External Agent COM API Reference Guide › About the External Agent COM API › WgnActiveImportConnector Object › Synchronous Versus Asynchronous Operations

Synchronous Versus Asynchronous Operations

WgnActiveImportConnector can be called in synchronous or asynchronous mode. The mode is determined initially by the method called in the IWgnActiveImportConnector interface: ImportObject() and ImportObjectAsync().

• Synchronous mode: If an e-mail is passed synchronously to the External Agent by calling ImportObject(), the call is blocked while the External Agent processes the e-mail. The call is only returned when processing is complete. The External Agent then returns any smart tags for that e-mail to the calling application.
• Asynchronous mode: The calling application passes e-mails to the External Agent by calling ImportObjectAync(), but the call is not blocked while the External Agent processes the e‑mail. The caller must pass the IWgnImportConnectorCallback interface to the External agent so it can inform the caller of the results when processing is complete.

After smart tags are returned to the caller, what happens next depends on whether deferred completion is enabled.