EDI Update

Anthony Trudeau — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 01:21:59 GMT

My EDI project is plodding along as planned. We flirted with the possibility of having our VAN do the translation after a couple of issues came up:

Customer provided a shorter than expected deadline
Customer increased the number of forms required

However, at the end of the day the VAN didn't look like they could deliver the forms in the alloted time and the customer decided they weren't ready for the deadline -- they're phasing their vendors in different waves. Based on all of these criteria I am approaching this from a quick and dirty standpoint using an EAI tool that uses VBA-compatible scripting. I know this approach is dangerous, because I could get pulled away later from finishing it the right way.

One thing I've found is that the information out there for EDI is highly fragmented. Occasionally I have difficulty finding the information I need. The ANSI ASC X12 standards document is out there, but costs several hundred dollars. What a scam.

EDI here I come

Anthony Trudeau — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 00:57:46 GMT

I got an interesting project today. Not only does it look to be pretty fun, but it should be a challenge and give me a chance to learn something new and add another thing to my resume. The project is the implementation of a solution to pass off EDI documents through a VAN to one of our customers -- of course more customers will follow.

The customer is only dictating three forms 830, 856, and 862 which are material releases, advanced shipping notices, and shipping schedules respectively. My solution will involve not only the processing of the business system data, but also the translation of the data into the specific EDI forms. I presented a benefits analysis between doing the translation or outsourcing the translation to our VAN, but our President decided that we would do it all to save the money. (I was a good little developer and explained that although it would be more fun to do it in-house the benefits of outsourcing overruled that.) Doing it ourself will save us the additional bandwidth fees as well as the $1500 development fee for each map.

I think I'll use this as an opportunity to post a little more consistently to the blog. I don't know if the information will be terribly useful to anyone that is versed in EDI -- I am not; however, it does have the possibility of being entertaining.