Improved Composite Element Support

Today we've improved our Guidelines feature to provide full support for X12 composite elements.

While our users have always had the ability to write guidelines on component elements – the simple data elements making up an X12 composite element – until now, the requirements of that parent composite element couldn't be specified.

As of today, you'll see a separate entry in the Guidelines builder for composite elements, allowing you to indicate whether or not a composite element is mandatory, as well as write syntax notes on that composite element indicating which of its component elements have relational conditions between them.

Formerly, if you marked a component element as 'mandatory', a transaction would always fail validation if that component element wasn't present. Now, that transaction will still fail validation, but only if the parent composite element is also mandatory, or other component elements are present. Said another way – if a composite element is optional, a missing mandatory component element will only cause a validation error if at least some portion of that composite element is being sent.

We've been careful to make this change in a way that ensures that your existing guidelines will still be evaluated in exactly the same way that they always have been. If you'd like to take advantage of the new functionality with your existing guidelines, you can do so simply by copying your published guideline to a new draft, making the needed changes, and then publishing the new version.