Addendum to the DEC/EDI OpenVMS 4.0 User Support Manual (For OFTP/IP) Note: Since this is a text file, it does not hold any formats such as Bold, Italic, etc., and cannot contain any captured images. Table of Contents 1. What You Must Do ................................................4 1.1 Prerequisite Tasks ..............................................4 1.2 Defining Gateway Parameters .....................................5 1.3 Defining the Connection..........................................7 1.4 Defining Trading Partner-Specific Parameters....................11 1.5 Defining Window Schedules.......................................12 1.6 Starting the OFTP/IP Gateway....................................13 1.7 Enabling and Disabling the OFTP/IP Gateway......................14 1.8 Enabling an OFTP/IP Connection..................................14 1.9 Starting a Connection Manually .................................15 The OFTP/IP gateway provides a mechanism through which you can exchange transmission files with your trading partners. When you configure the gateway you identify how transmission files are exchanged. 1. What You Must Do Before setting up the OFTP/IP gateway, check that the pre-requisite tasks (installation and so on) have been carried out, as described in Section 1.1.1. Then log in to the node on which the Compaq DEC/EDI Server runs, and carry out the following tasks: o Ensure that you have a proper running environment for the OFTP/IP gateway. See Section 1.1 o Define the gateway parameters. See Section 1.2. o Define the connections used to send transmission files to trading partners. See Section 1.3 o Define trading partner-specific parameters for OFTP/IP. See Section 1.4 o Schedule the windows that define when you exchange transmission files. See Section 1.5 o Start the OFTP/IP gateway. See Section 1.6. o Enable the OFTP/IP gateway. See Section 1.4. o Enable the connection you have defined. See Section 1.8. o Transmissions now take place according to the predefined window schedule. See Section 1.9, if you need to start a connection manually. 1.1 Prerequisite Tasks Before you perform the setup tasks described in this chapter, certain prerequisite tasks must already have been carried out. Check that: o The OFTP/IP running environment is established. The OFTP/IP gateway communicates trading partners via a TCP/IP protocol. Therefore you must ensure that the prerequisite TCP/IP communications software is installed, configured and running. The TCP/IP software you use will depend on the Compaq DEC/EDI Server environment. For details of prerequisite software, see the Compaq DEC/EDI Installation book for the Compaq DEC/EDI Server environment you are using. o When you register with ODETTE, you receive your OFTP-id. If you do not register, you must agree with your trading partner on the OFTP-id you are going to use. o The license for the Compaq DEC/EDI OFTP gateway (Currently, OFTP/IP and OFTP/X.25 share the same license) has been installed. See the Compaq DEC/EDI Installation book for information on installing licenses. o The OFTP_GATEWAY component has been registered on the Compaq DEC/EDI Server, together with the associated connection-id. See Chapter 2 of the DEC/EDI OpenVMS User Support Manual. o The OFTP/IP and OFTP/X.25 cannot run concurrently. To use the OFTP/IP gateway the user has to define DECEDI$OFTPIP logical to any value. The logical has to be defined in DECEDI$LOGICALS.COM located at sys$startup. 1.2 Defining Gateway Parameters To set up the gateway parameters, use the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Gateway Parameters, as follows: 1. Give the command EDIT CONFIGURATION. 2. Select Maintain Server Parameters from the initial menu. 3. Select Maintain Gateway Parameters from the parameters menu. 4. You are shown a list of gateway components on the Server. Each gateway is shown as either enabled or disabled. 5. Press Insert, and enter OFTPIP in the pop-up window, to add a new OFTP/IP gateway component to the list, and to define its parameters. 6. (Alternatively, if you are modifying the parameters of an existing gateway, move the highlight bar down the list to the OFTPIP gateway, and press Select.) 7. The next screen allows you enter or modify the gateway parameters; edit the fields as required. The screen is illustrated in Fig 1.1 and its fields are explained in Table 1-1. 8. The details you enter must correspond precisely with the details supplied by ODETTE when you register to use the service. If the details do not match, you cannot communicate using the OFTP/IP gateway. See the ODETTE Guidelines for EDI Addressing for more about addressing transmission files. 9. When you have finished, press Do and select Save These Details. You can then go on to define the connection details, as described in Section 1.3; or exit from the EDIT CONFIGURATION screens. You can use EDIT CONFIGURATION at a later time to view the information you have entered. Figure 1-1 OFTP/IP Parameter Details Screen Refer the above screen in the pdf format of the user manual. Table 1-1 Fields on the OFTP/IP Parameter Details Screen Field Name Mandatory Default Description Status Display only ENABLED ENABLED or DISABLED. Shows whether the gateway is enabled or disabled. Connection Error Limit Yes 20 Number of failed connection attempts before Compaq DEC/EDI disables the connection automatically. This limit applies to all connections associated with this gateway. File Retry Limit Yes 3 This is the number of attempts which can be made to send a file. When this number is reached, no more attempts to send the file are made. Protocol Level Display Only 1 This indicates the OFTP protocol level that is supported. OFTP ID Yes Spaces The OFTP identifier for your organization. You must enter this value, which is supplied by ODETTE when you register to use OFTP. OFTP Password Yes Spaces The password to get access to your OFTP account. Maximum channels Yes 20 This specifies the number of connection channels available for connecting to trading partners. Idle Timeout Yes 10 This is the number of minutes which can pass without any activity on a channel before it is cleared down and made available for other transmissions. Local Hostname No Spaces This is the name of the Local machine on which the OFTP/IP gateway is running on. Local Port No Spaces This is the port number on which the OFTP/IP gateway listens on. If no port is specified, a default value, 3305 will be considered. Priority Yes 127 Not relevant for OFTP/IP. 1.3 Defining the Connection o Before defining the details of a connection, you should already have created the connection-id, when registering the OFTP_GATEWAY component. You do this by using the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Services, as described in Chapter 2.2.1 of the DEC/EDI OpenVMS User Support Manual. You will also have referenced this connection-id, when setting up the relevant trading partners profile on the Translation Service. You do this by using the EDIT PROFILE command, as described in Chapter 6.4 of the DEC/EDI OpenVMS User Support Manual. To specify details of a connection, you use the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Connection Details, as follows: 1. Give the command EDIT CONFIGURATION 2. Select Maintain Server Parameters from the initial menu. 3. Select Maintain Connection Details from the parameters menu. 4. You are shown a list of connections on the Server. Each connection is shown as either enabled or disabled. Press Insert, and enter the relevant connection-id in the pop-up window: for example, TPOFTP. (Alternatively, if you are modifying the parameters of an existing connection, move the highlight bar down the list to the connection you require, and press Select.) 5. The next screen allows you select the protocol type, whether it is of X.25 or TCP/IP. 6. The next screen allows you to enter or modify the connection details; edit the fields as required. The screen is illustrated in Figure 12, and its fields are explained in Table 12. The details you enter must correspond precisely with the details supplied by ODETTE when you register to use the service. If the details do not match, you cannot communicate using the OFTP/IP gateway. See the ODETTE Guidelines for EDI Addressing for more about addressing transmission files. 7. When you have finished, Do and select Save This Connection. You can then go on to define window schedules, as described in Section 1.6; or you can exit from the EDIT CONFIGURATION screens. Figure 1-2 OFTP/IP Connection Details Screen Refer the above screen in the pdf format of the user manual. Table 1-2 Fields on the OFTP/IP Connection Details Screen Field Name Mandatory Default Description Connection ID Display only None Specified the command line. Identifies the connection. Status Display only DISABLED ENABLED or DISABLED. Shows whether or not the connection is operational. Window State Display only OFF ON or OFF. Shows whether or not transmission files can be exchanged through this connection. Syntax Yes Spaces This indicates the standard for files through this connection. In normal use, you enter one of EDIFACT, TRADACOMS, X12, or MULTIPLE. MULTIPLE indicates that you are likely to receive transmission files of more than one standard through this connection. If you are using ODETTE, specify EDIFACT as the syntax. If you are using TDCC, specify X12 syntax. If you intend to make use of the translation bypass facility, enter one of the following: . BYPASS Indicates that Compaq DEC/EDI is to pass all incoming data to an application, without using the Translation Service. . MIXED Indicates that Compaq DEC/EDI is to split incoming data into separate interchange sets, then process each X12 interchange set according to the Use Translators on on Inbound setting in the trading partner agreement details. Any other interchange sets that are not X12, it passes to an application, without using the Translation Service. . SPLIT Indicates that Compaq DEC/EDI is to split incoming data into separate interchange sets, and then pass those interchange sets to an application, without using the Translation Service. Current Error Count Yes 0 Indicates the number of errors that have occurred for this connection. You can reset this field to 0 only. Service Description Display only None Allows you to enter a description of the service provided through this connection. Remote Hostname Yes None This is the remote hostname of the trading partner. This should be available in the ucx database for proper functioning of the gateway. Check using the command ucx show host. If not available, add the host. Remote Port No None This is the port number on which the remote OFTP/IP gateway listens on. If no port is specified, a default value, 3305 will be considered. OFTP ID Yes None The name by which the trading partner is known within OFTP. Your trading partner must supply you with this information. OFTP Password Yes None The password to your trading partners OFTP account. Get this information from your trading partner. OFTP Record Format Yes UNSTRUCTURED This must be one of: . Fixed indicates fixed length records. . Unstructured choose this option when you do not know how data is structured in the transmission file. . Variable variable length fields. You would choose this if you want an exact copy of the transmission file. . Text records are terminated by a carriage return or a line feed. 1.4 Defining Trading Partner-Specific Parameters There are a number of OFTP parameters that you can set by using the Connection Specific Data field on the Trading Partner Details screens. Table 13 describes these parameters. This field is optional. Table 13 describes the different entries you can put in this field. The format of the Connection Specific Data field on the Trading Partner Details screens is: initiator-OFTP-id\virtual-filename \ fixed-record-length \ user-data \originator-OFTP-id You must have the correct number of backslash ( \ ) characters, even if you omit one of the items. For example, if user-data is ACCESS, the following are all valid entries for this field: ID999\MY_FILE_NAME\80\ACCESS\ ID999\\\ACCESS\ \MY_FILE_NAME\80\\ ID999\\80\ACCESS\OFTP-ID-MAILBOX2 \\\\OFTP-ID-MAILBOX2 Table 1-3 Using the Connection Specific Data Field for OFTP/IP Field Description Initiator OFTP ID You can specify a final OFTP destination (OFTP ID) for transmission files that is different from the OFTP ID that you set up when specifying the OFTP gateway parameters. (You are actually varying the system identifier used by the OFTP system identifier (SSID) command.) This can be useful if you want to send documents to different trading partners within the same company. If you do not specify an Initiator OFTP ID, the value used is the one specified for the gateway on the OFTP Parameter Details screen. Virtual File Name You can specify an OFTP Virtual File Name for all transmission files sent to a trading partner. By default, the OFTP/IP gateway assigns an OFTP Virtual File Name consisting of a timestamp to every file. To override this default, enter the OFTP Virtual File Name in this field. All files sent to this trading partner then have the OFTP Virtual File Name you specify. Fixed Record Length You can use this parameter to specify that Compaq DEC/EDI uses OFTP FIXED records of a specific size. You can set this for individual trading partners. User Data If you use this field, you must agree on the value with your trading partner. You can specify a different value for each trading partner. There is a maximum of 8 characters for this field. Originator OFTP ID You can specify a maximum of 25 characters for the Originator OFTP ID. 1.5 Defining Window Schedules The OFTP/IP gateway is a real-time communication system; you and your trading partner must be connected simultaneously in order to exchange data. You and the partner must therefore agree a window schedule for connecting to OFTP; this is a time frame (or several time frames) within which all transmission files are to be sent or received. For example, you may agree to send and receive transmission files on weekdays, between 09:00 and 17:00; you define a window for these times, and the window is unlikely to change. You setup a window schedule as follows: 1. Use the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Connection Details, to set up and save the connection, as described earlier. 2. Press Do to display the pop-up menu; select Edit Window Schedule Details. 3. Compaq DEC/EDI displays the screen shown in Figure 13. 4. Complete the details on the form. You need to specify the day of the week, and the start and end times for your window. For the day, you can specify any of the following: WD for every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday WE for every Saturday and Sunday MON, TUE, WED, THU, FRI, SAT or SUN If you want the job to start and then to run for the rest of the day, then you can specify the Day and Start time only. Figure 1-3 Window Scheduling Details Screen Refer to the figure in the pdf format of the user manual. For example, to specify that the gateway is to be open each Friday, between 08:00 and 19:00: . Enter "FRI" in the Day field and press Return. (The Start and End Time fields change so you can enter only a time, and not a date.) . Enter "08:00" in the Start Time field. . Enter "19:00" in the End Time field. If you do not specify anything in the Day field, you can define a specific date and time at which the gateway is to open. This is a one-time window. 5. Press Do to display the Options menu; select Save Schedule to store this schedule. You can now define further windows if you require them. 6. Exit from the EDIT CONFIGURATION screens. 1.6 Starting the OFTP/IP Gateway You must start and enable the gateway before you can exchange transmission files with trading partners. To start the gateway: EDI> START GATEWAY OFTPIP_GATEWAY Having started the gateway, you need to enable it: see Section 1.8. Under normal conditions you do not need to shut down the gateway. If you merely want to prevent transmission files being exchanged, you can do so by disabling a specific connection (see Section 1.9) or by disabling the gateway (see Section 1.8). You do need to shut down and restart the gateway if you make changes to the gateway parameters. To shut down the gateway, use SHUTDOWN GATEWAY: EDI> SHUTDOWN GATEWAY OFTPIP_GATEWAY Once the gateway has been shut down, it does not accept transmission files from the Translation Service, and does not make connections to trading partners. 1.7 Enabling and Disabling the OFTP/IP Gateway You can only exchange transmission files with a trading partner when the connection is enabled. You must enable each connection after you first set it up on the communications gateway. You also need to enable a connection subsequently, whenever you want to use the connection after it has been disabled. You must disable a connection before changing the details of the connection. You can also disable the connection if you want to temporarily stop exchanging transmission files with a trading partner. To enable or disable a gateway, use the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Gateway Parameters, as follows: 1. Give the command EDIT CONFIGURATION. 2. Select Maintain Server Parameters from the initial menu. 3. Select Maintain Gateway Parameters from the parameters menu. 4. You are shown a list of gateway components on the Server; each gateway is shown as either enabled or disabled. Move the highlight bar down the list to the gateway you want to enable or disable, and press Do. 5. An enable/disable toggle pops up in a small box. Move the highlight bar to Enable or Disable as required, and press Select. 6. Exit from the EDIT CONFIGURATION screens. 1.8 Enabling an OFTP/IP Connection You can only exchange transmission files with a trading partner, when the OFTP connection is enabled. You enable each connection when you first set it up on the communications gateway. You can disable the connection if you want to temporarily stop exchanging transmission files through that connection with a trading partner. You must enable the connection after it is first set up, and subsequently whenever you want to use the connection after it has been disabled. You must disable a connection before changing the details of the connection. Having the capability of enabling a connection is particularly useful in the event that a connection has been automatically disabled. A connection can be automatically disabled by Compaq DEC/EDI when a trading partner does not respond to attempts at connection. To enable or disable a connection, use the EDIT CONFIGURATION option Maintain Connection Details, as follows: 1. Give the command EDIT CONFIGURATION. 2. Select Maintain Server Parameters from the initial menu. 3. Select Maintain Connection Details from the parameters menu. 4. You are shown a list of connections on the Server; each connection is shown as either enabled or disabled. Move the highlight bar down the list to the connection you want to enable or disable, and press Do. 5. An enable/disable toggle pops up in a small box. Move the highlight bar to Enable to Disable as required, and press Select. 6. Exit from the EDIT CONFIGURATION screens. 1.9 Starting a Connection Manually To start a connection manually, that is, to send documents that have a current status of AWAIT_TRANSMISSION, you use the START CONNECTION command. You identify the OFTPIP connection-id defined earlier, as follows: START CONNECTION connection-id OFTPIP For example, to start a connection called TPOFTP, you would use the command: EDI> START CONNECTION TPOFTP OFTPIP Remember that you must have a window open for the connection to start.