Services Australia advice: Canberra Day Public Holiday – OTS and Developer Liaison availability
Services Australia advises that there will be a change in the availability of the Developer Liaison and Online Technical Support (OTS) teams over the upcoming Canberra Day public holiday on Monday 10 March 2025.
The OTS Helpdesk will be available during business hours: 08:30 – 17:00 (AEDT).
The Developer Liaison and OTS Product Integration teams will not be available.
Should you have any queries regarding this advice please contact the Developer Liaison team at developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au.
Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service updates to SVT functionality - Search IHI Retired Status will once again return an informational message if a unique match is found (in SVT)
Added: 14 February 2025
Effective 14 February 2025, the informational message functionality will be turned back on when Search IHI results in a retired status.
Services Australia has provided advice to you on 24 September 24, 16 October 24, 15 January 25 and 11 February 25 in relation to updates to Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service.
These changes included:
- using mobile number or email address to search for an IHI,
- updating additional consumer personal details (mobile number, email address, alternate names and date of birth),
- Search IHI - IRN will be mandatory when a Medicare Card is used as the search criteria for an IHI.
- Search IHI - Retired Status will be returned with an informational message if a unique match is found for a consumer with that status. In addition to the informational message, if the HI Service finds a match to the IHI record with a ‘Retired’ status, the HI Service will return informational message (#02270) with the IHI details depending on configuration.
Supplementing our Health Systems Developer Portal communications, we invited you to participate in two separate surveys to utilise these enhancements to the HI Service and requested you provide feedback specific to your product before 28 February 2025 on the last two above enhancements.
Most recently on 11 February 2025 we advised that we had:
- reverted the ‘IRN will be mandatory rule’ in the HI Service vendor test environment (SVT) meaning that Search IHI - IRN will once again be optional when a Medicare Card is used as the search criteria for an IHI.
- reinstated the Search IHI Retired Status error: (ERROR) This IHI record has a ‘Retired’ IHI status and cannot be retrieved via this channel.
In that communication we provided advice that “These changes will not progress to production”. We would like to clarify that this referred to there being no requirement to regress the changes indicated in production environment as these had not been introduced into the production environment.
Services Australia now wishes to advise that the 8 February 2025 change inadvertently turned off the functionality for Search IHI Retired Status in the SVT environment, meaning that we reinstated the error message to be returned when a Retired record was detected during Search IHI. This an oversight on our behalf and we do apologise for any inconvenience.
As this was in error, the functionality for Search IHI Retired status will be turned back on effective Friday 14th February 2025 until the end of the survey period 28 February 2025.
- Search IHI - Retired Status will be returned with an informational message if a unique match is found for a consumer with that status.
- In addition to the informational message, if the HI Service finds a match to the IHI record with a ‘Retired’ status, the HI Service will return informational message (#02270) with the IHI details depending on configuration.
With regards to the two Search IHI two changes there is no decision to deploy the functionality into the production environment. This decision will be made following an interagency review of the feedback you have supplied through the survey. If this changes, conformance and a transition plan will be advised accordingly. At this stage:
- Medicare IRN will remain optional.
- Search IHI will continue to return a Retired Status error: (ERROR) This IHI record has a ‘Retired’ IHI status and cannot be retrieved via this channel.
The HI Service licensed material will be updated in due course to reflect this change.
Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service updates to functionality - IRN will no longer be mandatory and Search IHI Retired Status will once again return an error
Added: 11 February 2025
Services Australia has reverted the ‘IRN will be mandatory rule’ in the HI Service vendor test environment (SVT).
Search IHI - IRN will once again be optional when a Medicare Card is used as the search criteria for an IHI.
Further, Search IHI Retired Status will once again return an error: (ERROR) This IHI record has a ‘Retired’ IHI status and cannot be retrieved via this channel.
These changes were implemented on Saturday 8 February 2025. These changes will not progress to production.
The HI Service licensed material will be updated in due course to reflect this change.
My Health Record SVT Environment - Planned Upgrade
Added: 7 February 2025
The My Health Record System Operator advises that there will be a planned upgrade activity performed on the API Gateway in the SVT environment between 6:00pm Tuesday 11th February to 11:59pm 13th February (AEDT). The SVT environment will be available during this time however, there may be an outage of up to 90 minutes during this period.
The System Operator apologises for any inconvenience this may cause.
Contact developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au for further advice about this message if necessary.
For technical support please contact healthAPIGatewaySVT@deloitte.com.au.
Scheduled maintenance to the Health Systems Developer Portal and Developer Testing Support System
Added: 23 January 2025
Services Australia advises that due to scheduled maintenance, the Health Systems Developer Portal and Developer Testing Support System will be unavailable between approximately 8:00pm 8 February 2025 and 4:00am 9 February 2025 (AEDT).
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Should you have any questions about this advice please contact the Developer Liaison team at developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au .
Online Technical Support (OTS) and Software Vendor Test (SVT) environment availability for Australia Day - Holiday
Added: 23 January 2025
Please be advised that the Software Vendor Technical Support, Product Integration and Developer Liaison teams will be unavailable on Monday 27 January 2025 due to the Australia Day public holiday. The Software Vendor Technical Support phone number, 1300 550 115, will be diverted to the on-call number for critical production issues only.
The vendor environment will be available but unsupported. Any technical issues that arise will be investigated the next business day.
Should you have any queries regarding this advice please contact the Developer Liaison team at developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au.
Scheduled outage to vendor environment – 22 January 2025
Added: 22 January 2025
Services Australia advises that due to scheduled maintenance, there will be an outage to the vendor environment between approximately 8.00pm-10.00pm (AEDT) on Wednesday 22 January 2025.
This will affect PRODA, Medicare, ECLIPSE, Australian Immunisation Register, Aged Care, PBS Online and HI Services in the vendor environment.
The Health Systems Developer Portal and Developer Testing Support System will be unavailable during this period.
We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.
Should you have any questions about this advice please contact the Developer Liaison team at developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au.
Action required: Feedback Survey for Healthcare Identifiers (HI) Service updates to functionality
Added: 15 January 2025
Services Australia has introduced changes to the HI Service to support the improvement of match rates for Individual Healthcare Identifiers (IHI). These two changes have not been turned on in production but have been available in the HI Service vendor test environment (SVT) from 23 November 2024.
The changes include:
- Search IHI - IRN will be mandatory when a Medicare Card is used as the search criteria for an IHI.
- Search IHI - Retired Status will be returned with an informational message if a unique match is found for a consumer with that status.
- In addition to the informational message, if the HI Service finds a match to the IHI record with a ‘Retired’ status, the HI Service will return informational message (#02270) with the IHI details depending on configuration.
To ensure minimal impact for software developers and their customers prior to implementation, we are inviting developers to test in SVT and complete the short survey with any impacts. Once any issues or concerns have been received about the changes, Services Australia and the Australian Digital Health Agency will work with industry to determine the most appropriate time to implement these changes in the production environment.
Software developers are encouraged to utilise these enhancements to the HI Service and requested to provide feedback specific to your product before 28 February 2025 through the survey link.
Planned maintenance to the My Health Record system Software Vendor Test (SVT) environment
Added: 8 January 2025
The My Health Record System Operator advises there will be planned maintenance to the My Health Record system Software Vendor Test (SVT) environment on Wednesday, 22 January 2025 from 5:00 PM – 9:00 PM (AEDT). The SVT environment will be unavailable for a small portion of this window to deployment patches to address security vulnerabilities that needs to be addressed within 48 hours.
As part of this maintenance, patches will be deployed to the Oracle HTTP Server to maintain the security posture of the MHR system. The patch release notes from Oracle do not suggest that there will be any impact to vendors, however there is still a risk that these patches may impact how vendors interact with the My Health Record system. Therefore, it is recommended that vendors perform connectivity testing in SVT on Thursday, 23 January 2025 by 2 PM (AEDT).
This environment upgrade is outside of the advertised available hours for the SVT environment. The System Operator apologies for any inconvenience this will cause.
Contact developerliaison@servicesaustralia.gov.au for further advice about this message if necessary. For technical support please contact healthAPIGatewaySVT@deloitte.com.au.
Services Australia advice: SHA-2 OCA renewal release
Added: 8 January 2025
We’ve scheduled the Secure Hash Algorithm (SHA)-2 Organisation Certificate Authority (OCA) renewal release for 18 January 2025, which will run for approximately 24-48 hours.
What you need to know
In October 2026, the SHA-2 OCA used to issue NASH SHA-2 PKI certificates will expire.
- We’re renewing the SHA-2 OCA and will be deploying it in the production environment 18 January 2025.
- A test NASH SHA-2 PKI certificate has been made available in the vendor test environment to provide all software vendors the opportunity to undertake compatibility testing.
- All software must support NASH SHA-2 PKI certificates issued by both the expiring and the new SHA-2 OCA.
- Software vendors are not required to undertake a new Notice of Connection test.
NASH chain of trust rollout
From 18 January 2025, an updated chain of trust will be bundled with all NASH SHA-2 PKI certificates issued. This bundle will include both the old and the new SHA-2 OCA certificates. Most software will automatically install the new chain of trust when installing a new NASH SHA-2 PKI certificate.
For software systems that don’t automatically install the chain of trust from the NASH SHA-2 PKI certificate bundle, we recommend manually rolling out the chain of trust to your sites. From 18 January 2025, the updated chain of trust will be available as a separate download on the Certificates Australia website www.certificates-australia.com.au. Due to technical constraints, we’re unable to provide the updated chain of trust prior to commencing production use of the new OCA.
We’ll send our next update on 17 January 2025.
Decommissioning of Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions 1.0 and 1.1 in production environment
Added: 8 January 2025
The Australian Digital Health Agency will be decommissioning the Transport Layer Security (TLS) versions 1.0 and 1.1 from 30 March 2025. After this date, any attempts to connect using these versions will be declined.
What is changing
Communications to and from My Health Record will no longer be possible with TLS versions 1.0 and 1.1.
Currently, TLS version 1.2 is approved for systems connecting to the My Health Record system, and earlier versions must be disabled as soon as practical, support for TLS v1.0 and v1.1 will also be removed following the 30 March 2025 cut off.
This requirement is detailed in the Security Requirements for My Health Record Connecting Systems - Security Conformance Profile v1.0 (Document ID: DH-3981:2024).
Required Actions
For anyone using versions lower than TLS v1.2 the following actions are required:
- Updating software used with My Health Record.
- Changing configuration settings to enable TLS v1.2 and optionally TLS v1.3 and disable TLS v1.0 and/or TLS v1.1.
- Making infrastructure changes to IT systems.
- Taking additional actions by your customers.
Additional support
Please contact the Agency if you need documentation or instructions to assist users of your software on how to remove or disable TLS v1.0/1.1 and use or update to TLS v1.2.
If you have any questions or require more information about this notice, please email tlscompliance@digitalhealth.gov.au
Notification archive
If you are looking for older notifications, refer to: Archive - Online Technical Support (OTS) and Software Vendor Test (SVT) environment notifications