Introduction

An orchestration as a diagram

A BizTalk orchestration (.odx) is normally opened in the Orchestration Designer in Visual Studio. The file itself holds the designer's XML followed by XLANG/s code. The BizTalk Orchestration Viewer reads the designer XML and shows:

• A diagram of the shapes in document order, with containers such as scopes and branches laid out around their children.
• Counts of shapes, receives, sends, maps, decisions and references.
• A shape list you can search and filter by shape type.
• An inspector with the selected shape's attributes, its references to ports, messages, maps and other artifacts, and a migration note.

It can also open other BizTalk-related XML, such as a .btm map, an .xsd schema or a binding file, and show the elements it recognises.

Where it runs

• In VS Code 1.85 or later. No BizTalk Server, Visual Studio or tracking database is needed.
• Locally. Files are parsed inside the VS Code window and are not uploaded anywhere.
• Read-only. The viewer never changes the file. Moving shapes on the diagram only changes the view.