Operating collaboration objects may include such tasks as running, pausing,
stopping, and shutting down collaboration objects. For information
about configuring collaboration objects, see the System Implementation
Guide.
You can run, pause, stop, and shut down collaboration objects from the
Web-based System Monitor.
By default, all connectors and the active collaborations appear.
This section covers the following topics:
"Collaboration object states"
Starting, stopping, and pausing collaboration objects
"Configuring collaboration run-time properties"
You can view the state of a collaboration object by logging on to the
Web-based System Monitor and opening a view that contains collaboration object
information. To log on to the Web-based System Monitor, follow the
instructions in Logging on to the Web-based System Monitor.
The following collaboration object states are viewable from the Web-based
System Monitor and the Collaboration Object menu of the System View
window:
- Start
- Starting a collaboration object causes it to subscribe to its triggering
business objects and to process them as they arrive. If you stop and
then restart InterChange Server, collaboration objects in the Start state
automatically start running when InterChange Server Express comes back
up.
- Pause
- Pausing a collaboration prevents it from receiving new flow
initiators. The collaboration completes all of the current processing,
then enters an idle state.
A connector maintains its subscription information; therefore, it
continues to send flow initiators to the connector queues. The
collaboration processes these when it is resumed.
To resume collaboration execution, click Start in the Web-based System
Monitor.
- Stop
- Stopping a collaboration causes it to unsubscribe to business
objects. The collaboration completes all of the current processing,
then becomes inactive. Unlike the Pause command, the Stop command
causes connectors to stop sending business objects to the
collaboration.
To properly stop a collaboration without losing any flows, first stop the
associated connectors from polling, allow all flows to process, then stop the
collaboration.
- Shut Down
- Shutting down a collaboration immediately ends processing of current
flows. When the collaboration is restarted, the system recovers by
processing those flows that were interrupted by the shut down and recovering
those flows waiting in the queue. This recovery is not immediate, so
prepare to wait while the system completes the recovery interval.
- Statistics
- When you choose Statistics, the Open Collaboration dialog box
displays. Enter a collaboration name and choose Open to display
statistics for that collaboration object.
- Note:
- When you stop or shut down a collaboration object that is part of a
collaboration group, all collaborations in the group stop or shut down.
If any member of a collaboration group fails to start up or has a state change
failure, the collaboration group is rolled back to the initial state
(deactivated or stopped).
To make a collaboration object functional for the first time, you must
first configure it then start it. See "Configuring collaboration run-time properties" for more information on configuring collaborations. To
run, stop, and pause collaboration objects, do this:
- While viewing the System Overview view (see Figure 10), select a collaboration object by placing check in the box
to its left.
- Select the Start, Pause, or Stop icon from the icon group in the
upper-left corner of the view (see Figure 11).
This section describes some aspects of collaboration behavior that are
configurable in a production environment and contains the following
topics:
"Setting collaboration object general properties"
"Configuring collaborations to process concurrent event-triggered flows"
Configuring flow control for collaboration objects
For information about the following tasks, see the System
Implementation Guide:
- Creating a Collaboration Object
- Configuring Collaboration-Specific Properties
- Binding the Ports of the Collaboration
- Setting the Effective Transaction Level and Other General Properties
To open the Collaboration Properties window and change values for general
properties of a collaboration object, do this:
- From System Manager, right-click a collaboration object and select
Properties.
- In the Properties dialog box, choose the Collaboration General Properties
tab. The following dialog displays:
Figure 13. Properties dialog box, Collaboration General Properties tab

The dialog box shows the template from which the collaboration object was
generated and the minimum transaction level that was specified in the
collaboration template.
The dialog enables you to make settings for the following:
- Effective Transaction Level
- System Trace Level
- Collaboration Trace Level
- Email Notification Address
- Pause When Critical Error Occurs
- Implicit Database Transaction
- Maximum Number of Concurrent Events
- Recovery Mode
- Tip:
- Processing concurrently triggered events in collaborations requires
additional system resources. To maximize performance, ensure that
system resources used to handle concurrent events are not idle. For
example, do not set the value for the maximum concurrent triggered-event
processing option to 10 if the collaboration queue is set to process a maximum
of four events.
To set the maximum number of concurrent flows for a collaboration:
- From System Manager, right-click the collaboration object that you want to
change, then select Properties. The Properties dialog box appears (see Figure 13).
- In the Collaboration General Properties tab, enter a value in the "Maximum
number of concurrent events" field.
- Click OK to save your changes and close the window.
- Restart the collaboration for changes to take effect.
Flow control is a configurable service that allows you to manage the flow
of connector and collaboration object queues. The parameters for
configuring flow control can be configured system-wide or on individual
components, or both. If you configure both, the individual component
configuration supersedes the system-wide configuration. For
instructions on configuring flow control system-wide, seeConfiguring system-wide flow control. This section describes how to configure flow control
for collaboration objects.
- Note:
- Configuration changes for individual connectors or collaboration objects are
dynamic, meaning they do not require ICS to be rebooted. System-wide
configuration changes for flow control require ICS to be rebooted.
To monitor how flow control is working in the system, you can use the
default Flow Control monitor provided as part of the Web-based System Monitor,
or you can create new Flow Control monitors for individual connectors or
collaboration objects. For more information about monitoring flow
control, see the description of the default Flow Control monitor inUsing default monitors, and the instructions on creating new monitors inCreating new monitors using the Monitor Definition Wizard. After you have all the flow control
monitors created, refer to the following sections to begin monitoring flow
control: Using the Web-based System Monitor and Logging on to the Web-based System Monitor.
To configure flow control for a collaboration object, do the
following:
- In System Manger, right-click the collaboration object for which you want
to create flow control, then select Properties from the drop-down menu.
The Properties dialog box appears (see Figure 13).
- In the Collaboration General Properties tab, edit the value in the Max
Event Capacity field to represent the maximum number of events you want queued
for a collaboration object. The valid range of values for this property
is from 1 to 2147483647.
- Click OK. The property is changed immediately.
Long-lived business processing enables collaboration objects to be deployed
as a long-lived business processes. If a collaboration object has been
configured with long-lived business processing, the service call timeout
values can be reconfigured during runtime. For more information about
developing a collaboration object with long-lived business processing, see the
Collaboration Development Guide.
To reconfigure the service call timeout values of a collaboration with
long-lived business processing, do the following:
- From System Manager, right-click the collaboration object whose service
call timeout value you want to edit, then click Properties. The
Properties dialog box appears.
- From the Properties tab, locate the property that represents the service
call timeout value you want to change, then click in the value field.
When the property becomes highlighted, the value can be edited.
- Note:
- The name of the service call timeout configuration property may be something
like, "CreateTimeout" or "RetreiveTimeout," but since there is no naming
convention for this property, you may have to contact the person who developed
the collaboration, if the name of the service call timeout configuration
property is not immediately apparent.
- Edit the value so that it represent the number of timeout minutes
allowed.
- Note:
- The Value field must contain an integer greater than 0. If it contains
a 0 or is left blank, the waittime is equal to infinity. If it contains
non-numerical values, it will trigger a collaboration runtime
exception.
- Click OK. Your changes take place immediately, without the need to
restart InterChange Server.
