The implementation of a polling notification is similar to the implementation of an adapter service. Each implementation includes a Java class extending an ADK base class, and a namespace node in which design-time configuration data is stored. In the Java class, the metadata model for polling notifications is nearly identical to that of adapter services. The configuration pages are built from the polling notification's metadata.

The primary difference between adapter services and polling notifications is the run time behavior of polling notifications. Polling notifications cannot be directly invoked from a flow service (or from Designer). Instead, the server invokes a polling notification automatically, based on a fixed time interval. When a polling notification determines that a specified event has occurred in the adapter resource, it produces a document describing the event. These documents are automatically published to Integration Server (or webMethods Broker) as they are generated by the notification. The processing of the published document is based on triggers that are configured to invoke flow services when the given document type is published.