The text below is based on the beta release of BizTalk 2010. It might not (completely) apply to the RTM release.
This blog post is part of a series of blog posts about my favorite new features in the BizTalk 2010 mapping tool. You can find an overview here.
This is by far the coolest new feature. In complex mappings with big schemas it might be very hard to find the node in the destination schema to link to. With suggestive matching the mapper can help.
Say I want to map from the source element ‘Lastname’ to a corresponding element in the destination schema but imagine the schema is too big to easily find the destination node. This is how it works: I select the ‘Lastname’ element in the source schema right click and choose ‘Indicate matches’ from the context menu that appears:
The mapper automatically finds the most relevant nodes in the destination schema by doing a name match. It draws the suggested links on the map surface:
By using the arrow keys I can loop through the suggested nodes. If I have found the correct one I just press enter and the link is added for me:
For the small schema above this might seem like a little overkill but in big schemas that span outside the screen bounds these feature is absolutely very useful.
The next feature is about the optimized display of links.
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Thanks for posting series of posts on Map enhancements. Even when multiple matches are found, we are currently able to select only one. It would be nice, if we can have a way to select multiple nodes out of suggested matches.