New LogicNets Features
January 2025
LogicNets Version 8.2 New Features Overview
LogicNets is pleased to announce Version 8.2, a new release of the LogicNets decision support application development platform available to licensed customers starting in January 2025. The new version introduces important new features for large-scale (or “enterprise”) authoring and enhanced support of the HL7 FHIR standard for integrating healthcare applications with external systems and securely sharing data. Complete details of the new functionality are available in the LogicNets Community Portal where you can access the release notes and full documentation on new and enhanced features. As with any LogicNets release, there are numerous miscellaneous enhancements that are included in the new release. Following are descriptions of the main new features that we wish to highlight for customers to consider the value of and timeline for upgrading.
Test Manager
Version 8.2 includes the LogicNets Test Manager, a new authoring module which allows you to manage and automate repetitive or large-scale testing activities. The Test Manager is a standalone application that runs on a LogicNets server outside the LogicNets Designer environment.
It allows you to create, run, and efficiently manage test suites and has been introduced with Version 8.2 specifically for support of FHIR questionnaire applications. The Test Manager also supports and integrates the new FHIR and OpenAPI message validation features described below. The Test Manager provides great value for LogicNets customers developing and deploying content at scale as it allows for full automated regression testing that would otherwise take days or weeks of staff time to complete if performed manually. The Test Manager is integrated with the LogicNets Designer and the test harnesses of the LogicNets FHIR Questionnaire Export and Runtime components. You can use these tools to simulate a variety of requests and responses and then add them to the Test Manager at the push of the button.
New Messaging Validation Tools
Version 8.2 includes new features for automatically validating the syntax of both FHIR and OpenAPI messaging. This new functionality lets you ensure that the FHIR-compatible systems frequently integrated with LogicNets through web services receive valid LogicNets-generated requests. Both features are included with the Test Manager module.
The FHIR Validation feature is invoked through the Test Manager or using an API. It validates the full range of concepts within the FHIR message, including: 1) standard FHIR syntax, 2) LogicNets-introduced FHIR elements, and 3) any custom extensions and profiles you have created. For OpenAI messages, the LogicNets Web Service framework has been enhanced in Version 8.2 to invoke validation for the request and response bodies of inbound web service calls based on the OpenAPI specification, which provides a formal standard for describing HTTP APIs (https://www.openapis.org/).
Question State Management
Version 8.2 provides a new capability for controlling the state of questions answered in a LogicNets decision support session over an extended period of time, between multiple sessions and users. This feature is particularly useful in clinical applications where users may otherwise be asked to unnecessarily answer the same question repeatedly even though the answer is unlikely to change over some period of time. Question state management allows a designer to indicate that answers should be retained for future use across multiple applications and user sessions. Subsequent display for any application input can be pre-populated, read-only, or editable based on how the question state feature is configured. For FHIR applications the feature has built-in intelligence that allows the question state enforcement to time-out based on designer-specified values.
Enterprise Authoring Bundle
The new authoring functionality implemented in Version 8.2 is a continuation of new functionality introduced in previous versions including Shared Workspaces and Deployment Manager. All this functionality has been developed specifically to optimize the use of LogicNets at a large scale or “enterprise” level characterized by the development and management of large numbers of projects, libraries, and published packages. As a result, these advanced features are being made available to large-scale users through a single product option – the Enterprise Authoring Bundle. LogicNets pricing and software configuration has been updated to reflect this new packaging option.
For more information about Version 8.2, please contact your LogicNets Project team leader or our sales team (sales@logicnets.com).