BizTalk Orchestrations and their respective ports

It seems that every time I have a new BizTalk project land on my desk, my brain turns to mush.  My most recent project is a case in point.

So I was asked to create a simple project that would take data from two disparate systems and merge/clean the data, before finally outputting said data to a simple XML file.  "No problem!" or so I thought.  Recalling my BizTalk acronym SOME (Schemas - Orchestrations - Maps - ESB Itineraries), I was able to quickly produce a project that would perform the task required.  Everything compiled ok.  I was able to deploy successfully (or so I thought).

I only incurred one minor issue, I'd forgotten how to configure my send ports, leveraging "Specify later" binding, to produce an xml file to a directory.  "This can't be" I thought, "I've created several other send ports similar to what I need now."  Thus, panic set in once again.  So I did what any other would do in this event...I reviewed my past to uncover the secret behind properly configuring my send port.  Only problem was that the answer was not as blatantly obvious as I would have preferred. 

"Oh my god! How do you configure a simple send port?"  Well folks, the answer is rather trivial, but annoying nonetheless.  Within your orchestration, you will recall having to define a Port Type.  Some important properties to configure within this type is the "Type Modifier."  Type Modifier should be set to public so that it becomes viewable via Administration Console.  Next you should take note of the Port identifier property for the Port, not to be confused with the Port Type.  This property will prove useful when configuring your send port via Administration Console. 

So you've set your "Type Modifier" to public and you've successfully deployed your solution.  Great!  Now all you need is to configure a send port on the Administration Console.  So select the Application, and create a new send port of Transport Type "File."  Beautiful!  Now BizTalk should produce files for me to the directory specified....right?  Not quite, and here's where I panicked a bit.  At this point, you've declared a send port at the BizTalk level, and you've declared a send port at the project level.  So how do you tell BizTalk to pair the two?  Well, it just so happens that when you right-click the Application in Administration Console, and select "Configure," you are presented with a window displaying the artifacts available within the app.  You'll find both the orchestrations, and send/receive ports created.  Your final step here is to select the orchestration that produces the send port and pair it with the send port you configured via Administration Console.

Voila!