This would be a first for us and need some advice. We need to pass an XML file via our engine and not sure of the configuration. This would be a raw feed with a TCP connection, but uncertain about the ACKs inbound/outbound. Any help would be appreciated.
I would ask the receiving system (I am assuming this is the TCP connection) what their protocol is for acknowledgments.
If they do not have one, I would have a serious discussion with them to establish an acknowledgment exchange.
They might just want to send something more simple than what is found with HL/7 or X12 or they might send an XML acknowledgment. In any case, I would want to find out if they can send positive and negative acknowledgments; what is the system meaning of a negative acknowledgment; and is there anything in a negative acknowledgment which further indicates the reason for the negative acknowledgment.
Once the specification of the acknowledgment exchange is established, either an appropriate PDL or Tcl code could be used or written.
email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.
I would start by using the Fileset Protocol (Local or FTP based on the situation) to pick up the file.
You will need to know how the individual XML messages/records are terminated within the file (NL or CR or CR/NL, or ???) to set the Style in the Fileset Protocol appropriately.
Have you done Fileset Protocol before?
The engine will then locate and read the file. Each record/message will then route through your raw routing to the destination thread.
The destination thread configuration (TCP) is dependent on what is negotiated with the receiving system. I am going to assume it could be straight TCP/IP but that you will need to determine.
email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.
So your EHR will need to communicate their connection requirements to you so you know how to configure the TCP/IP. I would hope they can provide some options. Length based TCP/IP would be nice.
Hopefully you won’t need to worry about encoding. Certainly a question to ask the source system is what encoding they are planning on using.
The only XML via TCP/IP connection I have done required nothing special for encoding. It was straight ASCII.
Both systems will need to let you know how they want to handle acknowledgment exchange though.
email: jim.kosloskey@jim-kosloskey.com 30+ years Cloverleaf, 60 years IT – old fart.
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