A collaboration uses certain methods to generate messages. There are two ways for a collaboration to generate message text visible to a user:
Generally, it is better practice to design a collaboration to refer to a message file than to generate the text itself. Keeping messages in a centralized message file, rather than within individual collaborations, makes maintenance, administration, and internationalization easier.
It is good practice to create a message file for each collaboration template. Process Designer Express provides the Messages view to facilitate message creation. When InterChange Server starts a collaboration object, it attempts to load the associated message file into memory. It logs a warning if the message file is missing.
This chapter describes how message files work, as well as how to create and maintain them. It covers the following topics: