How good is Altova MapForce

mapping edi altova x12
user2167069 picture user2167069 · Mar 13, 2013 · Viewed 8.3k times · Source

My company needs to convert X12 5010 837 files into our database and back out. The tool we have been playing around with is Altova MapForce (trial). I have been trying to check references but Altova hasn't been quite helpful in that regard. The CNET reviews for it got me a bit concerned. I've searched quite a bit on stackoverflow to see whether anyone has any feedback on it, but most of what I found is Q&A on particular functions and How Tos.

I would greatly appreciate if one of you who has purchased Mapforce and implemented at least one project or solution with it can share what you found good and bad about it?

Is it a solid tool that can process about 30K-50K claims a year? Will it crash everyday like some of the CNET reviews state?

Just e-mail me if you would rather chat over the phone about it.

Regards,

Andrew R

Answer

Charles Daringer picture Charles Daringer · Nov 4, 2013

The tool is very reliable, easy to use. One of the nice things is that there is full error enumeration of the X12 library, Altova is one of two tools vendors for X12.org

It is reliable. My suggestion is to do the transformation and then use refactoring to manage the code generated in C# or Java so you can update the maps very easily by just copying the generated code into an existing directory within a project. I would not modify Altova code, they suggest that you do not in their documentation, but don't go into the issue of refactoring by extracting a method and changing namespace

If you have worked with other X12 tools, Sterling Commerce or IBM Gentran, Biztalk, Informatica, etc.. you will appreciate the simplicity of the tool and the value. If you have no experience with EDI you are at the mercy of the opinions of others who have no experience with EDI who actually integrate

On a 1-10 I give the product a 9 and within the right architecture, pruned of enumeration is preferable to the other stated technologies mentioned, give me some Linux, Lamp, JBOSS?? and Java refactored and I have the solution

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