B2B Integration

Hi, I am Ruchi, and I work for Jinnox Bolt as a Bolt Manufacturers in India. Our company is facing challenges in implementing EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for B2B integration with our suppliers. We're having difficulty mapping data fields and ensuring compatibility with different EDI standards. Any tips or best practices to streamline the process?

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Jinnox bolt
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Hi Ruchi,

Can you tell if you are already using any EDI solution? And What standards you/partners exchanging, also the document types. It seems to me that, you are trying to implement an EDI solution at Jinnox from the beginning.

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Rajasekhar Muthamsetty
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Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 19, 2024 12:38 AM
From: Jinnox bolt
Subject: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi, I am Ruchi, and I work for Jinnox Bolt as a Bolt Manufacturers in India. Our company is facing challenges in implementing EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for B2B integration with our suppliers. We're having difficulty mapping data fields and ensuring compatibility with different EDI standards. Any tips or best practices to streamline the process?

------------------------------
Jinnox bolt
------------------------------

EDI is a simple technology that still reflects basic solutions defined decades ago.   As customer in the relationships you describe, your company has the advantage (in most such relationships) of defining the EDI data requirements based upon your business needs and your business application capabilities. 

You don't identify which EDI standard you will be using (I'm guessing EDIFACT, but you will want to use a standard that your supplier community is already supporting) but every set of standards has remarkably few mandatory data requirements...which typically makes the standard usable by every company in supporting every business requirement without violating the requirements of the standard.   This contrasts with the complex set of data points described in nearly every standard for each business document.  You can ignore almost all of these data points that don't contribute value to you and your suppliers or that are not readily available from your business system.

Since you are apparently without experience in this arena, I suggest you engage a knowledgeable resource for a few hours of direction which will save you a lot of time getting a solution implemented.  Ideally, knowledgeable in EDI, your business application, your technical platforms, and (less critical) your industry (to avoid creating atypical requirements that your suppliers don't already support).

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Peter Clay
EDI Transformation Technologies
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Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 19, 2024 02:17 AM
From: Rajasekhar Muthamsetty
Subject: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi Ruchi,

Can you tell if you are already using any EDI solution? And What standards you/partners exchanging, also the document types. It seems to me that, you are trying to implement an EDI solution at Jinnox from the beginning.

------------------------------
Rajasekhar Muthamsetty

Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 19, 2024 12:38 AM
From: Jinnox bolt
Subject: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi, I am Ruchi, and I work for Jinnox Bolt as a Bolt Manufacturers in India. Our company is facing challenges in implementing EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for B2B integration with our suppliers. We're having difficulty mapping data fields and ensuring compatibility with different EDI standards. Any tips or best practices to streamline the process?

------------------------------
Jinnox bolt
------------------------------

Hi Ruchi,

This is a vary large topic and you don't really say how many partners, different messages and volumes you may have but B2Bi was born from EDI processing and the Gentran EDI Family so you should be fine doing what you need to do. You don't mention your level of experience and there is a learning curve to all this, as a summary though here goes.

Inbound

You need to understand EDI data in terms of envelopes but the way to implement is to use the EDI Deenvelope processes for inbound which use the built in identification and break methods and make sure you have matching or generic Interchange/Group/transaction envelope. Each one can have a translation and the transaction can have a specific process to deliver the data.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/b2b-integrator/6.2.0?topic=models-edi-deenvelope-business-process

Outbound

This is the reverse you need to identify the input data with the edi or standard document extraction process and ensure you have a sender, receiver and application alias (unique message name) as a minimum which then can be used with the EDI Enveloping Service

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/b2b-integrator/6.2.0?topic=adapters-edi-enveloping-service

There is an element of integrating with all of your other processes but this assumes a reasonable knowledge of processing in B2Bi

Mapping

The Key to all this though is the use of the EDI Standards Download / Addition and the B2Bi Standard Translator / Mapper.
Nearly all x12/EDIFact EDI standards are covered in this download and you can create a standard map using any of these standards. The Input or output of the EDI can be built and then the other side needs to match the destination / source of your data.

The mapper takes the input from Primary Document and produces a translated document output, Process data from the business process can be read and written to and there are methods to read and write from the database with user exits.

In terms of same message type and different standards with the same map this is possible by doing the gap analysis on the records and fields in the map ... some transactions may have have different data in what the map thinks is the same field so this needs some thought and analysis but is very possible as you will know your data where as the standard is exactly that, a standard to conform to.

There are tools and add on's from various providers to make these implementations easier. Managing envelopes and maps in B2Bi is not always the easiest once you reach a certain number so it may be worth exploring some of these options, also there are some good edi/mapping training courses around which may be of help.

I hope this helps in some small way and if you need more details then give me a shout.

 

------------------------------
--------------------
Chris Thorpe
--------------------
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 19, 2024 12:38 AM
From: Jinnox bolt
Subject: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi, I am Ruchi, and I work for Jinnox Bolt as a Bolt Manufacturers in India. Our company is facing challenges in implementing EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for B2B integration with our suppliers. We're having difficulty mapping data fields and ensuring compatibility with different EDI standards. Any tips or best practices to streamline the process?

------------------------------
Jinnox bolt
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 2/20/2024 6:17:00 AM
From: Chris Thorpe
Subject: RE: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi Ruchi,

This is a vary large topic and you don't really say how many partners, different messages and volumes you may have but B2Bi was born from EDI processing and the Gentran EDI Family so you should be fine doing what you need to do. You don't mention your level of experience and there is a learning curve to all this, as a summary though here goes.

Inbound

You need to understand EDI data in terms of envelopes but the way to implement is to use the EDI Deenvelope processes for inbound which use the built in identification and break methods and make sure you have matching or generic Interchange/Group/transaction envelope. Each one can have a translation and the transaction can have a specific process to deliver the data.

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/b2b-integrator/6.2.0?topic=models-edi-deenvelope-business-process

Outbound

This is the reverse you need to identify the input data with the edi or standard document extraction process and ensure you have a sender, receiver and application alias (unique message name) as a minimum which then can be used with the EDI Enveloping Service

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/b2b-integrator/6.2.0?topic=adapters-edi-enveloping-service

There is an element of integrating with all of your other processes but this assumes a reasonable knowledge of processing in B2Bi

Mapping

The Key to all this though is the use of the EDI Standards Download / Addition and the B2Bi Standard Translator / Mapper.
Nearly all x12/EDIFact EDI standards are covered in this download and you can create a standard map using any of these standards. The Input or output of the EDI can be built and then the other side needs to match the destination / source of your data.

The mapper takes the input from Primary Document and produces a translated document output, Process data from the business process can be read and written to and there are methods to read and write from the database with user exits.

In terms of same message type and different standards with the same map this is possible by doing the gap analysis on the records and fields in the map ... some transactions may have have different data in what the map thinks is the same field so this needs some thought and analysis but is very possible as you will know your data where as the standard is exactly that, a standard to conform to.

There are tools and add on's from various providers to make these implementations easier. Managing envelopes and maps in B2Bi is not always the easiest once you reach a certain number so it may be worth exploring some of these options, also there are some good edi/mapping training courses around which may be of help.

I hope this helps in some small way and if you need more details then give me a shout.

 

------------------------------
--------------------
Chris Thorpe
--------------------
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: Mon February 19, 2024 12:38 AM
From: Jinnox bolt
Subject: Struggling with EDI Implementation - Need Advice!

Hi, I am Ruchi, and I work for Jinnox Bolt as a Bolt Manufacturers in India. Our company is facing challenges in implementing EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) for B2B integration with our suppliers. We're having difficulty mapping data fields and ensuring compatibility with different EDI standards. Any tips or best practices to streamline the process?

------------------------------
Jinnox bolt
------------------------------