Hello All,
In our current project involving Swift integration package, we have to use AUTOCLIENT to integrate our back office applications which in turn will connect to SWIFTnet via Alliance lite 2.
Searched about Autoclient in SCN and other forums but haven't got any concrete information about this. So thought of sharing my stitched thoughts about this which may help some or there is no harm in knowing something new..
Also hoping you have some information about SWIFT integration package or I suggest you can refer my previous blog about SWIFT before going through this. Here is the link for the same. http://scn.sap.com/community/pi-and-soa-middleware/blog/2013/04/05/swift-what-is-it
Starting with what exactly Autoclient is?
AutoClient is an optionally installed part of Alliance Lite2 that you use to integrate software
applications with Alliance Lite2. Through AutoClient, your back-office applications can send and
receive messages and files over SWIFTNet in a fully automated way and with strong security.
This application provides file-based communication to and from FIN and FileAct services. You
can send and receive files containing Standards MT and MX messages and FileAct files.
Few points related to autoclient
1. AutoClient uses a directory structure on the local host to interface with your back-office
application.
2. When you install AutoClient, you must specify a location for the installation directory (by default,
C:\Program Files\SWIFT\Alliance Lite2) and a location for the base directory (by default, C:
\Program Files\SWIFT\Alliance Lite2\files) on the AutoClient host. The base directory contains
four subdirectories: emission, reception, archive, and error
3. The back-office application uses the emission directory to request upload of files by AutoClient
to SWIFTNet. AutoClient regularly scans the emission directory for new files to be uploaded.
The EmissionTimerInMillis polling timer determines how often the emission directory is
Scanned.
4. The back-office application can submit FIN messages, FileAct files, and InterAct messages
5. The emission directory does not require any maintenance because AutoClient automatically
moves a file from its emission directory to its archive directory
when the file has been uploaded to the Alliance Lite2 server.
6. The reception directory contains the files that your organisation receives from counterparties. It
also contains the status of the messages that your organisation sent previously through
AutoClient.
7. AutoClient regularly polls the Alliance Lite2 server for new files that are ready for download.
Files appear in the server when they are completely downloaded and ready for the back-office
application to process.
8. It is the user's responsibility to maintain the reception directory: AutoClient does not
automatically move files from the reception directory. SWIFT recommends that you perform
regular archives of the files in this directory.
9. FIN and FileAct files that have been successfully uploaded to the Alliance Lite2 server are
moved from the emission directory to the archive directory.
10. The error directory contains copies of the files that resulted in an error before or during upload,
together with an error file (with extension .err) containing a description of the error.
11. This section explains the process by which AutoClient handles files to be sent, from the
emission directory up to the Alliance Lite2 server.
Each file must conform to the following basic requirements:
12. the payload file that you want to send to your counterparty, embedded in a FileAct file
transmission
13. a companion parameter file, which contains the SWIFTNet FileAct routing information for the
associated payload file and specifies how the file must be sent
The filename of the companion parameter file is the filename of the payload file with the
extension .fa.
14. The back-office application can also use a default companion file. The default
companion file contains predefined SWIFTNet FileAct routing information. The
AutoClient operator creates the default companion file. There can be only one
default companion file (extension .default) per directory. If the default
companion file is present, it is always used.
The naming convention for the default file is as follows:
– .fa.default
• an LAU file
15. If LAU is required for FileAct files, then the back-office application prepares the LAU data.
The back-office application computes the LAU signature on the payload file, and it adds the
following properties/elements to the companion file:
– Algorithm: HMAC_SHA256
– Value: <computed LAU signature on payload file>
16. Each file must conform to the following basic requirements:
• The file name must have the following characteristics:
– less than 200 characters
– not containing the following invalid characters:
• : (colon)
• ' (single quote)
• \ (back slash)
• The file must be less than or equal to 250 MB in size.
This is just an introductory information about AUTOCLIENT.
In My next Blog, I Will share how exactly we have used this in our application involving swift integration package.
Regards,
Amarnath