The Integration Engineer
When it just has to work.

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Today the Evil Robot has found a EDI training blast from the past. So if you want to experience the cutting edge of EDI training that people received back in the 90′s when power-point was all the rage and managers stopped being able to communicate without them, then this video if for you. But if you can get past the power-point nature of the presentation, this is a good basic over view of what EDI does, how it is used and covers many of the commonly asked questions by people first encountering EDI.

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Starting off work on my On-line Status Repository, one of the things that I will be starting with is uploading and downloading SEF file from a data repository.  SEF stand for Standards Exchange Format.  SEF files are repositories of standards information that can then be exchanged between people and applications to define the format of EDI documents.

If you have used a standards editor, you probably know what an SEF file is, or have used it.  Some applications and EAI even use SEF files as part of their document creation and validation processes.  It becomes useful to describe briefly what SEF files look like, and what type of information they contain.

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When two trading partners agree to send each other electronic documents.  And they begin to describe what EDI documents they will exchange and how the documents will flow, they should also exchange EDI specification documents.  EDI usage or specification documents describe what fields and what segments a trading partner will send or expect to convey the information necessary to complete a transaction.  It doesn’t matter if we are ordering widgets, or invoicing, or transmitting catalog data, or checking insurance claims eligibility, the EDI needs to contain the data that the two parties need to communicate.  To explain this, and document it to that both trading partners know what is expected, we create an EDI usage specification.

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ACK is an Acknowledgment segment. It is commonly found on response transactions to Purchase Orders or 855. It is one of the lines found in the PO1 loop or group.  As this line modifies the PO1 line data from the Purchase Order, what it can contain and how that data is handled is important for the stability of the supply chain integration.  For clarity, we are going to use the 4010 x12 standard.

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Like the PO1 segment, IT1 is another line item segment used in the supply chain.  This is the line item segment found in invoices.  And since invoices make up an important part of a supply chain, I wanted to spend another article on this segment.  (IT1 is a group or loop so it is more than just a segment.)  In this article we will discuss what data is found on the IT1 segment, and how it should be handled on both inbound and outbound document.  For clarity, we are going to use the 4010 x12 standard.

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When we are dealing with supply chain or e-commerce related EDI, we probably will deal with line item data.  On a Purchase Order, (PO) or 850, the line item data is contained on the PO1 segment or the PO1 group.  (PO1 is a group or loop so it is more than just a segment.)  In this article we will discuss what data is found on the PO1 segment, and how it should be handled on both inbound and outbound document.  For clarity, we are going to use the 4010 x12 standard.  The PO1 hasn’t changed in content for a while, but it has gotten longer, (you will see how this works when we talk about the PO1 elements). (more…)

I have been studying some on the SEF format.  SEF stands for Standards Exchange Format.  This is a file that defines the EDI standard so that you can use a validation or standard and usage document editor to create nice, and clean specifications for you and your trading partners.

I have used Foresights EDISIM, but I wonder what others use.  I have found a few links to SEF software, and will list them below.

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A reader asked me a question, and I want to pass it along: “Do you know of any DOT NET frameworks for working with EDI?”

I didn’t, and a search of the web didn’t reveal anything that I could, in any confidence, recommend.  So I bring this question to you.  Do you know of a DOT NET framework that can be used for generating and or parsing EDI data?  If  you do, please comment below and let everyone know.  I will also pass it on to my friend who is looking for this.

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From time to time I am asked if I know where such and such standard can be found.  This is more than idle curiosity.  People are trying to integrate, or update integrations, and the standard documentation is not available or has been lost.  From the perspective of an integration engineer, such standards are more precious than gold.  I keep a collection of the standards that I have used over the years, (something that I recommend) but what I really encourage is for companies to publish their standards in a publicly accessible location.  Booknet Canada is an example of a company that has done this.  Lets take a look and see what it says….

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After you have created your usage specification, it can be useful to use a validation tool to check to verify that new trading partners comply during your boarding process. I have used Foresight’s EDI Analyzer for this many times, and it lets be quickly see where the EDI file departs from the specification.

There is a temptation to use this same validation in the production integration. But this would be a mistake. I’m not saying, “Don’t validate.” I highly encourage validation on both standard compliance and required data validation in mapping and integration. But to use the usage specification has a side effect that I witnessed once. (Only once.) (more…)

I have sitting on my desk, a very expensive book published by the ASC that contain the guidelines for the X12 3010 EDI standard.  I have rarely used them.  The EDI standards tool that I have used the most and can highly recommend is EDISIM from Foresight.  The last version that I used was version 5.0 and they are on version 6.8 as I write this post.  But for a long time, Foresight has nailed the conceptualization of working with EDI standards.

One of the things that in invaluable is the ability to share your standard documentation both internally and externally.  EDISIM is a tool that has allowed me to do that.  They produce a very professional looking document for external consumption and the standard is exportable so that everyone using EDISIM can share the same standards file in a format called SEF.

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As part of our series “EDI Primer” we are going to go over the various parts of EDI. EDI is neither truly delimited, nor fixed width.  EDI has some fixed position components, and uses delimiters in a different way than a truly delimited file.  This post it going to overview some facts about EDI and its parts in an introductory fashion.  If you are unfamiliar with EDI, you might want to start with the post, “What is EDI?”

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In EDI there is a construct called a Loop.  But this is not like you think of a loop using an while  statement.  EDI is a file format, not a programming language.  When we speak of Loops in EDI, what we are really talking about is repeated structures, or segments.

EDI is not a flat file, but it does have repeated lines or segments.  Some times this repetition comes in groups and sometimes its just a line that get repeated in part of the document.  Repeating structured data is fundamental to EDI, but can become difficult to interpret at times.  Understanding the types of repeating structures and when and where they may occur can save a lot of time. (more…)

The 3rd layer of the EDI envelope is the ST segment.  The ST segment contains a Document Identifier, and a control number. The ST and its partner the SE segment define the beginning and ending of the Document.  The SE segment contains a counter of segments within the document, and the corresponding control number to the ST.  Relatively simple compared to the ISA and the GS. (more…)

I wish I could say this was a gripping video of e-commerce and EDI integration that would keep you on the edge of your seat.  But as Mr. Brown says at the begining of the video.  ”The sequence of operations once you are integrated is not dissimilar to how you did it before.”

Huh?  Right, well basically the integrated process is like the pre-integrated process, just faster, and without some of the human error components.

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EDI in its proper form is wrapped.  This means that there is nothing between the segment terminator and the beginning of the next segment.  Sometimes this is hard to read, for humans anyway.  And at those times people will unwrap the EDI so that it looks more like a flat file.  This is not hard to do, and is useful for debugging and trouble shooting processes.  A good parser or validator should be able to read either file. (more…)

What is an Element?

In the context of delimited data files, an element is the contents between two delimiters.  Like in a spreadsheet, the element is the contents of a cell.  In EDI, we have delimited segments, and just like a delimited file, the contents between the delimiters is the element.

So in this segment “PO1*1*8*EA*10**SW*H11510.REF*CT*089480-00-B-0336~”, the 5th element or PO1_04 is “10″, while the 6th element or PO1_05 is empty.

Empty elements are not necessarily null.  Calling something null when the data type is know like an empty element can cause some data theory debates.  I don’t want to start one here, but may write about that philosophical discussion at a later time.

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This is a mapping exercise that will go through the process of creating a paper map, or mapping document.  We will start with an empty paper map that you can get here.  And we will end with a completed paper map document that documents what data from the source goes into what fields on the target.  This process will take more than one post, and I will link them together so that you can follow from one to the next.  Along the way, we will discuss the things that we are doing so that you can apply this technique in your mapping using the target and source in your own mapping tasks. (more…)

When EDI was born, (in the 1970s),  the committee did its best adopt a forward thinking plan and architecture.  But there was really no way for people living before the birth of e-mail to make place for what we use today to do business.  So the early versions of EDI had no place for e-mail addresses, and other things that we use in e-commerce today.

The goal of EDI was to provide a way to support communications between dissimilar computer systems.  EDI was intended as a light weight, reliable means to transmit data. (more…)