EDI 101 – part II – The Basics of Standards and Syntax So, you’ve decided to come back for more, eh?  Glutton for punishment, I guess. This time around, we’re going to cover the concepts of the “STANDARDS” and also the SYNTAX and the Content of your EDI Document.  Now, again, I’m coming from a background in retail and using the ANSI/ASC-X12 standard.  And we use version 4010, which is, arguably, a few versions behind, but that’s not truly important.  I know that UN/EDIFACT and TRADACOMS have their own standards and documents, but, again, I’m just dealing with what I know – X12. For each industry that uses EDI and the standards, there are different forms that can be used.  The book on My desk for the X12, v 4010, is the size of a dictionary.  And it’s printed on that same super thin paper in tiny little type-face.  And it’s almost 1800 pages of that tiny type.  But not every document is used in every industry that may use EDI and use the X12 standard.  Some are strictly for retailers; some for real estate; some for insurance, for banking, for hospitals.  Some of the documents MAY be used across the industrial lines, but some are very specific and specialized.  Within that X12 standard, there are literally HUNDREDS (at ...

If you were alive and watching TV through the 90s, you probably saw - or at least heard of - ABC's long running "Home Improvement" - starring Tim Allen - and giving a start to Pamela Anderson (Lee) - whose career nearly EVERYBODY should know.  It was a show about "Tim 'the tool man' Taylor" and his family.  Tim was the "host" of a TV Show called "TOOL TIME" - a fictitious handyman show that was sponsored by the equally fictitious Binford Tools. But one of the things that Tim was ALWAYS looking for was "MORE POWER!" from his tools - and just about everything else in his life.  Tim's tinkering with tools would often lead to disastrous results - with an over-powered tool that did far more than it should and was usually pretty destructive. The other day, I wrote a bit about the power of DETAILS in our EDI world.  But this morning, I was reminded that - even with all the details in the world - we're nothing without the tools to use them.  And how our actions and all the details we can monitor and provide, how they're for nothing if the users don't use the tools we provide them. This concept of TOOLS and how we should use them was pushed to the forefront of My ...

With all due respect to Right Said Fred, I’ll take a bit of their song and use it… But, let’s face it - EDI isn’t sexy. It’s not glamorous… We’re not going to get many invites to black-tie-and-beaded-gown-red-carpet-fancy events. There are no EDI “Oscars” or “Emmys” or “Tony Awards” or anything like that. There’s just data. And details. Lots and lots of details. And they do say that “the devil is in the details”… And do I know a thing or two about details! I’ve often been told that I sometimes put in TOO much detail. When I was taking some creative writing courses in college, one teacher was always fascinated and enthralled by the amount of details I’d provide in a story and another always warned Me about too much detail - to let the reader create the image in their mind, of their experiences. If you’ve read much of My work on EDI Talk (or My latest blog over at Inovis), you’ll know I do tend to go into some details - and, yes, sometimes get a bit off track with them… Now, where were we…? OH! Yes. Details. And not the men’s fashion magazine! Truly, however, it is just those details and our attention to them that can make or break our EDI career. How well we provide ...

Well, guess what - I was reading (go figure!) a newsletter from another site - E-Commerce Best Practices (ec-bp) - and they had an article - that itself - was excerpted from the EDI ACADEMY - all about "EDI to FAX and FAX to EDI" types of communications. And it got Me to thinking. Yes, again. One of the things that I've always had and dealt with in the past with My own EDI program for My employer.. First off, we have our own in-house solution for EDI. We use the Inovis TrustedLink i-Series program - and have for years - and pull directly from our merchandising system on our AS/400 - sorry - Series-i system. We populate back into that merchandising system (Island Pacific) and also our WM system from the inbound ASN documents. And with the new 810 Invoice that I'm working with our accounting department on, I'll populate from that document, too. But, again, in the beginning, there was the expansion of our program - trying to net as many of our vendors and suppliers and getting them on-the-hook and in-the-basket for EDI document trading. Now, it should be said that of our 1700-plus vendor rolls, there are some duplications - in that this product line from Big Vendor A is set up differently ...

Just recently, I had responded to a post over on the EDI-L Yahoo! group, and this set off a "chain-reaction" e-mail chain between our esteemed "admin" John Burmeister and Myself about collaboration... of course, we were talking about the EDITalk blog-site and a book deal - co-authored by him and I... Mind you, that's just "pie-in-the-sky" kind of thinking, but it got Me thinking more about COLLABORATION and what it can mean to our EDI partnerships. It probably should be mentioned that our admin and I share a trading partner relationship. He's the EDI guy over at one of the vendors that we buy from. We also, obviously, share the EDI-L Yahoo! group, as well. When we discussed collaborating on the book (HA!), we bandied about a few titles - including "EDI DONE RIGHT! A Perspective From a Vendor and a Buyer"... Of course, I also likened it to the reputed "Rap Wars" between the East and West Coasts - and I was thinking about how we both use the same basic EDI formats and standards and data, but to different results... Late in 2007, I went to the Inovis Roadshow Training event when it swung through Southern California. Again, as I am an Inovis user and customer, I found it to be a very helpful conference/seminar ...