Internal and External Documents.

[vinod.sundaramoorthy.16709]

While installing PIPs.Why are two TN documents being created(Internal and External).Why cant we handle the process with a single document as in EDI and other standards.What is the logic behind it.

[puneetverma]

Hi,
First of all there is actually no difference between the External and Internal Documents created.Only the root tag is different.The reason for creating 2 document types is becuase you need to process the document through TN.Once you get the Document from partner, its a external Document which is received by your Modeler flow,And then passed to TN.In the TN we need to recognize this document, which is done by Internal PIP document.The same goes for the document going out to your partner.We send the Document to TN, which is the internal Document and recognize it in TN and extract various attributes.Then in the Modeler we map it back to external PIP document.

HTH…

Thanks,
Puneet Verma

[reamon]

@puneetverma

Hi,
First of all there is actually no difference between the External and Internal Documents created.Only the root tag is different.The reason for creating 2 document types is becuase you need to process the document through TN.

This isn’t a complete picture. The two document types are not simply because of TN considerations. Rather, RosettaNet defines a notion of public and private processes and associated data. The public data is what is exchanged with partners. The private data is what you use internally.

The expectation is that one receives a public message (into TN) and transforms it to a private message (which might be resubmitted to TN for additional processing). If your public and private messages do not vary, then the transformation is simply a root name change, as you point out. The intent is to insulate the public exchange from backend changes.

Page 49 of the wM RosettaNet Module User’s Guide touches on this:

When you import a PIP archive, the internal and external TN XML document types for the PIP archive are automatically created in Trading Networks. However, there may be times that you will want to create your own internal TN XML document types or customize one of the provided internal TN XML document types.

I’d offer that more often than not, one will want to define their own internal document type by creating a new type or modifying the one provided during the PIP setup.