Architecture question

I am a newbie to Notification service and I need your help to determine what's the best way to handle my situation. First of all, I need to determine if Notification service is the right approach.

We have a ASP.NET application that creates purchase orders to various suppliers. Few suppliers are fine with just "Email notifications". But few of them need the PO XML sent to their FTP site. We might have future suppliers and they may want a different mode of communication.

Here's my solution to this problem and I need your expert advice

Step 1: Create an event schema that captures all the item details in a PO.

Question: What is the best way to implement hierarchies [PO Header, PO Line item]? I am thinking of adding all the head fields to the schema for every line item.

Step 2: My delivery channels will be "Email" or "FTP" [custom delivery channel]. Some suppliers will subscibe using email channel, and some FTP

Question: Is there a way I can use the "File" channel to download a PO [with unique file names] and develop an external program to just FTP the file to the supplier?

Step 3: When a new PO is created, I will call my event provider to submit the event [I might use the out of the box Stored procedures]. Depending upon the Subscriber's delivery channel [protocol], the appropriate delivery channel will be chosen.

Any thoughts/help or suggesstions?

I think the easiest hierarchy is a flat structure (one root node, one level of child elements).

As for the File channel, you cannot use the built-in File delivery protocol in this way. It writes results to a single file, and is primarily intended for testing. You could write a custom File delivery protocol that produces unique file names and performs other processing.

|||As Diane mentioned, SSNS really thinks in terms of notifying people of somewhat flat data structures. If you need to have parent-child detail information, what I typically do is create a custom content formatter. In there I make a connection to the database that stores the additional information and query the supplemental information. I then format it along with the normal SSNS notification information (parent stuff) and return it to the distributor.

To write to separate files for each notification, you'll need to create a custom delivery protocol. You can base the file name off the subscriber and perhaps a datetime to make sure it's unique.

If you're parent-detail information is in a database, it's probably easiest to use the SQL Server Event Provider, but you can use the SSNS stored procedures to submit the event if you'd rather.

HTH...

Joe|||

Thanks for your replies.

Joe,

How about if I just pass the "PO" number to the "Custom Delivery Channel" that queries the database for a given PO and then, creates an XML file? Do you think that will make it easier?

Regards

|||Hi Ragas -

That's typically the tact that I take.

In your example (and I'm assuming a bit here since I don't know the details), I'd probably have the event provider submit a few vital pieces of info to SSNS; at a minimum the PO number, but if you have other pieces of information readily accessible then I'd submit that too (especially if it'll save one or more db calls from within the custom component). In your case, you may also want to submit the CustomerId, too.

I typically gather the other information in the content formatter rather than the delivery channel.

HTH...

Joe