EDI Translation

For more information

The EC/EDI*Wizard®

The EC/EDI*Wizard® is a fully map-based, multi-user translator that translates business documents between EDI, EDIFACT, XML, etc. and internal data formats.

It has been in use since 1996 in the Retail, Grocery and Petroleum industries.

It supports over 100 Trading Partners, 13 types of EDI documents in many versions with over 300 individual TP/Document maps and four communications protocols connecting with multiple VANS and directly with Wal-Mart.

EC/EDI*Wizard® is usually integrated with the user’s back-end business software based on the EDI strategy selected by the user.

There are three broad strategies by which an organization can engage in EDI:

1. The local EDI service bureau that acts as an EDI Trading Partner on your behalf, establishes a VAN account for you and passes messages to/from you via courier, fax or snail mail.

2. The inhouse PC-based EDI translator that connects with your VAN, translates and prints all incoming EDI documents for manual reentry into your back-end system and provides for manual reentry of all outgoing documents into your EDI-PC for translation and forwarding to your Trading Partners ("Rip 'n Read").

3. The fully integrated EDI translator, like EC/EDI*Wizard®, that translates and converts business documents automatically – eg. POs to Sales Orders, Bills-of-Material to Advanced Ship Notices and/or Warehouse Shipping Orders and Invoices to Invoices, etc.

The key advantages of using a multi-user EDI translator installed on your business server and business database are:

1. All Users of EDI can perform functions with the EDI translator from their regular offices on their regular business software workstations rather than going to the "EDI room" and (possibly) waiting in line to use the "EDI computer" one at a time.

2. Multiple EDI activities (receive mail, process mail, send mail; for different customers and warehouses; assigned to different Users in the same or different departments) can be launched, all concurrently/or not, as your need demands.

3. Communications between multiple VANs using multiple protocols can be supported - eg. ProcommPlus for dial-up modem async protocol connection, 3780Plus for dial-up modem bisync protocol connection, ftp internet protocol now offered at much lower cost than most dial-up connections, AS2 internet protocol demanded by Wal-Mart, and directly with Wal-Mart, today using only Wal-Mart approved AS2 communication software, etc.

4. Communications that can be launched by the User automatically from any business workstation without direct knowledge about or interface with the communication software on the business server (just press a button and it's done).

5. EDI messages are moved automatically and reliably between the business database and the Operating System file structure on the same computer without the introduction of network issues between two computers.

6. EDI documents are transformed directly to/from internal records, which eliminates the additional flat file transform layer and transformation logic and associated opportunity for errors and failure.

7. Business rules logic can be built directly into the APIs between the EDI translator and the business software so that manual intervention in message processing is only necessary on an exception basis - eg. automatically approved POs can be dropped directly into the Open Orders file without the User involvement normally associated with manual Order Entry and its associated business rules logic.

8. All EDI data is backed up along with your business data at the same time and in the same database rather than backing up EDI data on the "EDI computer" separately, if at all.

9. If you have a standby business computer, then you have a standby EDI computer, whereas few businesses have a separate standby EDI computer for the separate "EDI computer" without significant cost and support time and effort.

10. Complete control over your EDI translator is ensured thru the source code installed on your system in languages that your understand.

The worst business situation any of us can find ourselves in is receiving a demand from one of our good customers for some new feature in our business relationship that we can not deliver, or can not deliver in accordance with our customer’s time table, or at a reasonable cost, because the vendor of our software hasn't provided this feature, or is charging more than the cost of a competitive product, because the vendor of our software thinks that we are a captive customer of theirs.

Business is all about maintaining and strengthening our customer relationships, and a multi-user EDI translator running on your business server and integrated with your business software and business database is a critical tool in achieving that objective.

Of course, there is no "right" or "best" solution. The "right" or "best" solution depends on your needs - both today and in the future. The challenge is to define your current and future needs.