Dictionary Builder Tutorial

Overview

In this section:

Metadata Management Facility
Ebix Management Facility

Dictionary Builder provides metadata management in EDI, SWIFT, or proprietary projects within iWay Transformer or iWay Service Manager (iSM). It allows composing, editing, and distributing e-business metadata in the form of Ebix components containing data dictionaries, and certain data dictionaries within Transform project components. Dictionary Builder is composed of two major facilities:

Data Dictionary Editor (Metadata Management Facility)
Ebix Entry Projects (Ebix Management Facility)

A dictionary is a representation that describes the structure of a transaction or a document that is used in EDI, SWIFT, or proprietary projects.

You can use the Dictionary Builder interface to visualize and browse, in an orderly way, all the components of e-business data dictionaries. You can access the Dictionary Builder interface in iWay Transformer in either of two ways:

Open a Transform project (.gxp) that uses a dictionary of supported data formats for its input or output, as shown in the following image.
Open an Ebix Entry project (.ebx), as shown in the following image.

Metadata Management Facility

In iWay Transformer, you can build, browse, and edit standard or custom data dictionaries through the Graphical User Interface (GUI) driven by the Metadata Management Facility. You can export or publish these dictionaries afterwards as Ebix components on an iSM server, or incorporate them as input or output structures for Transform projects. The purpose of a data dictionary is to provide a single global source for custom business requirements for processing your e-business message.

iWay Format Adapters are used to convert EDI or SWIFT formatted messages to XML and vice versa. Data dictionaries are used to define the structure of e-business messages. Data dictionaries contain structural and content information.

To ensure correct processing of the e-business message, the supporting e-business metadata must be supplied in the form of data dictionaries. Data dictionaries are stored as entries within the archives, known as Ebix components.

Currently, the Metadata Management Facility supports the following data formats:

EDI X12
EDIFACT
Fixed Width
SWIFT

Ebix Management Facility

The Ebix Management Facility enables you to create, update, and browse multiple Ebix entries or export them to Ebix archives. Ebix archives provide a way to efficiently store multiple dictionary components and other related metadata as one executable file. These archive files have an extension of .ebx. In this guide, they are referred to as Ebix archives. The design of Ebix archives advances the concept of iWay packages by providing seamless integration with iSM components.

In design time, you can import each of the data dictionaries and its related metadata components in iWay Transformer as one unit, called an Ebix Entry. An Ebix Entry is managed in iWay Transformer through an Ebix Entry project, a type of project that supports Dictionary Builder views. You can then export single or multiple Ebix Entry projects opened in iWay Transformer as Ebix archives or publish them on the server as Ebix components.

The Ebix Management Facility supports the following data formats:

EDI HIPAA
EDI X12
EDIFACT
HL7
SWIFT

Navigating Dictionary Builder

This topic provides an overview of the supported iSM dictionary components and describes how to navigate these components in Dictionary Builder.

Overview

A data dictionary is an iWay representation of e-business metadata that describes the layout and grammar of a transaction or a document. The layout and grammar are stored in one or more files that contain dictionary components, such as headers or structures.

Dictionaries are required when the input or output data is not structural, for example, in EDI or SWIFT formats. Most dictionaries are converted into XML from the specifications of particular message types, which are managed and published by organizations. iWay Transformer supports the following dictionary component types:

Header. Provides the envelope details for the message, such as trading partner information and message layout.
Structure. Contains the layout and grammar of the document contained in the message, such as a transaction set of an EDI message.
Message. Represents a structural definition of an HL7 transaction set in XML format. Messages consist of segments and segment groups in sequential order.
Field. Represents a basic building block of an HL7 message. A field consists of syntax or data type.
Datatype. Represents a syntax rule for a field, for example, "ASCII String".

The following table lists the component types that are supported for each data format.

Format	Header	Structure	Message	Segment	Datatype	Field
EDIFACT	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
EDI X12	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No
Fixed Width	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
IDOC	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
SWIFT	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
CSV	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
XML	No	Yes	No	No	No	No

In iWay Transformer, you typically use dictionaries as a starting point for designing your mapping.

You can build, browse, and edit dictionary components of the supported formats using the Dictionary Builder interface.

Navigating the Dictionary Builder Interface

You can access the workspace environment of the Dictionary Builder interface in three different ways:

Select an Ebix Entry project name or any of its components in the Project Navigator pane, as shown in the following image on the left.
Select the input or output dictionary of a Transform project, or any of the components inside (for example, header or structure), in the Project Navigator pane, as shown in the following image on the right.
The data format of the dictionary must be supported by the Metadata Management Facility.

Located on the left side of the iWay Transformer window in the default view, the Project Navigator pane displays the references to Ebix Entry and Transform projects that are currently open. Transform projects that are currently open can be found in the Transforms category. When an Ebix Entry project is open, an Ebix Entry category is created per each data format. For example, in the preceding image, all open EDI X12 Ebix Entry projects are located in the X12 Ebix Entries subfolder.

However, if you open a SWIFT Ebix Entry, the new project category (SWIFT Ebix Entries) will appear in the Project Navigator, containing the references to your SWIFT Ebix Entry project.

The Ebix Entry project name is displayed as a compilation of the data name format being used, the format version it belongs to, and the message name that it describes. This notation provides quick and easy resource organization, which is especially useful when you are working with multiple Ebix Entry projects at once.

For example, the EDI X12 Ebix Entry project referred to in the preceding image is displayed by the Dictionary Builder interface as
```
X12_4010.4010.850
```
where:

X12_4010

Is the naming convention for a standard Ebix that begins with Data FormatName_Version.

4010

Is the name for a standard version within that data format.

850

Is the message type (Purchase Order) represented by the dictionary.
Navigate to the Dictionary tab for the project in the project workspace pane, as shown in the following image.

The Dictionary Builder view consists of two panes:

Layout pane
Item Properties pane

The following image shows the two panes.

Layout pane

The following image shows the Layout pane.

The Layout pane is the core working area used by the Dictionary Builder interface. Each dictionary component is displayed on its own tab, such as the Header or Structure. Dictionary components are graphically presented in iWay Transformer as tree structures of the lesser structure units that make up the dictionary, such as segments and loops.

Item descriptions are provided in square brackets next to each EDI dictionary structure segment. For example, the ISA segment node in the preceding image (EDI X12 Version 2001 Message Type 830) includes the following description:

[Interchange Control Header]

Similarly, the 01 element node includes the following description:

[Authorization Information Qualifier]

These descriptions allow you to map and identify EDI segments more efficiently.

To quickly delete a dictionary component from the Layout pane, select the item and press the Delete key. When the Confirm dialog box opens, press the Enter key, or click Yes.

The tree structure of the dictionary metadata on the Layout pane is easy to navigate. The manipulation that is performed on the data on the Layout pane drives the editing and processing of the dictionary data in the Item Properties pane. The Item Properties pane displays the set of properties that belong to the item highlighted in the Layout pane.

If the dictionary has more than one component (for example, it is an EDI X12 dictionary that consists of header and structure components), you can toggle between the tabs that are labeled by component name (for example, Header and Structure). The tabs are located at the bottom of the Layout pane. You can also select the components from the Dictionary category in the Project Navigator pane, as shown in the following image.

The data format type, such as EDI, typically serves as the root of the component structure. You can use this feature to look up the standard properties for this project from the Item Properties pane when the root element of the dictionary component tree is highlighted on the Layout pane, as shown in the following image.

Item Properties pane

The following image shows the Item Properties pane.

The default location of the Item Properties pane is at the bottom of the Dictionary Builder workspace. It displays the set of properties for the structural item that is currently highlighted in the Layout pane. You can edit item properties by double-clicking the value of the property, as shown in the preceding image.