Listener Profiles

You create "Listener Profiles" which contain information how the listener receives HL7 messages. You can create as many listener profiles as you wish but you can only "Enable" as many profiles as your product license permits (1 - 500). While in "Demo" mode you can run the maximum.

•	Enabled. If this box is checked then when the program runs (either as a service or locally) a listener engine will be created for this profile.

•

HL7 Port Number. Enter the TCP/IP port number on which this listener profile should listen for HL7 messages. It must be a valid port number (1 - 64K) and it must NOT be in use by any other listener profiles or programs. Also, if you've enabled the Global System Monitor this port number cannot be the same as the Global Monitor Port.

•

TCP/IP Packet Size. 99% of the time the default setting is more than adequate for this field. Whichever setting you choose will NOT effect the listener's ability to receive HL7 messages. The only time you might need to increase this value might be if you are receiving consistently 'Large' HL7 messages (ie messages which contain documents or images). This setting is used internally for memory allocation so the larger the setting, the more memory will be used by the listener.

In most instances you will NOT need to alter these settings. It should only be necessary if you are receiving HL7 messages from a client who is using non-standard control characters.

•	BOM. The beginning of message character(s). All HL7 messages sent to this listener must begin with this character(s). The ANSI HL7 standard is a single Hex (0B) character

•	EOM. The end of message character(s). All HL7 messages sent to this listener must end with these character(s). The ANSI HL7 standard is a Hex (1C) followed by a Hex(0D)

•	SOM. The HL7 message segment delimiter. HL7 messages are made up of 'Segments'. The segments must be separated by this character(s). The ANSI HL7 standard is a single carriage return character (a Hex(0D) ).

•	Automatic. The listener will determine whether to send an HL7 acknowledgement back to the client based on fields 15 and 16 of the MSH segment of the message.

•	Evaluate MSH Segment for NAK. If checked the listener profile will validate elements of the HL7 message per your instructions (see MSH Validation). If the message FAILS validation then a negative acknowledgement (NAK) will be sent back to the client.

•	Save NAK Messages. If this is NOT checked then any messages which fail MSH validation are discarded by the listener. If it is checked, then validation failures will be saved in the Data Folder with a (.nak) file extension.

As each listener profile receives HL7 messages they are written to HL7 data files in the data folder (see below). Each file in the data folder will contain ONE (1) HL7 message.

•

Data Folder. The full path to the folder where the listener should store HL7 messages which it receives. IMPORTANT NOTE: If you intend to run your listeners as a MS Windows Service (see Running as a Service) then this folder should always reside on a LOCAL DISK DRIVE and not on a network share or a mapped virtual drive (even a local drive alias) unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. See Troubleshooting for more information on using Network Drives.

•

Profile ID. A short name (2-4 alpha-numeric characters) which is unique for each profile. The Profile ID is used when naming the hl7 message data files written to the Data Folder so having a unique ID here assures that you can have multiple listener profiles all writing data to the same Data Folder without having the worry of duplicate file names being overwritten.

•	Extension. The file extension that the profile should use when writing HL7 message files to the data folder.

In the optional settings tab you can configure your listener profile to act as a 'Proxy' for another application which uses the UltraPort Proxy Toolkit for Microsoft Visual Studio. For more information about the FREE UltraPort Listener Proxy Toolkit click here. The rule here is that if you're 'not sure' if you need to forward your messages to a Proxy Application then you probably don't.

In this tab check the 'Forward HL7 Messages' button to show the rest of the settings. Select whether the Proxy application is on the same computer as the listener or another. If it's another computer then enter the TCP/IP address for that computer. NOTE: If the proxy application is on another computer then the TCP/IP address must be on the same network as the listener computer. Enter the Interface Port Number (will be provided to you by the Proxy Application author). IMPORTANT NOTE: If the proxy application is on the same computer, then the interface port number MUST NOT conflict with any of the HL7 Port Numbers from any of your listener profiles OR (if enabled) the Global Monitor port number.

Two more interesting features in this tab. The 'Do NOT Save' checkbox. Your listener profile will use the Data Folder to 'queue' up messages to be sent to the Proxy Application. If the Proxy Application is stopped, not listening for messages, or even processes slower than the UltraPort Listener, the UltraPort listener will continue to receive messages and store them in the data folder with a (.pq) file extension. Finally the 'Test' button. You can click this button to manually 'Ping' the Proxy Application using the settings you've selected. It will tell you immediately wheter the settings are correct AND whether the Proxy Application is running and listening for messages. This is a built-in feature of the UltraPort Proxy Toolkit so the application authors don't have to do anything, it's automatic.

It is even possible to have multiple listener profiles sending HL7 messages to the SAME proxy application on the SAME port. This means that you can have multiple inbound TCP/IP HL7 data streams which all go to the same proxy application for final processing and distribution!