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User Guide

Version: 1.1.0

Start Up

After successfully completing the registration process, user is prompted to create an AS2 station and setup trading partners that the user is hoping to communicate with. After setting them up, user will be able to send and receive messages from partners and will also be able to use the new message inbox to view messages.

Start Up Page

After going through the provided links, user will be able to initiate the AS2 Station and partners.

AS2Station is equipped with an easy to uses navigation menu called Mega Menu. Mega menu is the central navigator of AS2Station. In the mega menu there are two main panels, one for all users and one for administrative users.

User Menu

User section of the mega menu let the logged in user to navigate into Stations - to view or update all the station based information and statistics, Partners - to view or update information for trading partners and to the main component of the system, the message inbox - which gives the overall view of all the trading happened for the particular station under a single view.

Admin Menu

Administrator users have a separate view of for the AS2Station. Administrator panel of the mega menu gives access to advanced use cases of AS2Station. More importantly, this let the administrator to move into sections such as user management, certificate management, view the audit trails of the station activities, view and edit organisation details and connection details and view the statistics of message flows.

Setting Up AS2Station

In the process of setting up AS2Station, the user is expected to provide the details which will be used to communicate with partners. There are two essential fields to be filled, the name and the AS2 identifier of the station.

AS2 identifier will be used as the identifying parameter among the trading partners. Hence it must be an unique identifier agreed upon between the user and trading partners.

Users who are expecting simple configuration for operation, its possible to skip all the advanced fields of this form. AS2Station will take the responsibility of creating a new keystore for the user for message signing purposes. But if the user prefers to use an existing keystore it can be facilitated by a separate option that is there under the Advanced Options section.

Create Station

By following the Stations link in the Mega menu, users can access the page where it is provided the functionality such as editing (updating) the station information, create a test station, delete the station and recreate a new station and send station configurations to the partner via email inorder for the partner to add the user as a partner in his AS2 system.

When creating the test station, the system will use the configuration of the production station. Only configuration that will be changed will be the AS2 Identifier, which will be "`$(production-station-as2-identifier)-test".

Setting Up Trading Partners

After setting up an AS2 station, user is required to setup one or more trading partners in order to start trading using AS2 messages. Following the links provided in welcome page, user can navigate to setting up a trading partner. Please make note of the following information in deciding input fields.

Name of the partner can be any entry that would help you to identify trading partner. AS2 identifier should be a unique identifier that the trading partner is using to communicate with the user. Partner URL, Async receipt URL are the endpoints where partner would receive synchronised AS2 messages, synchronised MDNs and asynchronous MDNs from the user. The partner certificate is the signed or encrypted certificate of the partner.

Partner's AS2 identifier, Partner URL, Partner Async URL and the Partner certificate are the partner's information that need to be extracted to set him up.

Although the Mark as Priority Partner field is optional, by marking the partner as a priority partner, user will be able to filter out sent or received messages by that partner easily in the message box view.

Create Partner

Under the advanced options, there are some optional but useful configurations for a more sophisticated set up. There you can configure whether is it required to sign and encrypt messages (these field are marked as checked by default for best practise), whether is it required to compress the message and the MDN (Message Disposition Notification) options for the sending messages. The default configuration for MDN would be to request a signed synced MDN, but user can change it as preferred.

Clicking on the Partners link that is provided in the mega menu (see Navigation Through AS2Station)lets user to access the view of partner management. There the users can see the list of partners and manage them as preferred. At this view, user edit, update or delete an existing partner or create a new partner.

There can be a limit for number of partners can create based on the model of purchase of AS2Station. Contact AdroitLogic for more information.

Certificates

User can navigate to Certificates section from administrator view of the mega menu. Here, user can view all the existing certificates that are being used. Additionally, user can generate or import new certificates to AS2Station and assign them the trading partners as preferred. User can also try exporting a certificate to the his or her computer. This is provided as another facility for easy configuration.

Manage Certificates

Organizations Profile

The Organizations Profile is the view that can be used to update or add new details about the organization. In the registration process, user is prompted to add details about the organization and continue with the registration process.

Manage Organization

User Management

In the User management view for administrative let to create new users or update the details of existing users. The new users can be simple users or administrator users. After creating a user, new user will receive an activation email (to the email provided). After following the url in the activation email the new user will be able to access the AS2Station.

Manage Users

Trading Inbox

All your AS2 messages received from your trading partners and the messages sent are displayed in this user friendly view. Important messages can be starred and taken care of separately. There are two other views for the messages handled namely 'Queued' and 'Failed'. Queued view is there for the messages that get hold before sending. Failed messages keeps the delivery failed messages for later review and resend if required.

In the inbox main window, primary message view keep records of all the messages and partners who are the frequent traders with user station also have a separate message inbox view for convenience. Priority partners can be marked and then would be categorised under this view. Same separate view is available for encrypted AS2 messages that the user receive.

Trading inbox gives the user an opportunity to experience a familiar email inbox view for their trading platform. It can be searched, mark messages, delete or refresh the entire message views
Trading Inbox

Statistics

Statistics view is available only for the administrative users where it can be accessed through the mega menu. In here, the user will be able to easily observe the flow of messages (sent/received) and MDNs in a graphical view. Graphs show the message counts either by daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.

There is also a tabular view, which is there to present the number of messages on partner basis. under this view, the user will be able to sort, search and compare transactions as preferred.

Transaction Statistics

Audit Trails

The Audit Trails link on mega menu let the users navigate to a view that presents trails of user activities and log messages. Its a comprehensive view that show records of activities on AS2Station with the date and time (UTC) of event occurred.

Audit Logs

Network Management

Here in the Network view, administrator users are provided with the facility to change the network configurations that was configured initially in the registration process. This view can also be used to test the network connection to host computer.

After saving the configurations, user will be presented with a test button that will check the connectivity to the messaging port (default 8280) from outside. If the port can be accessed from the out side successfully, system will provide a success message to the user or otherwise an error message would be delivered. If there is an error in most of the cases, you might need to check if its an internet connectivity issue or a firewall issue. (Possibly the firewall of host computer is blocking the receiving port of AS2Station server)

Advanced Network Configurations
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