profile.

  6. If required, add the protocol settings for AS2 transport.

    1. In the Profile Properties dialog box, from the top right corner, click Add Protocol Settings, point to Transport Settings, and then click AS2.

    2. A new tab gets added next to the General tab. On the Common page of the newly added tab, in the Protocol Settings Name text box, enter a name to identify this set of transport protocol settings. The name of the tab is also set to the value you specify in the text box.

    3. You can define the AS2 properties either as part of a business profile or directly in the agreement. If you define the properties as part of the business profile, the same settings will be available to you when you create an agreement. Because the same properties can be set at two locations, this document provides instructions on how to set the properties only as part of the agreement. If you want to set the properties as part of the business profile, the table below provides links to relevant sections that contain information about setting the properties.

      Note

      Inbound settings apply to all the messages received by a party. Outbound settings apply to all the messages sent by a party.

      Note

      Even if you specify the protocol settings as part of the business profile, you can always overwrite the settings for a specific agreement.

      Setting Description available at
      Inbound Settings > Validation Configuring Validation (AS2)
      Inbound Settings > Local Host Settings > HTTP Settings for Messages Configuring HTTP Settings for Messages
      Inbound Settings > Local Host Settings > Generated MDN Settings Configuring Receiver MDN Settings
      Inbound Settings > Local Host Settings > Message Tracking (NRR) Configuring Receiver Message Tracking (NRR)
      Outbound Settings > Acknowledgements (MDNs) Configuring Acknowledgements (MDNs) (AS2)
      Outbound Settings > Local Host Settings > General Configuring General Local Host Settings (AS2)
      Outbound Settings > Local Host Settings > HTTP Settings for MDN Configuring HTTP Settings for MDNs
      Outbound Settings > Local Host Settings > Message Tracking (NRR) Configuring Sender Message Tracking (NRR)
      Outbound Settings > Signature Certificate Configuring Signature Certificates (AS2)

      Note

      You can have more than one AS2 transport protocol settings defined for a business profile.

  7. Click Apply to accept the properties, or click OK to complete the configuration setting. Either action will validate the settings.

See Also

Configuring EDI Properties