Barun,
The following is based on my experiences and are not necessariy in the order in which you might do things:
1. X12 is a more strictly enforced standard than HL/7.
2. You need to know the Transaction Sets you will be reqwuired to produce (Transaction Sets are lossely analguous to HL/7 Message/Event Types).
3. For those Transation Sets, I would get the X12 Implementation Guide. The Implementation Guide describes the standard for that Transaction Set in detail including the ‘envelopes’.
4. The system wanting or providing the Transaction Sets should provide a Companion Guide. The Companion Guide expresses that trading partners use of the standard defined in the Implementation Guide. Frequently Companion Guides only identify thos things specifically related to the use of the stnadard not everything in the standard. For example there frequently is not a detailed description of the structure and content of the ISA/IEA Envelope set or any other envelope sets for that mattter.
5. Remember acknowlegments (and there can be more than one in X12 deployment) are considered Transaction Sets which are independnet of the data containing Transaction Sets so all of the above applies to acknowledgment Transaction Sets as well.
6. X12 Transaction Sets are typically constructed of Loops and Levels. This is somewhat analguous to gorups in HL/7 but only loosely so.
7. X12 is more complicated than most HL/7 but not so severly that it cannot be accomplished.
8. Inside Cloverleaf, X12 messages are processed without the ‘envelopes’. So the envelopes must be removed from the messages in order to Xlate then returned when delivered to the destination (this includes the acknowledgments as well).
9. To accomplish the above Cloverleaf has provided some packages, etc. The first is X12lib which can be locaed in $HCIROOT/tcl/lib directory. The second is edi.tcl which can be found in $HCIROOT/tclprocs. I believe the Help for Cloverleaf describes somewhat the use of the items in edi.tcl.
10 The provided functionality allows the removal of the envelopes from an X12 message upon receipt (Inbound TPS of the Inbound Thread) and rebuilding the envelope upod delivery of the X12 message (outbound Tps of the Outbound thread). hcix12splitinterchange and hcibuildinterchange respectively. hcisplit interchange also builds the SEPCHARS Metadata field whic is used by the Xlate to parse and place the proper separators for X12 messages.
11. In your case you will not have an X12 message coming in but you need an envelope to wrap around the X12 message going out. There is a function in the X12lib package to do that. I wrtote a Tcl proc to deploy that package which uses I think more human readable terminology yet exploits the distributed functionality but that is not necessary. So when you receive your XML message you will need to build an envelope in teh Metadata so that the Xlate can build your X12 message properly.
12. Sometimes the Trading Partner wants to use other than the standard separators (most commonly the sub-field separator). In HL/7 the first and second fields of the MSH determine the separators to be used in the message. X12 is different and thus Cloverleaf storing the Separator characters in the Metadata in a separate Metadata field. Tom make such a modification you will need a Tcl proc. In one integration I did from HL/7 to X12 I constructed just such a Tcl proc to be invoked from an Xlate.
I am not sure at what level of Cloverleaf you are certified but if only at Level 1 I think some of this may be troublesome for you.
I believe the key to what successes I have had with X12 lie with the acquisitin of the Implementation Guide and insistence that the Trading Partner provide the Companion Guide. You have to purchase the Implementation Guide(s) from Washington Publishing (they have a Web page). The Companion Guides should be provided free. Like anything you get from a vendor though you miust take the Companuion Guide with a grain (maybe more) of salt and verify everything in it.
email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 29+ years Cloverleaf, 59 years IT - old fart.
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