Operating collaboration objects may include such tasks as
running, pausing, stopping, and shutting down collaboration
objects.
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
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.
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.
