TeamForge Orchestrate uses source association keys to uniquely identify incoming data from activity sources that it monitors.
Adapters supply data to TeamForge Orchestrate through the message queue (MQ) layer. When a relevant activity occurs in source systems, TeamForge Orchestrate adapters generate a message with key metadata about the activity and place that message on the designated MQ server. When TeamForge Orchestrate receives the message, it must associate it to the proper source and pipeline somehow. To do this, TeamForge Orchestrate supplies a unique "source association key" for each external source created in every pipeline. Adapters must supply this unique source association key with each message so that TeamForge Orchestrate knows how to properly route and categorize the message.
Note that commit sources based on TeamForge project repositories do not need source associations keys since they are internal and are identified by other means. All other sources require source association keys.
