Automate the Validation and Certification of Trading Partner Messages plus Reduce Customer Communication by Up to 80%

The PilotFish OpenTravel Validation Server automates the entire process of validating and certifying trading partners’ messages and serves to standardize the exchange of initial and ongoing information. It’s the perfect solution for an organization that has multiple trading partners sending them the same message and who wants to greatly reduce the amount of back and forth manual communication.

By Utilizing the PilotFish OpenTravel Validation Server, the host organization can “publish” their message formats and validation rules on their own Validation Server. So for example, a trading partner can send an OTA_AirBookRQ message and then test and validate these messages before they go live on the host organization’s system.

How the OpenTravel Validation Server Works

Trading Partner Message Submission – A trading partner wishing to validate their messages may submit those messages in any of a variety of different ways. For instance, a developer wishing to test an OTA 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ Air Availability Request transaction may alternatively:

• Send an email with “OpenTravel OTA_AirAvailRQ Transaction Test” in the subject line
• Post the XML to test.yourcompany.com/OTA2010B/OTA_AirAvailRQ
• Select “OpenTravel 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ” from a drop-down on a web page
• FTP a file to the “OpenTravel/2010B/OTA_AirAvailRQ” directory on test.yourcompany.com

Trading Partner Message Validation – Validation models can be “layered”, where a number of different models are applied to the same instance document. For example, the same document may be validated against:

• OpenTravel 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ Schema Validation
• OpenTravel 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ Certification Rules
• OpenTravel 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ Your Company-Specific Implementation Rules
• OpenTravel 2010B OTA_AirAvailRQ Trading Partner-Specific Implementation Rules for another Trading Partner

OpenTravel can provide the “standard” validation rules. Your organization and its partners in the Travel value chain may also submit validation requirements that can be deployed to the transaction Validation Server. With this feature, a trading partner can ensure that their messages are not only OpenTravel certifiable, but that they also can be consumed by your organization. Using this approach also adds the benefit of exposing areas where partners’ interpretations are at odds with yours, or with the OTA standard itself.

Host Organization Message Response

With the PilotFish Validation Server, validation results can be produced as XML or as a human-readable HTML report. This report enumerates the rules executed against a particular OpenTravel Document, the success or failure of the rules above, and any relevant details in the case of a failure. The report is returned to the submitter through the appropriate transport protocol (email, HTTP, web page, FTP, etc.).

For a demo of how your organization can benefit from the PilotFish OpenTravel Validation Server, please contact us.