Using Gap Analysis Results

Gaps Serve As a To-Do List

Gap Analysis in Conformance helps you focus on identifying and scoping differences upfront, instead spending time downstream on the validation of an overly generic interface. The gaps you find are actually a to-do list of items you need to handle when configuring the interface.  Each to-do list item will need to be handled in one of several ways:

  • You can manage a gap within your integration engine using filtering, mapping, and/or transformation logic
  • You can adjust the sending system so it sends information compliant with the receiving application or the integration engine
  • You can ignore a gap if it doesn’t impact the system’s capability to handle needed information
  • You can see the definition of each element in both Profiles by right-clicking on a gap and then Go To Definition… (this option is not available when comparing with a log file)
  • You can ignore the case when comparing element values, example: (JOHN SMITH) will be consider equal to (John Smith). Use the OPTIONS menu to change this setting

The to-do list aspect of Gap Analysis serves as starting point for your project task list documentation.  Create a document automatically using the Export as Excel document functionality.

View Examples of Gap Occurrences

If a profile is created through reverse-engineering, you can view where the gaps in Optionality (for Segments and Fields) or Length (for Fields) comes from by right-clicking on a cell and selecting View Examples… This will display all the messages where the gap occurred for these profiles.