stilts

I'm planning on using a queued message handler to facilitate RS-232 reads & writes. I'd like to handle each action (configuring serial port, reading, writing, closing VISA session) by a different case in the case structure. I have two questions related to this: 1) Must I use the "VISA resource name out" on the configure/read/write functions to keep the VISA session open? The LabVIEW help mentions using this output as a way to maintain dataflow from one VISA function to the next, but it doesn't explicitly say that it's required to keep the session open. It would be nice if I didn't have to use this because I'd only need a node for the resource name on the left side of my while loop, not the right. 2) Assuming I am required to connect "VISA resource name out," would I be able to use the close VISA session function in one of my case structure cases, or would I need to place this function outside the while loop? Thanks for your help