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We have been testing XML files from several organisations for the last months and we would like to share the common mistakes found in the files.

On file level:

• File name incorrect: The correct file naming is ION-1234-D.xml.pgp or ION-1234-C.xml.pgp
• Wrong public key used for encryption: For the XML files you have to use the new BMDW public key.
• File is signed: The file should not be signed; only encrypted with the BMDW public key.
• Encoding in the top line: we recommend to add the encoding in the top line: <?xml version=”1.0” encoding=”utf-8”?>  

• We would recommend to create the XML file not as one line of data. For better readability, you should use line endings and indentations.

On record level:

• CREATION_TIIME and SNAPSHOT_TIME: These values should look like 2016-08-23T13:16:48Z; so no fractions of seconds and a 'Z' to reflect UTC time.
• SCHEMA_VERSION is missing: This element was added in the last version of the XSD files. We prefer to add this already.
• BIRTH_DATE: Correct format should be YYYY-MM-DD and this is a mandatory field.
• GRID: GRID is only applicable for DONORs and nor for CBUs.
• POOL: POOL is no longer an element within <DONOR> or <CBU>, but should be within <INVENTORIES>
• HLA values: DNA values should not be added to the <SER> (serological) value fields.
• Order of the elements: The data should be delivered in the correct order of the elements. Otherwise you will receive messages that a certain elements is not expected.
• VOL versus VOL_FRZN: VOL represent the volume of a cord at time of the collection. VOL_FRZN is the volume after processing and before freezing. VOL_FRZN is comparable with NVC in DOT20 files.
• TNC versus TNC_FRZN: TNC represent the total number of nucleated cells of a cord at time of the collection. TNC_FRZN is the number of cells after processing and before freezing. TNC_FRZN is comparable with TNC in DOT20 files. Also be aware that the units of these elements are different in DOT20 and XML. For DOT20 for example you used 300 and this was in units E7; for XML you should use the real number, e.g. 3.0E9
• CD34PC versus CD34PC_FRZN: CD34PC represent the number of CD34+ cells of a cord at time of the collection. CD34PC_FRZN is the number of CD34+ cells after processing and before freezing. CD34PC_FRZN is comparable with CD34P in DOT20 files. Also be aware here that the units are different.

If you haven't started to create your XML test file, please take the above mentioned mistakes into account. If you have any questions, please contact us by sending an email to support@bmdw.org 

Is your organisation ready to implement the new BMDW file format with extended data on November 1, 2017? Many organisations have sent their test files and are ready to go.

However, some organisations have not contacted the WMDA to inform us when they will sent the test file in the new XML format.

Let us know when you are able to send the test file, you can read all details here.

If you are not able to send a test file before November 1, 2017 contact our ICT specialists at support@bmdw.org. During an hour free consultation, they can investigate the likely effort and costs that are required to implement the changes in your organisation.

We just published the IDs that you have to use in the XML fields BANK_MANUF_ID and BANK_DISTRIB_ID. You can find the IDs in a table in the last tab on the Search & Match Service Data submission information page.

Please be aware that this number is different from your ION and also from the comparable fields that are used for EMDIS.

These IDs are important as it allows us to identify if a CBU is from an accredited bank or not which will be displayed within BMDW Search & Match Service and the search reports. If you are not providing this ID, we cannot link the CBU to the accreditation status of your cord blood bank registered in our administration. Especially when your cord blood bank is accredited, you might benefit from providing this ID as several transplant centres only want to select CBUs from accredited cord blood banks.

If you are providing inventory of a cord blood bank that is not listed in this table, please contact us by sending an email to support@bmdw.org and we will create an ID in our administration. Please also check the accreditation status of your banks and send an email if you find inconsistencies.

Our developers finished the deployment and testing of our BMDW data upload service. The service is stable and available again for users.

If you are experiencing any problems or have any other feedback, please contact us by sending an email to support@bmdw.org. All feedback that can improve our service is very valuable and appreciated.

Thank you for your patience.

On Monday the 14th of August, our developers have to deploy some new features to the BMDW data upload service. This will result in a downtime of around 30 minutes till 1 hour.

If you are experiencing problems with accessing the service, we are probably working on this deployment.

We will post a message on this blog when the service is up and running again. 

Thank you for your patience.

Today, we published very important information about the transition to XML file data submission to BMDW. You can find the information here. We also sent this information by letter and email to the CEOs of all listing organisations and by email to the people who are responsible for the data submission of the DOT20 files. You can also take a look at a copy of the letter here.

If you are involved in the data submission to BMDW for your organisation, please make sure that you take notice of this information. If you haven't started to implement the changes to create an XML file in your organisation, please start scheduling the development as soon as possible.

if you cannot apply to the requirements of the new file format or to any of the timelines shown above, please inform us as soon as possible by sending an email to support@bmdw.org 

More than a week ago we launched the new BMDW data upload service. We experienced some problems with users that tried to login for the first time. Especially, some emails from the system might be redirected to spam folders and therefore users are missing the password reset link. We hope that we resolved most of those issues and we want to thank the users for their patience.

Furthermore, we are working on making the user interface more user friendly. For example, it appeared that users were not always aware that they have to use their email address as username to enter the service. We will try to make the screens more intuitive and understandable for you as user of the upload service. We also just updated the manual for the BMDW data upload platform again; you can find the manual on the following page: How to upload data ?.

You might also have noticed that you received email notifications about an uploaded file from the upload service. Our developers are working on this reporting functionality and therefore these notification might not always be representative for the files you have uploaded. Most of the messages can be ignored at this moment.

We will try to validate the uploaded test files as soon as possible, but please be patient as we are working very hard to realize the new features in time and providing support to all our users. We expect that the pipeline will soon be ready to perform the XSD validation of your test XML files and report the errors back to you in the report file in the upload service.

If you are experiencing any problems with the service or you would like to start uploading your test XML file, please don't hesitate to contact us via support@bmdw.org . Your feedback is very much appreciated.

You have been previously informed on the development work BMDW is performing to improve the donor/cord data submission services. The development includes mainly the following features:

• Acceptance of a different file format (XML)
• Streamlined web-based BMDW data upload service
• Processing and validation based on the XSD files
• Improved reporting and downloading functions

As part of these changes we have been communicating the XML schema definitions files before and a proof of concept upload platform was used by some users to upload their test XML files. All those users have received the validation results and revised test XML files can be uploaded again on the new BMDW data upload service later today.

• If you received login details of the previous test upload platform, you will get a welcome email today with instructions how you can access the new BMDW data upload service.
• Also people who requested already access before or who sent their XML file by email, will receive the welcome email with instructions.
• If you also finished your test XML file and would like to get access to the BMDW data upload service, please send us an email to support@bmdw.org . We will then create an account for you and a welcome email will be send to gain access to the service.

Important file requirements (also described in the new manual on BMDW public access)

• All files need to be encrypted with the new BMDW public key
• Files larger then 200Mb needs to be compressed by ZIP
• File naming should be in accordance with the guidelines

PLEASE NOTE: The existing public key for submitting .dot 20 format files for production remain unchanged. The new key is only for XML files.

We are still working on the automatic data upload method through an API connection to the new data upload service. Once we have completed that development, we will be in touch again with relevant details in order for organisations to use this method for submitting their XML files.

We would like to encourage all organisations to start uploading their new XML file to this data upload service as it gives your organisation the opportunity to make relevant changes to the XML prior to going live. This is also very valuable for our development work as with testing files we can validate our work and resolve as much issues as possible. Please be aware that the new BMDW data upload service is running on a development server. Therefore, you may notice outages, changes to your data, or even find some functions broken and giving errors. These potentially issues are either due to new functional deployments taking place or their being a bug in the software. If you do come across any bugs or defects, please do report these as well as any other feedback by sending an email to support@bmdw.org.

Our new data upload service is almost ready again for our users to upload test XML files. We expect that we can open the service for users at the end of the week.

Please be aware that this service is running on a staging environment and developers are also still working on some features. Therefore, you might experience changes over time.

• If you already uploaded data through the test upload platform (Pydio) before, you will receive information how you can login to the new service.
• If you haven't used the test upload platform before, but you have a test XML ready for upload, you can request login details by sending an email to support@bmdw.org

We will update you as soon as the service is available.

Last week, we finished the third sprint of our development. The new data upload service is now almost ready again for our users to upload their test XML files again. We just have to resolve some minor issues and finalize the corresponding user guide. We expect the upload service to be ready at the end of this week.

Furthermore, the first parts of the processing pipeline have been developed. Overall, this includes the following: after upload of an encrypted XML file, the pipeline will pick-up this file, decrypt the file, unzip the file, and check if the file is an XML file.

The next sprints will involve the implementation of all validation rules. This work is very critical and exceeds several sprints.

We will update you again in about two weeks.

A large part of the phase two development work includes the redesign of the new pipeline, which involves the process of accepting, processing, validating and exporting of data in the new XML format. This development is divided in so-called sprints of 2 weeks each. We have finished the first two sprints. During these sprints, our developer delivered the development and test environment and partly the data upload platform. We hope that the new data upload platform will be ready for upload of test XML files at the end of next week. Furthermore, we are now working on the processes of screening all the workspaces in the upload platform for new files, extracting the new files from the data upload platform, and unzip and decrypt the files.

We will update you again in about two weeks.

We just finished the server migration of the BMDW Search & Match Service and it is up and running again.

Due to the merging of BMDW with WMDA last January, we decided that all servers should be affiliated to WMDA. Therefore, the new web address for the BMDW Search and Match Service will from now on be search.wmda.info. For a short period of time the old web address (search.bmdw.org) will be redirected to the new address. If you have bookmarked the old address, please change this to prevent any problems when we switch of the redirect.

If you are experiencing any problems after the maintenance, please contact us through support@bmdw.org .

Thank you for your patience.

A new version of the XSD schema files have been published which can be found within WMDA share -BMDW Public access page.

The reason for this update was that for proper functioning of the new data processing process, we need to know which version of the XSD schema files are used by the listing organisation to create their XML files. Additionally, also certain business rules might be only applicable to specific versions. 

To elevate some of your concerns around having to adapt your present XML files to the new XSD changes, we have made a conscious decision to accept XML files based on 2 versions of XSD schema files, i.e the current version and previous version. Any XML files without schema version are assumed to be based on version 2.0.

If you haven't started your implementation to create XML files, please use the latest version 2.1.

We have validated all test XML files received through the data exchange platform during the proof of concept period.

All organisations who sent their test files, should have received an analysis report as well as an error report. If you have previously sent a file, but haven't received the analysis report, please contact us through support@bmdw.org.

Please be aware that we only validated your XML files against the XSD schema files with some additional manual check. The specific BMDW business rules cannot be validated yet and it is possible that records that were accepted now, will be rejected later due to these additional validation rules. As soon as we can also validate the BMDW business rules, we will test files again.

Currently, we are working to develop the new (and final) upload platform. We anticipate using the new upload platform in the next two weeks. You will be informed with instructions and new credentials as soon as you can upload the updated test XML files following on from the error reports provided by us.

Thank you for your patience and we will notify you about any updates as soon as possible.