How to include Designations when importing custom CodeSystems?

[guozhi0302]

Hi Snowstorm Team,

I am currently working on importing custom CodeSystems into Snowstorm FHIR server using the HAPI FHIR CLI upload-terminology command.

While the concepts (codes and displays) are imported successfully, I am struggling to include Designations (e.g., multilingual labels) for each code. I have verified via Elasticsearch API that the designations array remains empty after import, even though the code and display fields are correctly populated.

Environment:

• Snowstorm Version: 10.10.1 (latest)
• HAPI FHIR CLI Version: 8.6.1

Attempted Formats:

1. Triple-colon format in concepts.csv:

CODE,DISPLAY,DESIGNATION:language:en
A01,A01_display,A01_en

2. Indexed attribute format in concepts.csv:

CODE,DISPLAY,DESIGNATION:0:language,DESIGNATION:0:value
A01,A01_display,en,A01_en

3. Separated property-style approach in designations.csv (mirroring properties.csv logic):

CODE,KEY,VALUE,TYPE
A01,language,en,String
A01,value,A01_en,String
A02,language,en,String
A02,value,A02_en,String

Observations: In Elasticsearch (fhir-concept index), the document looks like this:

{
    "_class": "org.snomed.snowstorm.fhir.domain.FHIRConcept",
    "codeSystemVersion": "example.com-lab-codes",
    "code": "A01",
    "display": "A01_display",
    "displayLen": 11,
    "parents": [],
    "designations": [],
    "properties": {
        "parent": [],
        "child": []
    }
}

I have consulted the HAPI FHIR/SmileCDR documentation (like this) but couldn't find a definitive specification for designations in CSV uploads.

Questions:

• Does the Snowstorm FHIR implementation support importing designations via the standard HAPI CSV terminology upload?
• If yes, what is the expected CSV header format to map data into the designations array?
• If not, would you recommend using a FHIR Bundle (JSON) for the entire CodeSystem instead?

Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Best regards,

Guo-Zhi Wang