When testing a new routing rule, one frequently encountered problem is that messages that seem like they should be getting routed to a target component are not getting routed.  This article aims to describe how to determine why the message didn't get routed.

1. Check the Event Log for the router to make sure there wasn't an error evaluating the rule or running any transformations referenced by the rule.  If there was, debug that error first.

2. Verify the settings on the general tab in the rule editor.
2a. Make sure "Rule Type" is correct.

Framing refers to the characters that mark the start and end of an HL7 message (or other types of framed messages).  Most HL7 services and operations have a Framing setting that allows the user to define this framing.  The most common choices are available as defaults, but with the AsciiMM/NN setting, components can be configured to recognize any framing characters.

The most common framing error is ErrEndBlock.  Other typical errors include a warning saying "Discarding received non-HL7 data", a warning saying "Returning unused unexpected n-char segment", and "Discarding leftover input ''".

The message viewer can resend messages but it is not suitable for resending a large number of messages (>100).  For that, you should use Cache Object Script code such as the following:

DTL Transformations and GetValueAt/SetValueAt calls on HL7 messages will truncate any fields longer than 32K.  To avoid this, the methods GetFieldStreamRaw and StoreFieldStreamRaw must be used when dealing with fields that might be larger than 32K.  OBX:5 is a frequent example.  These methods have some subtleties and must be used carefully.

This can't be done by simply dragging from left to right in a DTL.  It must be done with a code action.  Also, the StoreFieldStreamRaw call must be the last edit made to the segment because the segment becomes immutable after that.