Overview

Read, validate, compare, anonymize, document, and test HL7 messages in your browser.

HL7 Soup Online brings the familiar HL7 Soup workflow to the web: message story, raw editor, segment grid, field editor, comparison tools, anonymizing, validation, interface definitions, and HL7 reference guidance. It is built for people who need to understand what a message is really saying, not just stare at pipes and carets.

Because it runs in a modern browser, HL7 Soup Online is useful when you want HL7 tools from Windows, macOS, Linux, tablets, or phones without first installing the desktop product. The hosted online version is ideal for demonstrations, support, quick investigations, training, vendor conversations, and browser-based review where a local install is not convenient.

For patient-identifiable, production, confidential, regulated, or very large HL7 workloads, use self-hosted HL7 Soup Web or the installed HL7 Soup product so the work stays under your control.

Privacy note: routine editing and analysis run in your browser. For patient-identifiable, production, confidential, or regulated clinical data, use self-hosted HL7 Soup Web or the installed desktop product unless your organization has approved hosted browser use. See the Integration Soup privacy policy or contact support if you are unsure.

What you can do in the browser

Open HL7 v2 messages and inspect the story, raw message, and field grid together.
Click through segments, fields, components, and sub-components without losing your place.
Read plain-language descriptions for common message types, segments, fields, data types, and tables.
Validate messages and inspect segment, field, component, and sub-component details.
Compare two messages side by side and focus on meaningful differences.
Anonymize message content so sample data is safer to share for support, training, or vendor testing.

Where it fits

Explain a message to a customer, vendor, analyst, tester, or new team member.
Investigate a support issue quickly from a machine that does not have the desktop tool installed.
Review a sample message before writing interface specifications or workflow rules.
Capture reusable interface expectations before handing work to Integration Soup workflow designers.
Use it as the easy entry point, then move to installed or self-hosted HL7 Soup Web when the data, volume, or environment requires it.

Read the message, not just the syntax

HL7 Soup does more than show a text file. It interprets the message into a clinical and operational story, then keeps that story linked to the exact HL7 field that produced it. That makes it much easier to explain why a message is an admission, a referral, an order, a result, a document notification, or a scheduling update.

The segment grid gives a structured view of the selected segment, while the raw editor keeps the real HL7 visible. When you select a field such as PID-8, OBX-3, OBR-4, or MSH-9, the surrounding context follows you: field names, component names, table values, date handling, and practical descriptions.

Define HL7 interfaces and conformance rules

Interfaces let you turn one good sample message, or a set of examples, into a shared definition of what another system should send or receive. Instead of relying on a PDF specification that drifts away from real messages, you can capture concrete requirements directly from the HL7 structure people are testing against.

Capture the contract

Name and describe the interface in terms analysts and vendors understand.
Keep the HL7 message type and structure tied to the definition.
Mark required fields and expected values instead of documenting them separately.
Use data-table membership, date checks, empty/not-empty rules, and field highlighting to show what valid data should look like.

Reuse the rules

Import and export interface definitions so teams can share the same expectations.
Use the rules when reviewing vendor samples, testing releases, or comparing environments.
Keep conformance rules close to Integration Soup workflow designs, where separately licensed workflows can use them to help validate incoming data.
Make log review easier by viewing real messages through the same interface expectations used during design and testing.

Validate, highlight, compare, and anonymize

HL7 troubleshooting is rarely one action. You might need to find every message where a field is missing, highlight values that fail a lookup table, compare two versions of a result, or make a safe sample message for a vendor. HL7 Soup brings those jobs into the same workspace so you can move from investigation to evidence quickly.

Validation: check required fields, invalid dates, lookup-table membership, expected values, and other conformance rules.
Highlighting: make important values stand out across the editor, story, message list, and segment grid.
Comparison: compare messages side by side and focus on the semantic differences that matter.
Anonymizing: create safer test examples by replacing identifying values while preserving message shape.
Statistics: summarize very large message sets quickly when running in installed or self-hosted mode.

Built-in HL7 reference guidance

Both HL7 Soup Online and installed or self-hosted HL7 Soup Web connect message fields back to the Integration Soup HL7 reference guide. The guide reflects more than two decades of practical HL7 integration work: what fields mean, how tables are used, where data types catch people out, and how real-world messages differ from clean examples.

Jump from a selected field to reference notes for the segment, field, data type, or table.
Review expected values, field purpose, and practical interpretation while the message is still visible.
Understand group patterns and common message structures without constantly switching tools.
Use deeper notes for laboratory, pathology, order/result, scheduling, document, and patient-administration use cases.
Give analysts, testers, and vendors a shared language for what the message is meant to say.

This matters because a message can be syntactically valid and still be useless for the receiving system. Reference guidance helps teams move past "the parser accepts it" toward "the receiving workflow can trust it."

Benefits of installing or self-hosting HL7 Soup Web

The purchased, installed, or self-hosted version still runs in your browser. The important difference is where the application and processing run: on your own computer, server, or internal network instead of the hosted public site. That means PHI, patient-identifiable data, production files, logs, and interface test data can stay inside the environment your organization controls.

Your network, your controls: for hospitals, vendors, laboratories, and serious integration teams, this is often the deciding reason to install or self-host. HL7 Soup Web can run where your governance, access controls, firewall rules, backups, audit expectations, and security reviews already apply, so clinical data does not need to leave your network just to be inspected, validated, searched, or tested.

Large files and local control

Open huge HL7 files locally, including message sets with tens of millions of messages.
Keep PHI, production messages, large files, and logs on your own computer, server, or internal network instead of sending them outside your control.
Use local or server-side processing for parsing, highlighting, search, statistics, and server-backed message lists.
Work beyond the practical memory limits of browser-only hosted mode.
Use your own data-table repositories for local, regional, country, or project-specific testing data.

Testing and workflow control

Send and receive HL7 over MLLP/TCP or HTTP for repeatable interface tests.
Review ACKs, timings, request/response details, and error logs without leaving the message workspace.
Use TLS and client-certificate authentication for MLLP/TCP connections; HTTP senders can also present a client certificate.
Auto-send filtered message sets rapidly or one message per second when testing receiver behavior.
Interact with and control separately licensed Integration Host workflows where those workflow licenses are in place.

Large-file performance is one of the main reasons to install or self-host. HL7 Soup is designed for the kind of workload where many tools slow down badly; in practical large HL7 file workflows, it is difficult to find anything faster for loading, highlighting, navigating, and calculating statistics.

Which version should you use?

Use HL7 Soup Online when you want fast browser access for training, demonstrations, support, quick message review, and non-sensitive samples.
Use installed or self-hosted HL7 Soup Web when you need PHI and patient-identifiable data to remain on your network, plus local control, very large files, custom data tables, send/receive testing, or server-backed processing. Start from the HL7 Soup download page.
Use Integration Host workflow licenses when you need production workflow orchestration, routing, hosting, monitoring, and operational control beyond HL7 Soup message review. See the Integration Host overview.