Call a multi-parameter web service with BizTalk WCF adapter

Question

I need to call a web service that has multiple parameters with BizTalk. With the SOAP adapter, I could send a multi-part message (one part for each parameter). However, I would like to use the WCF-BasicHttp adapter instead, since the SOAP adapter has been deprecated since BizTalk 2009.

From various sources, I see that the WCF adapters do not support calling multi-parameter operations (see for example Scenario 4 in http://seroter.wordpress.com/biztalk-and-wcf-part-v-publishing-operations-patterns/)

Is there any way to workaround this limitation, for example by developing a custom pipeline component?

Answer 1

You are right: WCF adapter doesn't support multi-part messages which is a miss. There is excellent post on the topic here: http://blog.sabratech.co.uk/2009/08/biztalk-wcf-adapter-and-multipart.html

If having multi-part message is important for some reason you can still use SOAP adapter in BTS2010. To add Web Reference click "Advanced" on the "Add Service Reference" popup and then "Add Web Reference". This should work but WCF adapter is considered better for many reasons.

Did you consider mapping all parts from your multi-part message to single WCF request message and then mapping response back?