General Purpose Data Porter
- Andrea Dennis
- christopher cannaday
A new feature available in Noah 4 is the General Purpose Data Porter or, in short, GPDP. GPDP’s objective is to port data from the Business System though the Business API, Noah Client and right to the Noah Server, which will be able to hand the data to a managed database dll supplied by the Business System.
The data the GPDP ports should be data which does not need any validation from Noah or ratification by Noah business rules. It could be external information on a patient, such as payment terms, etc.
The advantage for the Business System is that it can utilize the .NET remoting functionality, which is already in place for the Business System. The Business System developer does not need to consider how to transport data to a given Server, merely implement the needed methods in his managed database dll, which can receive or save the data. Furthermore, is it possible to save/query data to your database, which is not strictly inside the boundaries of the data definitions of Noah.
In Noah 4 the method in the Business API, which has to be used for GPDP functionality, is named HandleNoahDataWrapper and takes a ref object as argument. The developer can then wrap the data in the object argument and unwrap it on the server side. When the call is executed the Ref statement ensures that the Business system developer can receive an altered object which, for example, could indicate if the call was successful.
The figure below shows the principal flow of GPDP – note that the GPDP, in contrast to the Context header, can contain a huge amount of data and that the context header information can be used in conjunction with GPDP.
How to use the GPDP in your own Business system
It is possible to put GPDP into operation by implementing your own command set and serialized objects. In each case it is important that the BusinessAPI and the Database Interface assembly (and Noah Client for serilization) have unlimited access to the command set and serialized object definitions dll (see picture below). This implies that your custom command set for GPDP must be placed in the GAC of the PC.
How to make your own command set for GPDP
In order to implement your own GPDP command set and objects passing, you must create an assembly, which is known to both your database interface assembly and the BusinessAPI dll, as shown below. This is an extract of the Sample Business System that is downloadable from the Noah 4 Business System page on himsa.com. The request or command is wrapped in the Noah4systemCommand, whose property Data holds the serializable object or objects passed to and from the database interface assembly. It is recommended that your command set is located in its own Dll assembly and that you place this assembly in the GAC of the PC, which is to use your database assembly.
namespace NoahDatabaseCoreCeSample_CommandEnum
{
public class GPDP
{
public enum YourBusinessSystemCommandEnum
{
ValidateUser,
IsLoginSystemEnabled,
GetUsers,
GetUser,
DeleteUser,
PutUser,
GetRoles,
GetDefaultRoles,
GetRole,
GetRoleFromUserID,
PutRole,
GetPatients,
GetPatientsCount,
GetPatient,
PutPatient,
DeletePatient,
GetPatientComment,
PutPatientComment,
GetDatabaseProperties,
SetLoginSystemInf,
GetLoginSystemInf
}
[Serializable]
public class YourBusinessSystemCommand
{
public YourBusinessSystemCommandEnum Command { get; set; }
public bool SkipSendEvent; // Skipping sending notification
(PutPatient when importing) Default is to Send notifications
public object Data;
}
}
[Serializable]
public class Noah4User
{
public int ID;
public string Initials;
public string Password;
public DateTime CreateDate;
public string Name;
public int Rights;
public string UserName;
public DateTime LastChangedPswd;
public bool UserActive;
}
[Serializable]
public class Noah4ValidateUser
{
public string UserName { get; set; }
public int PasswordHashCode { get; set; }
public bool ValidatePassword { get; set; }
}
}
}