In broad terms, Messages are single documents that have three basic component sections - the Header section, the Body (or "Lines") section and the Tail section - with some special functions available in each of those sections. In simple terms, the Header and Tail contain data which relates to the Booking/PCM, and the Body contains data which relates to the individual services within the booking.

The Header and Tail contain information that relates to the message in general - e.g, in the Header of a Booking/PCM message, it's common to have such detail as the Booking/PCM name, travel date, message output date etc and in the Tail, detail of total pricing, terms and conditions, booking cancellation details etc.

The Body section of the template contains the format and detail of the individual services to be output.

The simple example Booking Agent message below shows the message sections. This message was created using the Template shown in Template Configuration.