Microsoft Knowledge Base Email Alertz

How to use distinguished fields and promoted properties in a BizTalk Server 2006 R2 project

Search KbAlertz

Advanced Search

Receive Microsoft Knowledge Base articles by E-Mail?

Every night we scan the Microsoft Knowledge Base. If technologies you're interested in are updated, we'll send you an e-mail. You only get one e-mail a day, and only when new articles are added.

Click here to create a
FREE account
Already have an account?
[Click here to Login]











Microsoft Knowledge Base Article

This article contents is Microsoft Copyrighted material.
©2005-©2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Trademarks

Article ID: 942250 - Last Review: October 31, 2007 - Revision: 1.6

How to use distinguished fields and promoted properties in a BizTalk Server project

INTRODUCTION

When you create a Microsoft BizTalk Server project in Microsoft Visual Studio, you can promote a field as both a distinguished field and a promoted property. As a best practice, you should promote a field as either a distinguished field or a promoted property. You should not promote a field as both a distinguished field and a promoted property.

This article describes some points to consider when you use distinguished fields and promoted properties.

MORE INFORMATION

When you use distinguished fields and promoted properties, consider the following points:
  • Use distinguished fields when you want to make decisions or to manipulate data in an orchestration. The pipeline disassembler will insert a Written property into the message context for items that are marked as a distinguished field.
  • Use promoted properties as criteria for message routing. However, notice that promoted properties are also available in an orchestration. The pipeline disassembler will insert a Promoted property into the message context for items that are marked as a promoted property.
  • Promoted properties are limited to 256 characters for performance reasons. For example, promoted properties are limited to 256 characters to improve performance in comparison operations and in storage operations.
  • Written properties do not have a size limit. However, large values that are written into the message context must still be processed by BizTalk Server. Therefore, performance may be affected.
  • A promoted property may not be available as a promoted property after you write a value into the message context. This situation can occur if the value that you write into the message context has the same name and namespace that was used to promote the property.
  • Properties that have a null value are not permitted in the message context. Therefore, if a null value is written into the message context, this value will be deleted.

REFERENCES

For more information about messages in BizTalk Server 2006, visit the following Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) Web site:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/aa560436.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-US/library/aa560436.aspx)
For more information about message processing in BizTalk Server 2006, visit the following Microsoft MSDN Web site:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561650.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa561650.aspx)
For more information about the messaging engine in BizTalk Server 2004, visit the following Microsoft MSDN Web site:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms935116.aspx (http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms935116.aspx)

APPLIES TO
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 R2 Branch
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Standard Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Enterprise Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Developer Edition
  • Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004 Partner Edition
Keywords: 
kbhowto kbbtsmessaging kbbts kbinfo KB942250
       

Community Feedback System

Very often, it takes hours to solve a problem. Very often, you've looked high and low, and have tried a lot of solutions. When you finally found it, chances are, it was because someone else helped you. Here's your chance to give back. Use our community feedback tool to let others know what worked for you and what didn't.

Please also understand that the community feedback system is not warranted to be correct, it's simply a system that we've built to let people try and help each other. If something in a feedback response doesn't make sense to you, or you're not comfortable making changes that the feedback talks about (like registry edits), please consult a professional.

Thank you for using kbAlertz.com Feedback System.

-- Scott Cate