In its role as an application interface, UNI insulates the site's application programmers from having to deal with network-specific requirements. UNI provides a set of APIs which allow the site's outbound and inbound application programs to exchange messages with UNI.
The main application interface functions provided by UNI are:
Message Translation
UNI translates the messages from a logical format easy to manipulate within an application program into the network format (or AMIE: AAMVAnet™ Message Interchange Envelope).
Message Grouping
UNI groups the response messages together in its application message file. Messages are sorted in a logical manner and the file layout is provided with the UNI software to allow application programs to access the file.
Site Application Notification
UNI can notify a site application once the transaction is complete or every time a response message is received.
Store & Forward
UNI can store and forward messages using either an interval of time or a specific time in the day.
Time-out
It is possible to specify a time-out time after which UNI should notify the site application that the transaction is not complete and (optionally) abort the incomplete transaction.