High-Performance Message Searching in Health Connect

The Problem

Have you ever tried to do a search in Message Viewer on a busy interface and had the query time out? This can become quite a problem as the amount of data increases. For context, the instance of Health Connect I am working with does roughly 155 million Message Headers per day with 21 day message retention. To try and help with search performance, we extended the built-in SearchTable with commonly used fields in hopes that indexing these fields would result in faster query times. Despite this, we still couldn't get some of these queries to finish at all.

Hello all,

I'm trying to build a cube based on a linked table but seems that IRIS is not able to do it :O

Long story short, I have a linked table in IRIS that sources a Microsoft SQL table (using standard linked feature from the portal). It works fine, I can access it using SQL as many other times. On top of that, I've created in DeepSee (ok, Analytics) a cube that uses this class as source. It compiles correctly, no errors given. When I build it with 100 records, all goes well and using Analyzer I can see results.

Existing cube deleted.
Fact table built:             1,000 fact(s) (Max number of worker(s) used at a time: 1)
Fact indices built:           1,000 fact(s) (1 worker(s) used)

Complete
Elapsed time:                  1.788246s
Source expression time:        0.000856s

I was facing the same issue as Jerry faced when connecting IRIS to SQL server. My ODBC connection is configured to authenticate via windows authentication.

Configure IRIS ODBC connection with Windows authentication using a
 

How I fixed it for myself?

Root cause

• The SQL Server DSN was set to Windows Integrated Authentication.
• IRIS opens the ODBC connection via irisdb.exe, which runs under the IRIS Windows services’ logon account.
• My IRIS services were running as LocalSystem, so SQL saw the machine account <ORGNAME>\<ASSETID>$

Hi community.
I have a query:

SELECTFROMSELECT

This query should filter the data by the minimum value of the somDate field, but it doesn't. It displays all values ​​together, regardless of the external filter. The exact same query (without the $$$ tokens, of course) works fine in a regular SQL runtime.
My guess is that the $$$RESTRICT does this

WHERE source.%ID IN (

And outer WHERE is just left unseen
Is there a way to fix this?

The 2025.1.2 and 2024.1.5 maintenance releases of InterSystems IRIS^® data platform, InterSystems IRIS^® for Health, and InterSystems Health Connect™ are now Generally Available (GA).

Hello community,

I wanted to share my experience about working on Large Data projects. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to handle massive patient data, payor data and transactional logs while working in an hospital industry. I have had the chance to build huge reports which had to be written using advanced logics fetching data across multiple tables whose indexing was not helping me write efficient code.

Here is what I have learned about managing large data efficiently.

Choosing the right data access method.

As we all here in the community are aware of, IRIS provides multiple ways to access data. Choosing the right method, depends on the requirement.

• Direct Global Access: Fastest for bulk read/write operations. For example, if i have to traverse through indexes and fetch patient data, I can loop through the globals to process millions of records. This will save a lot of time.

Set ToDate=+H
Set FromDate=+$H-1 For  Set FromDate=$O(^PatientD("Date",FromDate)) Quit:FromDate>ToDate  Do
. Set PatId="" For  Set PatId=$Order(^PatientD("Date",FromDate,PatID)) Quit:PatId=""  Do
. . Write $Get(^PatientD("Date",FromDate,PatID)),!

• Using SQL: Useful for reporting or analytical requirements, though slower for huge data sets.

In the modern world, the most valuable asset for companies is their data. Everything from business processes and applications to transactions is based on data which defines the success of the organization's operations, analysis, and decisions. In this scenario, the data structures need to be ready for frequent changes, yet in a managed and governed way. Otherwise, we will inevitably lose money, time, and quality of corporate solutions.

Hi Team, 

Can I please check if anyone has built a simple web interface for maintaining custom SQL lookup class.  

We have a simple persistent class in HealthShare which is used for storing Pathology test codes. Test codes in this lookup class is used for message filtering and applying additional logic when processing pathology results/orders. 

We want to make this class available to external users from pathology (not the usual management portal users) to maintain so that they can add/edit/delete test codes as required.

Hey Community!

We're happy to share a new video from our InterSystems Developers YouTube:

⏯  Advanced SQL join table cardinality estimates @ Ready 2025

Is there a way to create a table for the results of a SQL statement ?

Example: Consider the below query and results.

Select ID,Name,DOB,Gender from EMS.EMS

RESULT 

Hi Community,
I’m trying to execute a directory query in InterSystems IRIS using %SQL.Statement, but encountering an unexpected error.

Details:
The following command confirms that the directory exists:

Set dirPath="\\MYNETWORK_DRIVE\DFS-Shared_Product\GXM"
Write ##class(%File).DirectoryExists(dirPath)

It returns 1, meaning the path is valid and accessible.

However, when I try to execute this SQL query:

Set File=##Class(%SQL.Statement).%New()
Set Status=File.%PrepareClassQuery("%File","FileSet")
Set Result=File.%Execute(dirPath)
If Result.%SQLCODE {
    Write Result.%Message
}

In this tutorial, I will discuss how can you connect your IRIS data platform to sql server db .

Prereq: 

• Have ODBC driver installed in your device. You can download it from here: Download ODBC Driver for SQL Server - ODBC Driver for SQL Server | Microsoft Learn. 
• Have SQL Server and IRIS installed in your device
• Have SQL Server connection Authentication enabled in SQL server

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.

Note that the number of parallel processes cannot be specified, as it is automatically adjusted according to the number of CPUs.

We're excited to announce a new version release of the SQLTools VS Code extension. 

SQLTools connects VS Code users to the most commonly used databases using drivers, including InterSystems IRIS. With over 3.5 million downloads, it is helping users work with their data much more easily.

Version 0.28.2 is now available and includes:
- New CSV export format options.
- Improved connection quickpick and status bar item.
- Query error strings now wrap.
- Document settings that require a restart after changing.
- Resolve contradictory SSL settings in MySQL driver.

In the previous article, we saw how to build a customer service AI agent with smolagents and InterSystems IRIS, combining SQL, RAG with vector search, and interoperability.

In that case, we used cloud models (OpenAI) for the LLM and embeddings.

This time, we’ll take it one step further: running the same agent, but with local models thanks to Ollama.

I have been walking through this with a few team members and as such I thought there might be others out there who could use it, especially if you work with HL7 & Ensemble/HealthConnect/HealthShare and never venture out past the Interoperability section. 

First, I would like to establish that this is an extension of the already established documentation on importing and exporting SQL data found here: https://docs.intersystems.com/iris20241/csp/docbook/DocBook.UI.Page.cls?KEY=GSQL_impexp#GSQL_impexp_import

We currently have Business Operation that we built to use the EnsLib.SQL.OutboundAdapter so we can make Microsoft SQL Server Stored Procedure calls. The BO is attached to a Java Gateway Service.

Some of our MS SQL Databases have moved from being OnPrem to Azure Cloud. We have started seeing where we are receiving errors on the BO saying that we cannot connect to the Azure Database, but we never receive a Disconnect from the Azure Database.

I am trying to help another group within our organization access a SQL Table that I have created to populate Epic Department Data within our environment and came across the ability to use SQL Seach REST Interface using iKnow.

However, I am having issues trying to get it to work via POSTMAN before I hand off the solution...

the POST URL... https://<servername>/api/iKnow/latest/TESTCLIN/table/osuwmc_Epic_Clarity.DepartmentMaster/search

where osuwmc_Epic_Clarity.DepartmentMaster is the table

Hello,

I am currently maintaining a legacy application that was developed in ObjectScript and accesses data by working directly with globals.
For a new program, however, I plan to access the same global data through SQL-mapped classes.

I have two questions regarding this approach:

1. If I define indexes in the SQL-mapped class, what potential impact (if any) could this have on the existing legacy application that directly accesses the globals?

I had a need for a Filter, but did not want to recreate the wheel by creating another Data Lookup Table, so instead I created a Linked Table that points to a MS SQL Table outside of IRIS.

Once I had the Linked Table, I created a Class Method Function that would query the Linked Table and return a 1 if a result came back.

ClassMethodAs%StringSELECTINTOFROM

However, it doesn't seem like the Results of the Class Method are coming back correctly 100% of the time.

Hi folks!

It is very easy to import CSV data into IRIS. But what if we want to preserve the original IDs in CSV?

Recently I came across with the situation when I needed to import two csv's into IRIS which were linked by one column referencing  to another csv's col: a typical Foreign Key and Primary Key situation, where csv1 contains this column as Primary Key, and csv2 as Foreign key with id's related to csv1.

The image is generated by ChatGPT so don't blame it - it tried its best to generate countries as primary keys with countries.csv-cities.csv relationship :)

Trying to create a new SQL Storage map on existing cache Global in the following format - ^MYGLO("R",rec)=data where the 'data' is built using $zel. e.g. $zel(data,1)="p1", $zel(data,2)="p2" etc... and the ^MYGLO("R",123)=data.

I'm having 2 issues.

Hi folks!

Consider I have a class "X.Y.Z"

What is the SQL table name for it? How can I obtain it via ObjectScript? 

A quick search doesn't show any methods and properties. Documentation is a bit "wrong" here saying that the SQL table name is the same. It will be at least 'x_y.z'.

Any help is very appreciated!)

SQLTools is a Visual Studio Code (VS Code) Extension with over 3.5 million downloads that provides connections to many of the most used databases, including InterSystems IRIS, using drivers. 
For developers new to VS Code, or those already familiar with it but are looking to streamline their connections to InterSystems IRIS, this tutorial will take you through installing the SQLTools extensions and the InterSystems IRIS drive. It then guides you on how to establish a connection to your instance of InterSystems IRIS and run a query.

Or can I change namespaces within one connection object?

This article describes a significant enhancement of how InterSystems IRIS deals with table statistics, a crucial element for IRIS SQL processing, in the 2025.2 release. We'll start with a brief refresher on what table statistics are, how they are used, and why we needed this enhancement. Then, we'll dive into the details of the new infrastructure for collecting and saving table statistics, after which we'll zoom in onto what the change means in practice for your applications. We'll end with a few additional notes on patterns enabled by the new model, and look forward to the follow-on phases of this initial delivery.

The August Article Bounty on the Global Masters article caught my attention, and one of the proposed topics sounded quite interesting in regard to its future use in my teaching. So, here's what I'd like to tell my students about tables in IRIS and how they correlate with the object model. 

First of all, InterSystems IRIS boasts a unified data model. This means that when you work with data, you are not locked into a single paradigm. The same data can be accessed and manipulated as a traditional SQL table, as a native object, or even as a multidimensional array (a global). It means that when you create an SQL table, IRIS automatically creates a corresponding object class. When you define an object class, IRIS automatically makes it available as an SQL table. The data itself is stored only once in IRIS's efficient multidimensional storage engine. The SQL engine and the object engine are simply different "lenses" to view and work with the same data.

First, let's look at the correlation between the relational model and the object model:

It's not always a 1:1 correlation, as you may have several tables represent one class, for example. But it's a general rule of thumb. 

Over the years, I’ve noticed that certain SQL questions come up repeatedly on the InterSystems Developer Community, especially about using the LIKE predicate in different contexts. Common variations include:

• using special characters in queries
• using variables in queries

and many more derivatives. So, I decided to write an article that focuses on how LIKE works in InterSystems IRIS SQL, especially when used with variables in Embedded SQL, Dynamic SQL, and Class Queries, while touching on pattern escaping and special character searches.

First of all, I'd like to mention that InterSystems IRIS SQL offers most of the capabilities available in other relational DBMS that implement a later version of the SQL standard. But at the same time, it's important to mention that apart from relational access, in IRIS you can also use other models to get the same data, for example, object or document models. 

On this note, let's look at the LIKE predicate and how this tool is used in SQL for pattern matching. 

This article is a continuation of the IRIS JSON project and features additional methods and insights.

Let's continue with the instance methods

%GetTypeOf(Key)

This instance method is used to determine the JSON data type of the %DynamicObject or %DynamicArray.

It returns one of the following strings:

USER>Set1

I have a table with 5M rows, the table contains lab observation codes and display names, both columns have type varchar(2000) and both are indexed.

The query looks like:

select code_1_text, count(code_1_text)
  from demo.observation_lab
  group by code_1_text
  order by 2 desc

The table contains ~1000 distinct display names.

It takes 4 minutes for the query to complete on a VM with some pretty old Xeon, 4 cores, 32G RAM, NVME SSD and Linux on board.

Isn't it too slow?