This major release includes several enhancements to our core AS2 communication and processing logic, to better support the finer aspects of the AS2 protocol, and to pave the way for some new interesting features for our on-premise and dedicated AS2 software platforms.
For SaaS users too, we have a handful of new features:
File submissions through AWS S3 uploads
Even though AS2 Gateway has been offering S3 integration support for quite some time, it was not at its full capacity; it only allowed you to receive incoming files, meaning that you had to use some other integration mechanism (SFTP, or the REST API) to submit outgoing messages. Now, you can simply upload outgoing files into your bucket - and AS2 Gateway will automatically pick them up and send them out!
Be sure to check out our S3 integration docs for more details on how to set up this two-way S3 integration on your account - and don’t forget to reach out if you notice anything out of the ordinary.
EDI Generator integration
EDI Generator, commonly called EDIG, is the new player in EDI automation space. It allows you to parse and visualize common EDI documents such as POs sent by your different partners/vendors, invoices and ASNs, and also to compose and send such documents to your partners
- without having to worry about the complexities of EDI specifications, rules and validations.
Now you can combine this EDI power with the power of AS2 communication, to build an end-to-end EDI pipeline for your business. After you integrate EDI Generator with AS2 Gateway , incoming EDI files from selected partners will get automatically pushed to your EDI Generator account; and AS2 Gateway will automatically pick up and send functional ACKs (e.g. X12 997 responses) generated by EDI Generator, back to your partners. Any other EDI Generator files that you compose and submit to your EDI Generator outbox, will also get sent to the relevant partners via your AS2 Gateway account.
For fine-grained control over what files actually get processed as EDI, you can choose to enable EDIG integration for a selected few of your partners. This way, if you deal with multiple partners but only some of them send you EDI, AS2G will only forward files from EDIG-enabled partners to your EDIG account. For further safety, we also have content-type based filtering - to ensure that, even from an EDI-enabled partner, only EDI-type files get forwarded to EDIG.
Learn More about EDI Generator. Visit 👉 www.edigenerator.com
EMA integration (European Medicines Agency)
If you are exchanging regulatory data with EMA (European Medicines Agency), we have good news for you - AS2 Gateway now has built-in support for tracking and aggregating EMA submission and ACK details!
When you make a submission to an EMA-integrated partner, AS2G will automatically analyze the received XML ACK file and tag the message trail with submission details. This allows you to view the full trail of messages belonging to a submission, simply by clicking the “EMA:Ack” or “EMA: File” tag associated with any message in the trail.
Now, for our on-premise crowd:
AS2 Restart support
AS2 Gateway now supports the AS2 Restart optional profile. When sending a large file, if the transmission gets interrupted for some reason, AS2 Gateway will automatically negotiate with the target server and resume the transfer from where it failed. This will save time and bandwidth on both ends, and reduce the overall number of failures - greatly simplifying your AS2 management efforts.
AS2 restart is currently implemented for outgoing transfers; we are already working on adding restart support for incoming files as well, and hope to release a preview soon!
Restart is also available in the SaaS platform, although the maximum file size quota reduces the actual usefulness of the feature. Nevertheless, if you wish to try it out, just drop us a line!
Dedicated release for regulatory submissions!
AS2 Gateway for Regulatory Submissions streamlines your submission process for regulatory bodies such as FDA and EMA. You can simply pick your regulatory files from a mounted directory structure for sending out - and the platform will archive them into submission entities (as mandated by the remote regulatory partner), and transmit them with appropriate metadata, track their progress, and notify you automatically when ACKs are received.
You can also define profiles for different regulatory bodies and sub-entities (e.g. FDA CDER vs FDA HC), containing submission archive creation formats/rules, and additional AS2 communication parameters such as routing headers. This is a simple, one-time configuration step for your technical staff.
When configured, these profiles - combined with the full-blown Regulatory Submissions Dashboard - will allow your business users to make regulatory submissions “just like sending an email”; just select the files/folders, pick the regulatory entity, and click Send. No more worries about the AS2 internals or the underlying complexities of the submission composition and tracking process.
All of this comes bundled with all standard features of our on-premise AS2 software - intuitive browser-based access from anywhere, OpenID single sign-on (SSO), role-based access control, auditing, AS2 message ID customizations, AS2-restart for fault-tolerance in large-file AS2 communications, inbuilt email notifications, and more.
We are still a few steps away from making the official announcement. However, if you are already looking for a simple and robust regulatory submissions platform - you know where to find us.
Preview: self-installable release!
After experiencing the AS2 Gateway SaaS platform, a question asked by most of our clients is, “can I run this AS2 software on my own machine?”
So far the answer has been a bit hazy, because of the inherent complexities in deploying an AS2 Gateway instance. Now we have put together a “double-click to run” release that overcomes most of these problems. Just download, extract and run, and in under a minute you will have your own AS2 Gateway!
We are very close to publishing an official downloadable AS2 software bundle of this self-runnable release. If you would like a sneak peek, write to us today and we will be happy to share the beta with you.
In closing
2022 is going to be an exciting year for AS2 Gateway, and for all of us at Aayu - we invite you to join the ride!
