Learning Mirth Connect

Install Mirth Connect on Windows for local development and use the administrator launcher to run multiple instances and manage Mirth Connect components, including the server and CLI, with default ports.

Set up and deploy your first channel in Mirth Connect, switching data types to raw to send a hello world string and view channel logs and message content.

Explore the mirth dashboard view, the default landing interface that lists all deployed channels and channel groups, with actionable status controls, revision and deployment metrics, message statistics, and connection states.

Explore the server log tab to view, pause, resume, and clear logs; inspect timestamps, log types, and messages, and manage the display size to show the latest entries.

Track in-memory connection log activity across channels, recording timestamp, channel, connector info, and event details. Server logs are file-based, and once the connection log is deleted, it cannot be recovered.

Explore the global maps tab to view all the global map variables for a selected channel.

Explore dashboard tasks, including refreshing dashboard, sending messages, importing text or base64-encoded binary files, viewing and clearing messages and statistics, and managing channels with start, pause, stop, and undeploy actions.

Explore the message tab to view each step: raw inbound, encoded, and destination messages, scent metadata, variable maps like channel id, and the destination’s response object.

Explore the mappings tab to view all entries stored in the variable maps for the selected message, including default variable types, Mirth source, and Mirth type mapped to their columns.

Learn how the errors tab surfaces and details an error in a channel, including the status, source connector, line number, and syntax error for HL7 messages.

Master advanced filtering and searching in Mirth Connect to filter source and destination connectors, apply metadata filters, and use operators like contains and starts with to locate messages.

Refresh the current search results to update messages without fetching new data, and learn how to send a message within the current search options, skipping import messages.

Export messages from the current search criteria using XML serialized messages or raw formats, with optional zip compression and a chosen export path and file pattern.

Import messages by selecting the Import Messages menu, browse to mirth messages on your computer, send an item through, and configure the location to retrieve messages stored on your server.

Reprocess a selected message by choosing destinations and deciding to overwrite or send as a new message, and use reprocess results to update statistics and content.

Navigate to the channels view in Mirth Connect to manage channel groups, review status, data types, names, IDs and descriptions, and monitor last deployed and last modified times.

Navigate the channels tasks menu to manage channels and groups with refresh, redeploy all, and deploy options for enabled channels, and learn to create, edit, clone, import/export, and delete channels.

Create, name, and describe channel groups, then save and edit group details. Assign channels to groups via drag-and-drop or the group tasks menu, and import, export, or delete groups.

Select channels and drag them to a text editor to copy channel names and IDs. Drag channel XML into the channels view to import channels and groups, then save changes.

Discover how channels form the backbone of Mirth Connect and edit them in the edit channel view. Navigate by selecting a channel, right-clicking, or double-clicking, then review tabs.

Configure channel properties in mirth connect by setting the channel name, enabled state, data types, initial state, attachment handling, and tags, plus ID, revisions, and last modified metadata.

Explore data types in Mirth Connect by distinguishing inbound and outbound types, converting raw messages into an internal format for filters and transformers, then back to HL7 or XML.

Configure data types across a Mirth Connect channel using the data types window, adjusting inbound and outbound types like HL7 v2/3, XML, and JSON for all connectors.

Explore how Mirth Connect handles message storage, encryption, and removal across development, production, raw, metadata, and disabled modes. Configure durable delivery, content, and attachments to balance performance and visibility.

Enable the data pruner scheduler to run message pruning and archiving, then set metadata and content pruning rules like older than 30 days and 1 day, with optional archiving.

Configure custom metadata in a mirth connect channel by adding mrn as a searchable column from the variable maps, enabling message browser searches by patient id.

Set a random description for a channel and save it to enable filtering in the channel view. Search with Ctrl+F to locate channels, such as finding channel two.

Explore the inbound source connectors in Mirth Connect, and learn how to load messages into a channel using TCP, database, file, and JavaScript readers.

Understand the message lifecycle in Mirth Connect, tracing raw, processed, transformed, and encoded states through source and destination connectors to the final response.

Explore source settings in Mirth Connect, configuring source queue, response timing, batch processing, and max processing threads to balance throughput and order.

Discover how the channel reader waits for traffic from another channel and processes messages. Use this to split a message workflow into multiple channels and transform data for each destination.

Learn how polling settings let readers, such as file, database, or JavaScript readers, pull data on a schedule via interval, time, or cron job, including pull once on start.

Explore how the JavaScript reader in Mirth Connect lets you return various message types, from strings to XML and Java lists, using Rhino for JavaScript in Java.

Explore listener settings for tcp socket-based listeners in Mirth Connect, including selecting a local interface, enabling all interfaces, and configuring the local port for connections.

Configure the TCP listener to accept messages over TCP, choosing server or client mode, manage connections, and control how responses are sent and encoded for HL7 data.

Configure an http listener in mirth connect to act as an http server for rest API calls, supporting xml or plain messages, authentication options, and postman testing.

Configure a soap web service listener in Mirth Connect, using a single operation to receive messages and return a response, with wsdl, bindings, and test traffic via Postman.

Discover how e4x enables accessing HL7 data in Mirth Connect, using MSG and TMP structures, indexing, and value manipulation to transform between HL7 and delimited text.

Learn how Mirth uses the Rhino JavaScript engine to run scripts, blending Java with JavaScript. Master variables, strings, numbers, booleans, arrays, logging, and basic control structures.

Master Mirth Connect variable mappings to store and share message data across connectors, channels, and the instance, using put and get methods, velocity access, and configuration maps.

Master the channel map's ability to pass and store data within a channel, enabling mappings for destinations and templates, with a note on global channel map for JavaScript sources.

Explore how the source map records message origins, is mostly read-only, and is populated by the source connector; use destination set to route to specific destinations.

Utilize the global channel map to propagate data across channel messages, store in-memory settings and last-run dates. Avoid using it for patient data unless you have a specific use case.

Explore the configuration map, a read-only global store for all channels holding secrets and file names. Update map values to propagate changes across channels without redeploy, except for port changes.

Learn how the rule builder in Mirth Connect creates logic to filter HL7 messages by fields like MSH 9.1, using equals and value lists to route ADT and ORU.

Learn to filter messages with the iterator filter in mirth connect, looping hl7 ob segments to require all ob 11.1 values be f (or at least one true).

Learn how to use the JavaScript filter rule in Mirth Connect to filter HL7 messages by custom Java or JavaScript code, returning true to accept and false to filter.