QC Install Best Practices - Services start order

Dispatcher and Processing Engine

The Processing Engine is part of QC’s older service architecture. Most if not all processes in QC used to be performed by the Processing Engine. PLEXIS has migrated most of its functionality to individual services. This includes Claims Adjudication, Capitation, and Accounting. There are only two functions still in the processing engine, Premium Billing Invoicing and Grace Period.

The Dispatcher is used by the UI and Scheduler service to communicate with the Processing Engine. The Dispatcher uses net.tcp ports for communication. These ports cannot be secured by https SSL.

Therefore, we recommend if you are not using Premium Billing or Grace Period that you avoid the security risk of installing these services.

Service Start Order

By default, most QC Services are configured with a Startup Type of Manual, with the exception of the Dispatcher and Processing Engine. The remaining services are configured for manual start because some services are dependent on others, and if they are started out of order it can cause processing issues. However, once you know the service’s interdependencies you can configure your services to start automatically and avoid any issues.

The main dependencies are between the Workflow services and select QC Services. Specifically, the QC Workflow Claim Adjudication – Adjudicate Claim is dependent on the QC Service ClaimAdjudication – AdjudicateClaim and the QC Workflow – Coverage Incentives is dependent on the four QC Service – Benefits services.

To avoid issues on startup, you can set the Processing Engine, Scheduler, Dispatcher, and QC Services to Startup Type Automatic as long as you place the QC Workflows to Startup Type Automatic (Delayed Start).