Etasoft - Mini Translator 4.x

Transcription

1 Etasoft - Mini Translator 4.x Mini Translator is designed for automated and semi-automated translation of EDI X12 files into CSV (Excel). It supports all EDI X , 5010 and 6010 message types. New Mini Translator version 4 can also translate CSV into EDI. It has been added as basic feature. Use Extreme Translator product for more flexible translations. Setup Install the software using provided setup file minisetup.exe. There are two parts to the setup: program files and data files. Data files contain database with EDI standards and other related configuration files. Program files will be installed into \Program Files\ Mini Translator subfolder on Windows. Data files will be installed under current user %APPDATA% subfolder. It is important to understand that software is installed per user. That means if you login as Admin or Administrator install the software and then login as bob and try to run translations, it will not work. This is because bob will have no access to Admin database with EDI rules and standards. The easiest way to fix this: login as bob and then install the software. Because bob will be one using the software, it has to be installed for him. Due to current security on most Windows OS systems programs cannot write into they own installation folders, therefore software has to be installed with data files separated from program files. Processing Mini Translator operates on sets of files in folders. Each folder serves one purpose. 1. Input folder is used for input files. Drop your files into that folder to have them translated. 2. Output folder is for output files. Mini Translator reads files from input folder and produces resulting files in output folder.

2 Therefore we recommend for you to have both folders under one main folder. For example: if you want to translate 850 Purchase Orders. Setup main folder as C:\Documents\ Now all other folders become subfolders such as: C:\Documents\ \input C:\Documents\ \outputoutput That way all of the 850 related processing is self contained under single main folder. In some cases Windows is setup in a way that certain folders are not write enabled. For example placing files directly under C:\ drive it usually ually a bad idea. In many Windows versions OS will block writes into C:\ root folder and validation will fail to run. In some cases only way to get translation to run is to place all of your folders under My Documents folder. Command Line Execution Use utility called minicmd.exe to run translations via command line. Utility uses same configuration as GUI tool. So there are no extra parameters you should pass into it. In some cases command line runner may fail. 1. When input, output and other required folders are not accessible or not write enabled. 2. When input files are EDI but they do not contain EDI ISA/GS header segments. 3. When input files are not EDI files at all. 4. EDI files are encrypted in a way that they contain ISA/GS/GE/IEA segments but all other segments are replaced with binary data.

3 In these and similar fatal cases Mini Translator will return non-zero return code. Therefore recommended setup is to: 1. Run minicmd, check error code. 2. If error code is zero (no error) then continue. 3. If error code is non-zero then check input files. Moving If you have installed Mini Translator used it and now want to move configuration files somewhere else: install Mini Translator on another machine using minisetup.exe. Then copy data files from %APPDATA%\ etasoft\mini folder into the same name folder on new machine. Execute GUI to confirm that old configuration gets loaded. After Purchase Activate Mini Translator by simply entering your username and license key. Both are case sensitive. Keep your license key information in backup storage as well. Just in case you decide to reinstall it later. How Does It Work Mini Translator is by-example-translator. It builds your translation based on the sample EDI file you have provided. Most other commercial translators come with templates and you build translation by importing a template and mapping to it. This is approach some of our other translators use. Template based translation building is in many cases more labor intensive and takes more time. But it is only way if you have no sample EDI files.

4 If you have sample EDI file you expect to receive then use it to build by-example translation. Once translator reads your sample file it will extract all the fields and present them to you for selection. Number of fields will be already pre-selected for you. They checkboxes will be marked. EDI file contains loops. CSV file is flat table with fixed data fields. There is obvious mismatch between the two. Translator has to represent EDI loops as repeating rows in CSV file. By default lowest loop is used for creation of CSV rows. Example: you have healthcare claims file. There are 3 major loops: 1. There is header information such as sender, receiver etc. 2. Claim and patient information 3. Claim details with dates for each procedure. CSV file will be based on #3 and there will be new CSV row for each claim detail. #1 and #2 fields will be mostly filled with blanks because e they do not repeat with each claim detail line. There is a way to alter this processing. You can have header fields filled with values instead of having them blank. Simply set Use Previous flag on the field.

5 Repeat values of the header fields using Use Previous flag. You can also combine values of some fields. This is useful in cases if you are getting too many rows produced on the output side. This powerful feature helps control looping (row output). For example: you do not want claim details to be produced on each row. Instead you want each claim to be on its own CSV row with all the claim specific details combined into that one row. Set Combine Values flag on each claim details field. That way claim details will not produce separate rows (fields will be combined instead of spread out into separate rows).