HCM – the HL7 Comm Server

Download

View the download page here.

About

HCM (short for HL7 Comm Multi) is the server version of HL7 Comm. It lets you run your HL7 Comm configurations in an environment that’s available for you to control and monitor from a web browser. If you’re looking for a simple tool to help with integration testing or to create a single interface on a machine you have console access to, then the normal HL7 Comm is probably going to be the most convenient for you to use.

Support and more information

Support questions can be asked on the HL7 utilities forum here. Links to the documentation are in the navigation column to the right. More documentation and support articles should be available soon.

Using HCM

If you have a need to run HL7 Comm as a server there are a few potential benefits in using HCM over HL7 Comm. One is that because HCM runs on top of a Java servlet container (I use Tomcat 6) you can take advantage of the running that process as a service or daemon on your platform, and instead of starting a number of HL7 Comm instances for multiple interfaces, they can all exist in a single process that’s far easier to manage.

Today HCM let’s you run any number of HL7 Comm “cores” known as “processor agents”. These use exactly the same code as HL7 Comm, so if your configuration works in one it will work in the other. You would connect to the HCM server via any web browser and from there you can start and stop processor agents as well as view recent logs. The overview page lets you see at a glance a status for all components.

Upcoming versions of HCM will enable you to work with configurations and logic scripts directly in your browser. Right now it’s preferable to use a normal HL7 Comm to create and edit the configurations and to develop and test your logic scripts, then to save them in a location where HCM can find them. I do intend to add a queuing service to HCM as well, including basic queue management, but for right now it’s recommended to use a pair of file clients (FileOutByDir and FileInByDir) to move data between two processor agents, though a set of HL7 network clients (HL7Client and HL7ThreadServer) could be used as well.

Installation and Configuration

Read that article here.

Screenshots

Version 0.3 (ignore the title bar below):

HCM overview

Original overview screen:

HCM overview

Download

View the download page here.