Serm,

More on signals - and use scenarios - especially WRT state indication.

1) I believe we have added an additional status of 'pending'. The idea being that you may use a signal to note that some downstream processing has been initiated, and that a complete response will be sent later. This allows your partner to know that the initiating transaction was received, and was understood - but that further processing must occur before a final response happens. This is obviously important in multi-party collaborations, or when using downstream webservices. The difference between a signal and a transaction in this case - is that the signal is informationary - and not legally binding - as a transaction could be construed to be.

2) A signal may occur as a result of some closing condition - either succeed or fail - and is therefore not necessarily associated directly with an initiating transaction within a BTA - and again - is indicating some terminal boundary condition (usually a failure) that cannot be easily done with a formal legal transaction. Or a signal may indicate success in some intermediate step - that shows that progress is continuing toward a formal outcome - eg CreditVerifiedOK, then a subsequent step will see if services can be found to fulfil the request.

Hope that helps.

DW