Channels, routes and mappings
- Admin
How does a mail, an API request or an EDI message become an order with the right fields filled in? The channel decides how the message gets into Hyperfox, the route decides what kind of message it is, and the mapping of that route tells the AI what to read from it.
Channels: how a message gets in
A channel is one way in for orders. Hyperfox has four kinds, all under Admin settings > Channels. Forward E-mail receives the mail you forward to its address. Outlook reads the mailboxes of your Microsoft 365 organisation. Api receives orders that another system posts as data. AS2 receives EDI messages from your trading partners.
Every message that Hyperfox accepts as an order becomes one inquiry. The two mail channels deliver messages that people wrote: a PDF, a spreadsheet or the text of a mail, which the AI has to read. The API and AS2 channels deliver data that is already structured, field by field, so no AI reads it.
Routes: what kind of mail it is
A mail channel has one or more routes. A route is a kind of order mail that arrives on the channel, such as the orders of your webshop customers or the transport orders of your forwarders. Each route has a name and a description, and the description tells the AI which mails belong to the route.
When a mail arrives, the AI compares it with the name and description of every route of the channel and picks the one that fits best. When no route fits, the mail takes the first route of the channel, the oldest one. Every new mail channel starts with one route, called default, and a channel always keeps at least one route.
On a Microsoft 365 channel, the AI first decides whether a mail is an order at all, following the Order detection prompt of the channel. A mail that is not an order goes no further: it gets no route and does not become an inquiry.
On a Forward E-mail channel, Hyperfox chooses between routes only when Hyperfox has switched route selection on for your environment. Otherwise every mail takes the first route of the channel, however many routes you add. Ask Hyperfox support whether route selection is on before you add a second route to a Forward E-mail channel.
You manage the routes of a channel on its Routes tab, or under Admin settings > Routes.
Mappings: what the AI reads
Each route has one mapping. A mapping lists the fields of your order that the AI fills, which are the fields of your order model under Admin settings > Master Data. For each field, the mapping holds an extraction instruction that tells the AI where to find the value and how to write it, examples of good values, and warnings. A warning is a condition the AI checks while it reads the order; when the condition holds, the operator sees its message on the order during validation.
A mapping can also hold a split instruction. The AI then reads one mail as several orders, which the operator sees as a split inquiry.
You change the extraction instructions, examples and warnings of a mapping. Adding a field to a mapping or removing one is done by Hyperfox.
The AI fetches the mapping each time it reads a mail. A change applies to the mails it reads after you save, not to orders it has already read.
One mapping, several routes
A mapping is not tied to one route. Several routes can use the same mapping, also on different channels, so that a kind of order reads the same way however it arrives. A change to such a mapping changes how every one of those routes is read. On the Routes tab, Hyperfox shows how many channels use a mapping and warns when your edit also applies elsewhere.
Every save of a mapping is kept. Under Version history, you see who changed what, and you can restore an older version, which Hyperfox saves as a new version.
Why routes and mappings are separate
One mailbox often carries more than one kind of order: a customer order needs other fields and other instructions than a transport order or a return. Routes let one channel recognise those kinds and send each to the instructions that fit it. Keeping the mapping apart from the route lets several routes share one set of instructions, so an improvement to a field reaches every route that uses it.
Channels without routes
The API and AS2 channels have no routes and no mappings. On the API channel, the sending system fills every field by its field name, so there is nothing for the AI to read. On the AS2 channel, the EDI mappings of each trading partner, under Admin settings > EDI, translate every EDI message the same way.
What this means for you
When the AI took the wrong route for a mail, an operator can read the mail again with another route. The Retry menu on the validation screen then lists the routes of the channel, from Retry with current category onwards. The menu shows routes only when the channel has two or more. For the steps, see Retry an order so the AI reads it again from the start.
When the AI reads a field wrongly on many orders of one route, change the extraction instruction of that field in the mapping of the route. When a kind of mail keeps landing on the wrong route, sharpen the descriptions of the routes so that the AI can tell them apart.