Biztalk Interview Questions and Answers
Question - 1 : - What is BizTalk?
Answer - 1 : - · Biztalk is a messaging based integration tool.
· Bonus: It consists of several different pieces including Business Processes (Orchestrations), BAM, Rules Engines, and HAT.
Question - 2 : - In BizTalk 2002, schemas were DTD based and allowed Xml Elements to be in any order inside a record using the keyword. How is this different in BizTalk 2004?
Answer - 2 : - BizTalk 2004 is XSD based.
BizTalk 2004 Elements default to and is no longer available.
Question - 3 : - What is a Message Type (i.e. BTS.MessageType) and how is it used in BizTalk?
Answer - 3 : - Message Type is a BizTalk System property that is promoted inside a Pipeline. It is made up of Document Name Space # Root Node Name.
Question - 4 : - How do you call a Non-Serializable .Net helper class inside an Expression Shape?
Answer - 4 : - Add a reference to that class.
Make sure your Orchestration is Long Running transactional.
Add an Atomic scope.
Create an Orchestration variable of that class inside the scope.
Create an instance on that object inside the scope.
Call the method.
Bonus: Mention the class must be strongly signed and in the GAC.
Question - 5 : - What if the class is Serializable?
Answer - 5 : - No transactional Orchestration or Atomic scope is needed.
Question - 6 : - What does the Value Mapping Functoid do?
Answer - 6 : - Returns the second parameter if the first parameter is true
Question - 7 : - How do you use Auto Mapping in the BizTalk 2004 mapper?
Answer - 7 : - Select a top level node, hold down the Shift key, drag the top level node over to the other top level node.
Question - 8 : - What is the default mapping for Auto Mapping?
Answer - 8 : - The default is by structure. This can be change to by node name on the map properties. (This default in the auto map messes me up every time.)
Question - 9 : - Step-by-step, how do you set up a basic, pure messaging solution taking in a flat file and send an Xml File out to 5 different places?
Answer - 9 : - Create a Flat File schema
Create a Custom Pipeline using the Flat File Disassembler
Create a Receive Port
Create 5 Send Ports
Create a Send Port Group
Add each Send Port to the Send Port Group
Create a Filer on the Send Port Group using Bts.ReceivePortName (or something close to this)
Additional: no map is required but it is ok to mention it
Question - 10 : - What is the difference between a Distinguished field and a Promoted Property?
Answer - 10 : - Distinguished fields are light weight and can only be used inside an Orchestration.
Promoted Properties are defined inside a property schema, are tracking in SQL, can be tracked in HAT, and can be used for content based routing.