Version 4.0.0 Release Notes

XDS Toolkit v4.0.0 Release Notes

Toolkit has updated significantly over the last 18 months. Enough so that it deserves a new major version number, 4. We skipped version 3 because if I said Version 3 to anyone in healthcare IT they would think of something else.

As the first release under the V4 banner we have added a lot of architectural support for new features. Not all of the new features are available in this release. All subsequent releases will be made to this new architecture.

SUT Initiated Tests

A new feature of the Conformance Test Tool is the ability to test transactions where the System Under Test (SUT) initiates the transaction. This feature is not available in this release of Toolkit. Those transactions will still have to be tested against the Public Registry for a little while longer. The notes below indicate which actors/options this applies to.

Test Availability

As the first release of the new Conformance Test Tool not everything is in place yet. Here is a list of what works in this release and what you must look to older versions of the test tools for support.

• Registry: Required, Metadata Update option, MPQ option, On-Demand option are ok
• Repository: Required are ok
• Initiating Gateway: Required are ok
• Affinity Domain option are not ready - see SUT Initiated Tests above
• Responding Gateway - Exposed Registry/Repository are ok
• Responding Gateway - uses external Registry/Repository - not ready
• Document Recipient tests are ok
• TLS and SAML work in all Utilities and in the Conformance Test Tool. The negative SAML tests will be released for the Initiating Gateway and Responding Gateway in v4.1.0 (in a few days).

New Features

New home page - Toolkit has a new home page for its documentation : Toolkit. The project home page at http://ihexds.nist.gov is unchanged, it will point you here for the documentation.

New WAR file name - The WAR file has been renamed to xdstools4.war and so the default URL becomes http://host:port/xdstools4. Locally you can install toolkit under any name you choose. See Renaming Toolkit for details.

Conformance Test Tool - First release of the new Conformance Test Tool, a total re-design of the user interface for managing conformance tests (aka Pre-Connectathon tests). Documentation for this tool can be found at Conformance Test Tool. For most actors, the use of the Public Registry facility is replaced by Toolkit simulators. This tool presents in the user interface all the context of a test and the test results. Users should no longer have to look through the External Cache to find supporting details of their work.

One of the features of the new Conformance Test Tool is the ability to run all tests for an actor implementation as a group. Test are grouped by actor and option. All options for an actor are listed in the display. Selecting the option allows viewing of the available tests and their current status (last time they were run).

Orchestration model - A model for organizing test support. The name orchestration is taken from SOA literature. The tests for each actor are grouped together and this grouping is supported by a script that assembles/organizes the necessary simulators and test data. The results of the orchestration are presented in the user interface of the new Conformance Test Tool. Basically test orchestration builds a customized testing environment for a single actor under test.

Reconfigurable test kit - the Test Kit can be automatically updated to use a different Codes Configurations. See Configuring Test Kits.

Multiple test kits - multiple Test Kits can be managed. See Managing Multiple Test Kits.

Patient Management - In the Manage Patient IDs tool, you can now add a name to a Patient ID. This name is a simple string so it can reflect a real name or a label that assists in testing. In all the support tools (like FindDocuments) the Patient ID edit box now has an “Expand” button that allows choosing a Patient ID from your Favorites list. The Favorites list is maintained by the Manage Patient IDs tool.

Tool URLs - Each tool in toolkit now has its own URL so it can be launched from another place or bookmarked in your browser. Additionally, the new Conformance Test Tool URL can include the specification of the environment, test session, and actor. When launched with this expanded URL, the display is initialized to show the current status of testing for the actor. details.

Automatic initialization of the External Cache - The external cache will automatically initialize to a default state if it found empty at start up. See External Cache for details.

SAML Support - SAML support is now available. This uses the Gazelle Secure Token Service (STS) to generate and validate SAML assertions. In this release STS support is available in all Utilities (like the Find Documents Tool) and in the Conformance Test Tool. Note that for this to work your installation of Toolkit must be able to reach out to the cloud based STS engine. The configuration for the STS server is loaded into toolkit as a system configuration. This can be edited if you need to use a different installation of STS. The system configuration for STS is automatically inserted into your External Cache when Toolkit starts.

SAML support is supplied in several forms. In utilities and the Conformance Test Tool there is a SAML checkbox that controls the inclusion of good SAML assertions in the generated SOAP transactions. Within the Conformance Test Tool each actor has a XUA/SAML option that enables the testing of bad SAML assertion. This facility is not yet available in all actor types in the Conformance Test Tool. The third area of support is in simulators. Any simulator that receives a SAML assertion will ignore it by default. If in the simulator configuration you select Require SAML? then the simulator will verify a SAML assertion is present in all incoming transactions and validate the assertion using STS. Per specification, SAML validation issues are reported via SOAP Faults. This use in simulators is automatic when using them with the Conformance Test Tool.

Updated displays for simulator viewing and editing.

Gazelle Integration - is now available in the following forms: Launching Conformance Tool from Gazelle and SAML Validation against Gazelle.

Cosmetic Updates

The term Site in the user interface has been replaced with System for consistency when using Toolkit with Gazelle.

The main tool menu (left side) has been rearranged.

Bug Fixes

Many. Some significant ones are...

Update the validation of field SubmissionSet.intendedRecipient

Most of the conditions that cause the Environment Not Found error have been removed

Clean up of existing Metadata Update tests.

Updated codes.xml (environment default) to add RSNA Image Share required codes). This is included in the WAR along with the certificates necessary for Pre-Connectathon testing.