What is EDI?
EDI is the electronic transmission of business documents from one company’s computer Application to another company’s computer Application using standardized formats prescribed by National or International standards.
COMPONENTS OF EDI
EDI has three major components:
Trading Partner
- Organization that agree to exchange business documents via EDI
Translation Software
- It is the software that converts files to or from EDI format.
- In the case of outbound documents, an internal application file format is converted into EDI format.
- For inbound documents, the EDI format is converted into an internal applicationn file format.
- It is neither necessary for trading partners to use the same translation software, nor is it necessary for them to have similar hardware platforms
Communication
- Communication methods with trading partners (via VAN, FTP, AS2, etc.)
BUSINESS PROBLEMS
- Penalties and Fines for incorrect and late transactions.
- Cost and time to develop the maps with EDI provider was high.
- Integration was a nightmare and no one person had full control or knowledge on the entire EDI process
- Traceability was missing, lots of paper and manual process.
- Compliance issues for Medical, Consumer, and Transportation industries.
- 100’s of Sales Orders (850) and Blanket Releases (830) were being manually entered in the Oracle System.
- Order Acknowledgements (855) manually transmitted.
- Similarly, 100’s of ship confirms/ASN’s and Invoices (810) were manually transmitted via EDI to the client.
- Shipping Labels were manually generated as link with EDI #’s was missing.
Solution
Strategy
- Top 25 Trading Partners for Consumer, Automotive and Medical SBU were targeted
- 30% of Overall Revenue was Automated 100% via EDI
Softwares
- Oracle EDI Gateway
- Oracle Release Management Module
- Liaison Delta 6.1 Enterprise Edition (Translation Software)
LIAISON DELTA
Liaison Delta’s Open Architecture for Data Transformation lets you create just about any integration solution imaginable. Delta is an any-to-any mapper, which means you can use it to integrate all incoming and outgoing e-commerce documents with your internal applications. Plus, when you pair Delta with Liaison ECS, you have an Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) solution capable of coordinating many diverse applications, databases, and ecommerce formats found throughout your enterprise.
LIAISON DELTA ADVANTAGES
Comprehensive Standards Support:
Handle any EDI standards your industry, applications, or trading partners throw at you, including ANSI X12, EDIFACT, TRADACOMS and HL7 standards.
Real-Time Visibility:
Spot errors, uncover trends, and answer pressing questions such as, “Did my customer receive my 810?” with real-time, web-based visibility into your transactional and operational EDI data.
Unlimited Interconnects:
Make one easy connection to Liaison Delta’s integration platform; it will do the rest, delivering data to and from all trading partners across the organization’s extended ecosystem.
Significant Savings:
Experience cost savings of 30% or more when you take advantage of the expertise, efficiency, and economies of scale offered by the Liaison.
INTEGRATION WITH ORACLE EBS
Oracle e-Commerce gateway (earlier EDI gateway) module helps organizations meet their EDI requirements with flexibility to use choice of their translator, EDI standard and yet tightly integrates with other modules from Oracle.
The Oracle Gateway resides between the Oracle Applications and the EDI Translator, and processes data between them using ASCII interface flat files.
The EDI Translator accommodates the standards and all the monitoring of transmitting standard formatted data between Trading Partners. For outbound data, the EDI Translator maps data from the Oracle interface flat files to any standards of choice. For inbound data, the EDI Translator maps data from the standards of choice to the Oracle interface flat file.
The Gateway is independent of all standard formats since only the business data is found in the Oracle Gateway defined interface files. Additionally, the Oracle Gateway provides general code conversion functions for data such as Unit of Measure, Shipping Codes, Payment Terms, and determines the Trading Partner EDI validation/authorization between the Oracle application and the EDI Translator.
INBOUND TRANSACTIONS
For inbound transactions, Oracle Gateway populates the Application Open Interfaces within the Oracle Application products. All the necessary application logic to validate and load data is provided by the Application Programming Interface code (APIs), i.e. not by the Gateway. The Gateway only populates the relevant Application Open Interface tables recognized by the APIs for the specific EDI message/transaction.
Process Flow
- Gets Trading Partner validation processing parameters e.g. location codes, allowable/enabled EDI transactions/messages, etc.
- Applies code conversions
- Loads valid data into the appropriate Oracle Application Open Interface tables for the transaction.
- e-Commerce Gateway captures transaction data exceptions and can be reviewed from the staging tables
OUTBOUND TRANSACTIONS
For outbound transactions, the Gateway extracts the data from the base Application tables and creates interface data files with all business data needed to map to a standard EDI transaction/message which the receiving Trading Partner can interpret properly into their receiving application using their equivalent of the Gateway/EDI Translator set up.
Process Flow
- Gets Trading Partner processing parameters, e.g. location codes, allowable/enabled EDI transactions/messages, etc.
- Extracts data from the Oracle base applications tables relevant to the EDI transaction/message being processed.
- Applies code conversions
- Populates Oracle Gateway interface tables with all the data gathered.
- Sets the data extract flags in the base Oracle Application table to prevent subsequent extraction.
- Produces an interface data file for use by the EDI Translator.
BUSINESS BENEFITS
- Labels Integration for Traceability, Alerts for missing order, ASN’s, Invoices, etc.
- EDI Disaster Recovery system implemented.
- No errors, no penalties or fines, eliminated manual process and paper work.
- ASN’s are transmitted in less than 5 mins of Oracle Ship Confirmations.
- Orders are loaded in less than 5 mins of receiving in the EDI system.
- Invoices are automatically transmitted as part of the nightly process.