Usage of EDI specifications
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.
Tuesday, August 9th, 2011
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.
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 
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 
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.