Recipients Parameter Guidance and Best Practices 

The ‘recipients’ parameter in the Node 2 Specification, is a feature designed to enable nodes to dynamically send messages to multiple parties without the need for pre-programmed business logic. The following guidelines and best practices will assist flow developers interested in using the ‘recipients’ parameter.

Technical Details

• The Recipients parameter is a string that may be a Node URI or an email address.
• If a submission request specifies a Node URI recipient, the processed package will be forwarded to the specified recipient using the submit method.
• If a submission request specifies an email recipient, the processed package will be emailed to the specified recipient.
• Optional for a receiving node to implement functionality to process ‘recipients.’
• Required as an element in the request message (the value may be empty).
• On any error processing for the recipient parameter, a node should return a SOAP fault indicating there was an error with recipients. In this instance, the originating node must resend the submission.

Security

• The NAAS will provide authorization capabilities for ‘recipients.’ Node administrators will be able to define which users can make use of this function through standard NAAS policies.
• Nodes forwarding submissions through the ‘recipients’ parameter will need to use their own NAAS credential to authenticate with the receiving node.
• Specific security models and error conditions/messages should be defined on a flow by flow basis.

Best Practices

• Nodes should only honor ‘recipient’ values from trusted partners who have been explicitly permitted to make use of this functionality.
• Flow developers should seek to use ‘recipients’ only when it reduces complexity and improves functionality of a business process.
• This feature is not intended to be a ‘forwarding’ mechanism for multiple nodes. Flows using recipients should seek to minimize the processing and transmission that any one node would experience in the process of honoring this parameter.