Glossary Item Box

Government Gateway 2.2.0 (MR-01) ISV Developer Help (Doc Version 06/03/08) | Send comments on this topic.

# ISV Application vs. Portals functionality

# ISV Applications

As detailed below, an ISV application has limited R&E capability. However the focus of an ISV application (e.g an accounting application) is the submission of business transactions/forms to Department services; in this area an ISV application has the same capability as a Web Portal implementation to use the facilities of the Transactions engine (Document Submission Protocol).

Operation | Web Portal (WS SOAP Portal Interface) | ISV application (WS SOAP Public Interface
--- | --- | ---
Registration: User registers with Gateway and gets an authentication credential (i.e. User ID/password or Certificate) | Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI (www.gateway.gov.uk) or a Portal.
Authentication: Once registered, user authentication credential is used to logon (i.e. authenticate with Gateway) to perform Registration and Enrolment (R&E) operations. | Yes. | Yes.
R&E View services: View available services (to enrol in) including the type of authentication credential (e.g. User ID or Certificate) required to enrol. | Yes. | Yes.
R&E Enrolments: Enrol in service/de-enrol from service. R&E: View enrolments | Yes. Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. Yes. Specifically this allows the identifiers (that identify the user to the service) to be obtained. This is required if a business transaction/form is to be used from the service.
R&E Client allocations: Allocate client enrolment to Agent (so agent can submit business transactions/forms on behalf on the client), or de-allocate client enrolment from Agent View allocations | Yes. Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. Yes.
R&E: Manage their account details and credentials: Change password Get replacement Password or recover forgotten User ID Add additional authentication credential (e.g. User ID or Certificate) View account details (including authentication credentials) | Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. Yes.
R&E Users/assistants in an Organisation or Agent: Create/delete additional users Create/manage and delete their assistants View existing users and assistants | Yes. Yes. Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. Yes.
R&E Assign Enrolments in a Organisation or Agent: Assign/de-assign an enrolment to a/from a user or assistant View assignments | Yes. Yes. | No. Can perform through Gateway UI or a Portal. Yes.
Monitor average time taken for a service to respond to submitted Business transactions/form type | Yes. | Yes.
Business transactions/forms Use the Document Submission Protocol to submit Business Transactions/forms documents to services offered by departments. | Yes. | Yes. To submit a transactions/form (document) from an ISV application (or a Portal) to a service the user does not need to be authenticated with (i.e. logged onto) the Gateway. If the service requires authentication to be able to use its transactions/forms then the user's Gateway authentication credential (e.g. User ID and hashed password) must be included in the submission document (GovTalk header). The user's authentication credential is checked by the Gateway before it routes the transaction document on to the service. The service recognises the user by identifiers that must be included in the document (GovTalk header). These identifiers were returned to the user when they enrolled in the service. An ISV application can also retrieve these identifiers through the WS SOAP Public Interface - see blue text above.

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