Configuring a Nurse Call Connector

Nurse Call Connector is an application that retrieves messages or alarms from nurse call systems.

This is a Windows service installed as Vocera Nurse Call Connector in the list of services.

To configure and run the Nurse Call Connector:

Open the CWE installation folder. This is normally c:\Vocera.
Open the mVisumAlerts\Vocera Nurse Call Connector\Config subfolder.
Open the Configuration.xml file.
Use the <DataDirectory> tag to indicate the location of the created JSON files. This is normally the HL7 folder of the Vocera Message Generator. For example, if you have installed CWE in the C:\Vocera folder, the HL7 folder would be:

<DataDirectory>C:\Vocera\mVisum Alerts\MVisum Message Generator\HL7</DataDirectory>

Specify the <interface> tag to define the interface between the Nurse Call Connector and the nurse call system. The contents of the interface are dependent on the nurse call system that you are using. Here is an example of an <interface> tag:

<interface>
	//comment
	<name>Westcall</name>
		
	<serverPort>3300</serverPort>

	<NoChecksum> true</NoChecksum>
	<NoRcvTimeout> false </NoRcvTimeout>
	<NoLogin> false</NoLogin>
	<PingInterval>10000</PingInterval>
 	<PingTimeout>10000</PingTimeout>
	<PagerID>100</PagerID>
	<ResetInterval>0</ResetInterval>
	<clientsAllowed></clientsAllowed>

// third party server IP
	<TPServerIP>127.0.0.1</TPServerIP>
	// third party server port
	<TPServerPort>3200 </TPServerPort>
	// connection retry interval in second
	<TPConnectionRetryInterval>2</TPConnectionRetryInterval>
	// third party supported pager ID. 
	//Multiple Pager ID can be added with , (comma) seperate list
	<TPPagerID>100</TPPagerID>
	//Alarm limit interval in minute. Value 0 means no storage. 
	//Max 60 minute is limit	
	<TPAlarmLimitInterval>0</TPAlarmLimitInterval>

The following table describes the parameters for the <interface> tag:

Parameter	Description
name	The channel name or the name of the nurse call system. This should be similar to the name provided in the normalizer.
serverPort	The port at which the server will listen for the nurse call system.
NoChecksum	Whether the checksum will be calculated. This is either `true` or `false`.
NoRcvTimeout	Set to `true` if receive timeout is to be ignored, or `false` if receive timeout is to be considered
NoLogin	Set to `true` to disable TAP login, or `false` to enable it.
PingInterval	Specifies, in milliseconds, how frequently the Vocera Nurse Call Connector service is to test the connection to the nurse call system.
PingTimeout	The connection timeout value, measured in milliseconds.
PagerID	A comma-separated list of pager IDs.
ResetInterval	The amount of time to wait, in minutes, before closing the TCP connection. If ResetInterval is 0, the TCP connection will not be closed. Vocera recommends that you use the default value of 0.
clientsAllowed	A comma-separated list of IP addresses with which communication is allowed. Other IP addresses will be rejected.
template	The template string needed to parse the TAP message.
normalizerFilePath	The normalizer file path for this channel. This must be an absolute path.

After creating the <interface> tag, save the changes and restart the Vocera Nurse Call Gateway service. This will complete the configuration for a single nurse call system.

Notes:

All fields are required in the configuration file.
To add a comment to the configuration file, precede it with the // characters.
Multiple templates and normalizers can be added for a single channel. In this case, it is best to keep the normalizer in sequence.
In the normalizer, the tags and elements are case insensitive, and the element values are case sensitive.
The nurse call pager ID should be added in the normalizer. This ID is compared with the incoming pager ID from the nurse call system. If the IDs do not match, the nurse call connector does not generate a JSON file.