As with decisionServiceTargetVersion, the CorticonRequest complexType also includes an optional decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp attribute. This attribute (again, we're talking about attribute in the XML sense, not the Corticon Vocabulary sense) is included in all service contracts generated from Corticon Studio. Refer to the topic How to integrate Corticon Decision Services for full details of the XML service contracts supported (XSD and WSDL).

The relevant section of the XSD is shown below:

<xsd:attribute name=“decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp” use=“optional” 
type=“xsd:dateTime” />

Updating CorticonRequest with decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp according to the XSD, our new XML payload looks like this:

<CorticonRequest xmlns="urn:decision:tutorial_example"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
decisionServiceName="skydiver4_dates"
decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp="8/15/2012">
<WorkDocuments>
    <Person id="Person_id_2">
	<age>42</age>
	<skydiver>true</skydiver>
	<ssn>111-22-1111</ssn>
    </Person>
</WorkDocuments>
</CorticonRequest>      

Execute the request - Use your preferred SOAP API to execute the request.The response from Corticon Server is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Body>
    <ns1:CorticonResponse xmlns:ns1="urn:decision:tutorial_example" xmlns="urn:decision:tutorial_example" decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp="8/15/2012" decisionServiceName="skydiver4_dates">
      <ns1:WorkDocuments>
        <ns1:Person id="Person_id_2">
          <ns1:age>42</ns1:age>
          <ns1:riskRating>medium</ns1:riskRating>
          <ns1:skydiver>false</ns1:skydiver>
          <ns1:ssn>111-22-1111</ns1:ssn>
        </ns1:Person>
      </ns1:WorkDocuments>
      <ns1:Messages version="1.0">
        <ns1:Message>
          <ns1:severity>Info</ns1:severity>
          <ns1:text>A person over 35 years old that does not skydive is rated as medium risk.</ns1:text>
          <ns1:entityReference href="#Person_id_2" />
        </ns1:Message>
      </ns1:Messages>
    </ns1:CorticonResponse>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>

Corticon Server executed this request message using Decision Service version 1.0, which has the Effective/Expiration Date pair of 1/1/2012—12/31/2013. That is the only version of the Decision Service “effective” for the date specified in the request message's Effective Timestamp. The version that was executed shows in the version attribute of the <Messages> complexType.

To illustrate what happens when an Effective Timestamp falls in range of more than one Major Version of deployed Decision Services, let's modify our request message with a decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp of 8/15/2013, as shown:

<CorticonRequest xmlns="urn:decision:tutorial_example"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
decisionServiceName="skydiver4_dates"
decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp="8/15/2013">
<WorkDocuments>
    <Person id="Person_id_2">
	<age>42</age>
	<skydiver>true</skydiver>
	<ssn>111-22-1111</ssn>
    </Person>
</WorkDocuments>
</CorticonRequest>      

Send this request to Corticon Server, and then examine the response:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<soapenv:Envelope xmlns:soapenv="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
  <soapenv:Body>
    <ns1:CorticonResponse xmlns:ns1="urn:decision:tutorial_example" xmlns="urn:decision:tutorial_example" decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp="8/15/2013" decisionServiceName="skydiver4_dates">
      <ns1:WorkDocuments>
        <ns1:Person id="Person_id_2">
          <ns1:age>42</ns1:age>
          <ns1:riskRating>low</ns1:riskRating>
          <ns1:skydiver>false</ns1:skydiver>
          <ns1:ssn>111-22-1111</ns1:ssn>
        </ns1:Person>
      </ns1:WorkDocuments>
      <ns1:Messages version="3.0">
        <ns1:Message>
          <ns1:severity>Info</ns1:severity>
          <ns1:text>A person 55 years old or younger is rated as low risk.</ns1:text>
          <ns1:entityReference href="#Person_id_2" />
        </ns1:Message>
      </ns1:Messages>
    </ns1:CorticonResponse>
  </soapenv:Body>
</soapenv:Envelope>  

This time Corticon Server executed the request with version 3. It did so because whenever a request's decisionServiceEffectiveTimestamp value falls within range of more than one deployed Decision Service, Corticon Server chooses the Decision Service with the highest Major Version number. In this case, all three Decision Services were effective on 8/15/2013, so Corticon Server chose version 3 – the highest qualifying Version – to execute the request.