Any comments on those of us migrating to 6.01 and using the EDI adapter.
Were your expectations met with the implementation of the EDITPA? To me it seems a bit incomplete. Will you switch to use the TPA or will you keep your existing functionality? I know from the help that you have given me, many of you have done some pretty nifty development to get EDI to function under 4.6.
Did you implement the new format values functionality and modified your existing services or did you bypass it and forego the modifications?
Just trying to get a feel for what the community thinks.
I haven’t done much hands-on EDI in 6, so am basing my writeup mostly on reading and conversations, but I am in same boat as you and trying to ping the community’s opinion on 4.6 to 6 EDI Migration strategies. I have a project that is proposing a 4.6 architecture (haven’t implemented 6 yet), but obviously need to be in tune with changes in EDI 6. Here are my high-level thoughts, but welcome community’s feedback.
Templates vs. Schemas: Based on reading, EDI Templates won’t work in v 6, so you need to migrate or recreate the EDI objects as schemas from the .sef files. There is a migration utility available on the EDI homepage in v 6. Your flow services that reference these objects for mapping and validation should change to use the schema objects instead of the templates. You should remove the 4.6 EDI templates and EDI doctypes from TN after upgrading to 6 (ie…uninstall).
Functional Acknowledgement: There are improvements to this, to allow for granuluar control in 6, so you have a better “FA Engine” in 6. In 4.6 we had to create a lot of custom services for FA’s at lower group and interchange level. These custom services should still work in 6 (they are supported), but will no longer be the “Best Practice”, since 6 introduces an improved FA Engine with ‘out of the box’ features and functionality.
TPA’s: I’m also trying to solicit opinions on this new concept, but it appears these prevent one from having to write what traditionally required custom coding/services in 4.6 and provide nice features for TN. A big question is how often the Defualt TPA gets used (ie…reusability) vs. creating a ton of partner specific TPA’s (ie…managability).
I’m not sure if I provided you any answers, but maybe helped in teaming to raise the visibility of your questions.
Any feedback from the community? Any additional items we should note for EDI Migration strategies? Any experiences with the items listed?
I have since migrated my 4.6 EDI to 6.0.1 successfully.
Here are some thoughts.
Schemas are great. The Editor is buggy sometimes. Fails to save or rename a field sometimes. The interface could use some improvement to speed up data entry. Watch out when migrating you templates if you the same record name in more than one template but with different structures. They will be merged in the Dictionary when migrated.
Currently looking at the new FA functionality but seems much better than 4.6.
TPA’s are great! Except that I they did not include the ISA12 and ISA14 in the ICEHeader definition. I created my own EDIPTA document with those 2 elements added in. Each trading partner relationship requres 2 TPA’s, one for inbound and one for outbound. If a TPA does not exist it resorts to the default.
I did not use the new EDIBatch process as I already had similar functionality developed in 4.6.
In general EDI in 6.0.1 is much easier than 4.6. The TPA functionality is great and the schemas are great. Take the time to define your Dictionary properly.
Chris,
I am going through the pdf documentation and it is getting a little hairy, especially since I have not implemented any EDI functionality on 4.6 This is my first attempt to work with this standard. The questions I have and I hope you do not mind answering are:
Is the setup of the Interchange-Level information a per TP setup?
I know WM document recommend the Interchange level over the Group level. With your experience do you believe this to be true.
I have created my document types for the 850,997 and 810 (x12 4010). When I try to define the IS document type when setting up the TPA I am unable to find them. What am I missing?
After I have defined my TPA I will need to support large document handling. Is this correct?
Have you worked with outbound edi docs? If so, how are they different from handling inbound docs.
Control numbers. Do you recommend letting TN generate them?
Hi Raymee Please do not cross post as it creates clutter.
We all get enough emails as it is.
Thanks.
The setup is 2 per TP, one for inbound and one for outbound. Essentially the only difference is reversal of the Sender/Receiver.
That depends on your business need. In the majority of cases the Interchange Routing will be sufficient. If you’re in the Auto Industry and you supply Ford you will probably have to use Group level routing. The reason for this is Ford has a global Sender Id in the Interchange F159B but at the Group Level they identify the individual divisions AP09A, AP11A, etc… IF you have a similar business scenario then Group Levle routing may apply.
You do not assign the Doc type to the TPA. A TPA represents the ISA and GS not the ST which is the doc level.
4.You may need to support large doc handling with or without the TPA. The two are non-dependent.
5.Yes! On Outbound you have to add the ISA and GS via addICEnvelope and addGroupEnvelope.
I would normally say yes but I was told today that someone got duplicates. I have not seen that yet myself.
Hi can anyone tell me if the following is correct:
You define the default EDITPA’s once and only thru TN console.
You define any specific GS level sender/receiver agreement only in TN
console
You do not need to define Interchange levels at all.
You only specify interchange levels in WM admin for specific
sender/receiver and not in TN console.
Thanks
Raymee,
You define EDITPA’s in the TN console only. The EDITPA is your Interchange and GS level under ICHeaderInfo. You need to define both for X12.
I’m sure where in WM Admin you define Interchange level. Not sure that you can at all but if you have TN then that where you want to do your setup.
I would recommend that you do not alter your default TPA until have a good understanding of what you are doing.
Raymee,
You define EDITPA’s in the TN console only. The EDITPA is your Interchange and GS level under ICHeaderInfo. You need to define both for X12.
I’m not sure where in WM Admin you define Interchange level. Not sure that you can at all but if you have TN then that where you want to do your setup.
I would recommend that you do not alter your default TPA until have a good understanding of what you are doing.