Messages are exchanged, which can be compared with FTP commands. For example, SS is the start session. The IDs between which the connection is established are referred to as SSID. Within this session, several files can be transferred, even for 'third parties', e.g. branches, possibly also in both data directions. The origin and destination of the files do not have to be identical with the two connection partners.

At the beginning of a file transfer, a start file message (SF) is transferred, which also contains two Odette IDs (SFID), which specify who sent the file (origin) and to whom it should be sent (destination).

Before an OFTP connection can be established, the two partners have to enter both Odette IDs for the session (SSID) in their system. An Odette ID can be a maximum of 25 characters, the assigned password only 8 characters. Valid characters are uppercase letters, numbers, and / - . &( ).

Settings

(1) OFTP service name: Name of the OFTP service if multiple OFTP services are configured.

(2) DMZ option: Determines whether to send via the DMZ server (if present) or not. If the value Defined by system is selected, the parameter useOFtpUserOfDmz in configuration file ./etc/startup.xml decides (if true, the sending is done via the DMZ server).

(3) Channel selection: You have to select an "OFTP" channel from the Partner Administration.

(4) The following communication types can be selected.

OFTP over ISDN
OFTP over TCP/IP
OFTP over TCP/IP with TLS encryption (needs OFTP2)

(5) Port: Port of the OFTP server. A value greater than 0 overrides the port of the selected channel. If value 0 is set, the port set in the channel is used.

(6) Recipient/Sender: The SFIDs for the recipient (OFTP Destination) and the sender (OFTP Origin). Note: An ODETTE ID can be up to 25 characters long, the assigned password only 8. Permitted characters are capital letters, numbers and / - . & ( ).

(7) File: Specifies the name of the file to be transferred. A file can have different formats and is organised in so-called records. The following file types are available.

F (Fixed). All records have the same length.
V (Variable). Records have different lengths.
U (Unstructured). Only one record with arbitrary length and arbitrary content.
T (Text). Only one record with arbitrary length and text content.

Note: If the length of the file name exceeds 26 characters (limitation in the OFTP protocol), the transfer is aborted with an error.

(8) Allow receiving files: Determines whether files may also be received after the file has been deposited on the target computer. If the checkbox is set and at least one file is received, all profiles that use the Input Agent "OFTP" are checked to determine whether they need to be triggered. This fetching of files is called pickup and has to be supported by the partner system.

(9) Transmit empty data: If this option is active, empty files are transferred as well.

(10) File counter not supported: The logical file name (7) may be used for several files that are transferred within a session. No data is overwritten because it is a logical filename, not a physical one. However, this requires the presence of a file counter that some systems do not support. With this option here, you can create a unique file name for such systems by adding a timestamp.

(11) Send mode: This determines whether the data is to be sent immediately to the target system or saved for later collection (pickup) by the partner system. The third option first attempts to send the files immediately and only makes them available for pickup in the event of an error.

(12) Mark whole job as failed if this response fails: Normally a job is not necessarily considered to be erroneous if a single Response fails (see section Status of Response - Error Behaviour). But it can be enforced with this option here.

(13) Additional text on error: Here you can specify an additional log text for the error case.

Send via OFTP in a DMZ environment

In a DMZ environment, the ISDN hardware can either be connected to the internal server or to the DMZ server. With the following entry in the configuration file ./etc/startup.xml you can configure that the ISDN hardware is connected to the DMZ server.

<Set name="oftpByISDNbyDmz">true</Set>