A Queue Manager screens requests to determine which requests are offered to the queues, and then it sends responses to the client with information about the queued transaction. Each time Arbortext PE Request Manager receives a request, it determines whether it should pass the request to each configured Queue Manager. Ordinarily, you only need one Queue Manager, but if you have more than one, the request is offered to each, in the order they are defined in e3config.xml. A Queue Manager declines a request by returning a null response, in which case the Arbortext PE Request Manager continues to the next defined Queue Manager. If a Queue Manager accepts the request, it returns an HTTP Response to the Arbortext PE Request Manager, which returns the response to the client.

A Queue Manager can further filter a request using a TestSet parameter to control which requests to examine and whether to offer the request to the queues. See Specifying Test Sets for information.

A Queue Manager is a Java object that must implement the com.arbortext.e3.E3QueueManager interface. Each QueueManager can have an associated list of parameters, as defined by an application that implements the com.arbortext.e3.E3QueueManager interface.