CORE HL7 Postmaster

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To create a new Postmaster click the New Postmaster button in the Main Window. You can also open the File menu and select New Postmaster. This will open the New Postmaster window.

 

 

In the New Postmaster window you start in the Central Distribution tab where you enter the main Postmaster properties.

 

 

 

Part 1. Give your Postmaster a Name. Check or Uncheck Enable This Postmaster to enable or disable your Postmaster.

 

Select from the dropdown to indicate which Postmaster Windows Service should run this Postmaster. It can be either instance 1-20 of the Primary Services OR you can choose a Private Service. Note that this only applies if your Postmaster License allows you to run the Windows Services (See How Licenses Work). You can choose either one of the 3 Primary services (Service 1, Service 2, or Service 3) OR you can choose Private to run this Postmaster in a Private Service (See Running Your Postmasters).

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Part 2. Choose the Distribution Folder (also known as the Central Distribution Folder or Central Distribution), and enter the main file extension which must be either * OR a 1 to 5 character alphanumeric value (the underscore character _ is also allowed here).

 

You browse for the Distribution Folder by clicking the browse for folder button OR you can double-click in the Distribution Folder field to enter by hand.

 

The ID field is read-only and will be created automatically the first time you SAVE your Postmaster.

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Part 3. The HL7 Message Control characters. The BOM (Begin Message), EOM (End of Message) and SOM (Segment Delimiter) characters which are displayed in Hexadecimal.

 

By default these values are set to their HL7 ANSI values. Most people can work their entire career and never have to change these values. If you don't know if you need to change these values then you probably do not. You can refer to HL7.org for a more fulsome description of what these values mean. IF they are not set to their ANSI values the ANSI Reset button will become enabled which you can click to "reset" the values back to their ANSI defaults.

 

If you do need to change them you can click the edit button.

 

 

Also here in Part 3 you select the Preferred Text Encoding. The default value is UTF-8 or you can choose ANSI. This setting might be very important for you IF your HL7 messages might include any extended ASCII characters (like • € ‚ ƒ … † ‡ ˆ ‰ ‹ Œ ‘ ’ “ ” • – — ˜ ™ › œ Ÿ ¼ ½ ¾ © ® ° , etc.). See Preferred Text Encoding for a more in depth discussion.

 

 

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Part 4. System Watch.

 

In Part 4 you set the System Watch threshold for your Postmaster. The default value is 1000 you can choose different values up to the maximum of 25000. System Watch is a Postmaster monitoring object which runs constantly in the background when your Postmaster is running. It monitors all of the HL7 message queues in all of the End Points in your Postmaster and if they get too large, it stops your Postmaster until it is resolved. See System Watch for more information on how this setting instructs your Postmaster at runtime.

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After you have completed Parts 1 through 4 you will need to set up your HL7 Data Source(s) (if needed) and / or your HL7 Destination(s) (if needed). Every Enabled Postmaster MUST have at least 1 enabled Data Source OR 1 enabled Destination (which is NOT a Rubbish Bin).

 

When you have completed your edits click the Save Changes button. If your Postmaster is Enabled (See Part 1 above) your Postmaster will have to pass a Validation test before you can save it.

 

 

 

See Next: HL7 Data Sources, HL7 Destinations

 

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