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Step 2: Create the Inventory Request Schema

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Step 2 of 5

Time to complete: 7 minutes

Objective: In this step, you define the schema of the inventory replenishment message. The warehouse system sends this message for requesting inventory replenishment. This is one of the two schemas you must create for this project.

Purpose: XML not only structures and identifies information with standardized markup codes, but also has the ability to use schemas. A schema is an XML document that works like a dictionary and is used as a reference by other XML documents. The schema code defines the spelling of XML elements and the type of data enclosed by those elements. Using schemas provides an easy way for a program to process XML documents and ensures that the structure and type of information is correct.

Prerequisites

Note the following requirements before you begin this step:

Procedures

In Step 1: Create EAISchemas Project, you created a new Visual Studio project. If you close the Visual Studio window, you can use the following procedure to open the project. Otherwise, you can skip this procedure, “To open the Visual Studio project”.

To open the Visual Studio project

  1. Start Microsoft Visual Studio.

  2. In Visual Studio, on the File menu, point to Open, and then click Project/Solution.

  3. In the Open Project dialog box, browse to the C:\BTSTutorials\EAISolution\EAISolution.sln solution file, and then click Open.

    In the following procedure, you add a new schema file to the project for the inventory replenishment message.

To add a new schema to the project

  1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the EAISchemas project, point to Add, and then click New Item.

  2. In the Add New Item - EAISchemas dialog box, do the following:

    Use this To do this
    Installed Templates Click Schema Files, then click Schema.
    Name Type Request.xsd.

  3. Click Add. The schema tree and XSD pane appear. This area of Visual Studio is referred to as BizTalk Editor. In addition, your new schema appears in Solution Explorer below the EAISchemas project.

    Different Parts of BizTalk Project

To add elements to the schema

  1. In schema tree, click the Root node.

  2. In the Properties pane, change the value of the Node Name property to Request, and then press ENTER.

  3. In schema tree, right-click the Request node, point to Insert Schema Node, and then click Child Record.

  4. Type Header as the new name for the child record, and then press ENTER.

  5. Repeat step 3 and 4 to create a second child record for the Request node, and name it Items.

  6. In schema tree, right-click the Header node, point to Insert Schema Node, and then click Child Field Element.

  7. Type ReqID as the new name for the element, and then press ENTER.

  8. Repeat step 6 and 7 to create a second child field element for the Header node, and name it OrderDate.

  9. Repeat step 6 and 7 to create a third child field element for the Header node, and name it GrandTotal.

  10. In schema tree, right-click the Items node, point to Insert Schemas Node, and then click Child Record.

  11. Type Item as the new name for the child record, and then press ENTER.

  12. In schema tree, right-click the Item node, and add the following child field elements:

    • Description

    • Quantity

    • UnitPrice

      The completed Request.xsd should look similar to the following figure.

      Solution Explorer with the Request Schema

    When you add nodes to a schema, BizTalk Editor gives a set of default values for their properties. You must configure them based on the requirements.

To configure the elements

  1. In schema tree, click OrderDate to select it.

  2. In the Properties pane, change Data Type to xs:dateTime.

  3. Repeat step 1 and 2 to configure the following properties:

    Element Property Value
    GrandTotal Data Type Xs:decimal
    Item Max Occurs Unbounded
    Item Min Occurs 1
    Quantity Data Type xs:unsignedInt

    A schema can have many elements, but your application may only require that you use a few of them for your data processing. To save computer resources, BizTalk Server doesn't automatically read each schema element. If you want BizTalk Server to read data from a specific element, you must identify that element by using BizTalk Editor to promote its properties.

    The orchestration that we will create in Lesson 2: Define the Business Process will base on the GrandTotal field to route messages. So we must promote the GrandTotal field.

To promote an element

  1. In Schema tree, right-click GrandTotal, point to Promote, and then click Quick Promotions.

  2. Click OK to acknowledge adding a property schema.

  3. On the File menu, click Save All.

What did I just do?

In this step, you defined the warehouse inventory replenishment message schema.

Next Steps

You define the request decline message schema.

See Also

Step 1: Create EAISchemas Project
Step 3: Create the Request Decline Schema
Step 4: Create the Map
Step 5: Build the EAISchemas Project
Creating Schemas Using BizTalk Editor
About BizTalk Message Context Properties