What Elements Should EDI Software Have?6988288
Because EDI began to get popular it has been many years and throughout all this time, there were many EDI Software packages out there allowing companies to use EDI effortlessly.
In an EDI Software there are a couple of elements that are essential to the success of the EDI Software solution in the organization. In this post I'll focus on some on the main components that every EDI software package should have in order to provide the user a good experience and actually be used by company EDI Administrator or one of the company advanced user who is in charge of the EDI transactions, sending and getting and the whole procedure involved in it.
- Mapping - Translation - Validation - Import/Export - Reporting - Documents Turn Around
EDI Mapping
When we talk about EDI Mapping we talk about pointing on different elements in the EDI file as a source data and setting their corresponding destination objects. Destination objects can be fields in a text file, columns in an Excel file or whatever file structure you choose to use.
EDI Translation
EDI Translation is the option to read one value and set another value as result of some translation setting we used throughout the software installation or later. For example a user can decide that each time that he see Qualifier ID 08 and then Qualifier value then he desires to set that Qualifier worth as DUNS number.
EDI Validation
EDI Validation is the process of making sure that all the data in the EDI file are correct, sitting in the appropriate location, that mandatory elements are not missing and that element that are from a list of possible worth for that specific dictionary id, are right.
The file in the right format and follow the guidelines of the EDI Version and standard.
EDI Import and EDI Export
EDI Import and EDI Export is the process of importing data from a text file/excel file or any other file format used by the organization into EDI file structure, export is the same but the other way around. This option is important in case the user need some interface with his/her ERP software an many of these ERP software packages have Import/Export routing, so in order to integrate between the two software packages, the user can import and export data in between the ERP and the EDI software packages.
EDI Reporting
EDI Reporting is the option to view reports on the transactions activity on a offered time frame. That way an EDI Administrator can see how many EDI Transactions went through, how many of each document type, how many had been with errors and much more...
Each EDI software has its personal set of EDI Reports, but the main point is that it has to give the EDI Administrator some tools to look at the EDI Activity in the organization so he can determine on what type of action to take in different scenario, for instance if he receive as well many transactions with errors.
EDI Documents Turn Around
EDI Documents Turn About is the component when user take an EDI document like Purchase Order (850, 875) and creates an Invoice of it, saving the user time and typing errors.
