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 parameters to configure a polling notification are built from the polling notifications' metadata.

The primary difference between adapter services and polling notifications is the runtime behavior of polling notifications. Polling notifications cannot be directly invoked from a flow service or from Designer. Instead, Integration Server automatically invokes a polling notification in 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.