You probably know this situation:
Some time ago, you found a very special $ZU function for a very specific type of problem. Some kind of mystical formula. It became popular and was used by many developers throughout your code and across all your installations.

Several versions and updates later, you are informed by ISC that your mystical $ZU is deprecated and no longer supported. You are advised to replace it with a new $something().

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When working with InterSystems Interoperability (Iris / Health Connect / Ensemble), configuration data is often spread across many production items: services, processes, operations, adapters, and their settings.

A common operational or security need is to answer questions like:

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Article
· Dec 24, 2025 2m read
"The Hidden HTTP Errors" (Behind IIS)

You send an HTTP request and get back an HTTP error but with an HTML error page which you didn't expect... what's happening?... 🤔

Specifically for example, perhaps you tried to READ a FHIR Resource (e.g. /Patient/123) and you get back a 404 error page, even though with other Patient IDs, you get back the Resource payload, so "the page" definitely does exist... why should you be getting a 404 error page? 🙄

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Article
· Nov 16, 2025 2m read
Network Debugging for Beginners - 2

In my previous article, I structured network communications
in these 3 possible layers, and covered the last

  • Client <---> Transport
  • Server <---> Transport
  • Client <---> Server

In fact, you have the most control over the last one.
The IRIS side as a server is yours and under your full control.
Up to now, the Transport layer was assumed to be as passive as a bare wire.

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Article
· Nov 6, 2025 2m read
About exporting mapped globals

InterSystems FAQ rubric

When exporting using the Export() method of the %Library.Global class, if the export format (fourth argument: OutputFormat) is set to 7, "Block format/Caché block format (%GOF)," mapped globals cannot be exported (only globals in the default global database of the namespace are exported). To export mapped globals in "Block format/Caché block format (%GOF)," specify the database directory to which you want to map them in the first parameter of %Library.Global.Export().

An example of execution is shown below.

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Overview

This web interface is designed to facilitate the management of Data Lookup Tables via a user-friendly web page. It is particularly useful when your lookup table values are large, dynamic, and frequently changing. By granting end-users controlled access to this web interface (read, write, and delete permissions limited to this page), they can efficiently manage lookup table data according to their needs.

The data managed through this interface can be seamlessly utilized in HealthConnect rules or data transformations, eliminating the need for constant manual monitoring and management of the lookup tables and thereby saving significant time.

Note:
If the standard Data Lookup Table does not meet your mapping requirements, you can create a custom table and adapt this web interface along with its supporting class with minimal modifications. Sample class code is available upon request.

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To manage the accumulation of production data, InterSystems IRIS enables users to manage the database size by periodically purging the data. This purge can apply to messages, logs, business processes, and managed alerts.

Please check the documentation for more details on the settings of the purge task:
https://docs.intersystems.com/irislatest/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=EGMG_purge#EGMG_purge_settings

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gj :: configExplorer is a new VS Code extension integrating with Server Manager and leveraging Structurizr to produce configuration diagrams of your servers.

Here's a short introductory video.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/WHkoZsg6P-A
[This is an embedded link, but you cannot view embedded content directly on the site because you have declined the cookies necessary to access it. To view embedded content, you would need to accept all cookies in your Cookies Settings]

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InterSystems FAQ rubric

The ^%GCMP utility can be used to compare the contents of two globals.

For example, to compare ^test and ^test in the USER and SAMPLES namespaces, it would look like this:
*In the example below, 700 identical globals are created in the two namespaces, and the contents of one of them is changed to make it the detection target.

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Introduction

HL7 messages often contain multiple repeating segments such as NTE, AL1, OBX, ZTX, DG1, and others. These segments sometimes require individual processing and routing to different downstream systems. This technical paper introduces a configurable template designed to automate the splitting of these repeating HL7 segments, improving message handling and integration efficiency.

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Article
· Sep 25, 2025 2m read
About parallel queries (%PARALLEL)

InterSystems FAQ rubric

One way to optimize query performance is to use query parallelism on a per-query or system-wide basis (a standard feature).

This is a technique for dividing the execution of a particular query among processors on a multi-processor system. The query optimizer will execute parallel processing only if there is a possibility of benefiting from parallel processing. Parallel processing is only applicable to SELECT statements.

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Starting out with ObjectScript, it is really exciting, but it can also feel a little unusual if you're used to other languages. Many beginners trip over the same hurdles, so here are a few "gotchas" you'll want to watch out for. (Also few friendly tips to avoid them)


NAMING THINGS RANDOMLY

We have all been guilty of naming something Test1 or MyClass just to move on quickly. But once your project grows, these names become a nightmare.

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I am regularly contacted by customers about memory sizing when they get alerts that free memory is below a threshold, or they observe that free memory has dropped suddenly. Is there a problem? Will their application stop working because it has run out of memory for running system and application processes? Nearly always, the answer is no, there is nothing to worry about. But that simple answer is usually not enough. What's going on?

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Working in healthcare IT as a young developer, especially on InterSystems TrakCare, you quickly realize one thing: it’s not just about HL7 messages or backend integrations. A huge part of making TrakCare work smoothly for hospitals comes down to how it’s configured, customized, and supported on the application side.

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artisan cover

If you’ve ever watched a true artisan—whether a potter turning mud into a masterpiece or a luthier bringing raw wood to life as a marvelous guitar—you know that magic isn’t in the materials, but in care, craft, and process. I know this firsthand: my handmade electric guitar is a daily inspiration, but I’ll admit—creating something like that is a talent I don’t have.

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Article
· Jul 23, 2025 1m read
Global-Inspector

If you are investigating complex structured Globals this can become
a rather boring typing exercise. Different from Global Explorer in
System Management Portal Global-Inspector allows a kind of drill-down
to dig deeper and deeper by subscript levels.
You also have the option to see the stored content or to show only
the subscript structures.
Globals storing SQL Tables are probably not so thrilling, but in SYSTEM
space you find real trees with completely different branches and twigs.

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My intention is to show how simple it is to generate a lookup table taking into account the information received in our HL7 messaging. The HL7 message lookup table provided by IRIS is certainly sufficient for most of the searches we want to perform, but we always have that special field in our HIS, LIS, RIS, etc. that we'd like to search by. But that's in a segment outside of that lookup table. That field forces us to generate a specific search using the expanded search criteria.

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It helps to remove special characters, such as non-utf-8 characters either control characters or unicode characters from text that is not printable or can't be parsed by downstream systems.

There is also $C(32) in this condition; sometimes NBSP appears in the text and it will not be recognized by TIE, but downstream it displays as "?".

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One of the challenges of creating a DICOM message is how to implement putting data in the correct place. Part of it is by inserting the data in the specific DICOM tags, while the other is to insert binary data such as a picture - In this article I will explain both.

To create a DICOM message, you can either use the EnsLib.DICOM.File class (to create a DICOM file) or the EnsLib.DICOM.Document class (to create a message that can be sent to PACS directly). In either case, the SetValueAt method will allow you to add your data to the DICOM tags.

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This article shares analysis in solution cycle for the Open Exchange application TOOT ( Open Exchange application )

The hypothesis

A button on a web page can capture the users voice. IRIS integration could manipulate the recordings to extract semantic meaning that IRIS vector search can then offer for new types of AI solution opportunity.

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InterSystems Official
· Mar 27, 2025 4m read
2025.1 Modernizing Interoperability User Experience

The Interoperability user interface now includes modernized user experiences for the DTL Editor and Production Configuration applications that are available for opt-in in all interoperability products. You can switch between the modernized and standard views. All other Interoperability screens remain in the Standard user interface. Please note that changes are limited to these two applications and we identify below the functionality that is currently available.

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