BizTalk Process Flow

BizTalk Server helps businesses coordinate information exchange among systems with incompatible data formats and communications protocols.

This illustration shows a simplified BizTalk Server process that coordinates the steps involved in restocking inventory in a warehouse. The process includes both enterprise application integration (EAI) and business-to-business (B2B) scenarios. In step 1, a manufacturing company’s Windows-based warehouse management system detects that inventory of a specific item has fallen below a critical level, and it issues an inventory requisition by sending a message to BizTalk Server. BizTalk Server translates the message and sends it to the company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, a UNIX-based application that is responsible for issuing and tracking purchase orders (POs), which it formulates and submits to BizTalk Server (step 2).

In step 3, BizTalk Server restructures the PO in a format acceptable to a parts supplier’s order entry system and sends the PO to the supplier over the Internet. The supplier’s order-entry system returns an order confirmation, including an estimated delivery date for the ordered stock, to the manufacturer. BizTalk Server passes this confirmation to the manufacturer’s ERP system (step 4) which updates its records and, in turn, sends a message to the warehouse management system via BizTalk Server (step 5) containing the estimated delivery date.