Using EDIFACT

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EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce, and Transport) is the international EDI standard developed under the United Nations. EDIFACT has been adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as the ISO standard ISO 9735.

The EDIFACT standard provides a set of syntax rules to structure data, an interactive exchange protocol (I-EDI), and standard messages which allow multi-country or region and multi-industry exchange.

This table describes how the Sterling B2B Integrator supports EDIFACT:

Functionality Details Action You Need to Take to Implement EDIFACT
Services
  • EDIFACT Enveloping service translates messages, determines which business processes need to run to apply EDI envelopes, and starts those business processes. This service improves performance of EDI EDIFACT by consolidating EnvelopeUNH, EnvelopeUNG, and EnvelopeUNB into a single service.
  • EDIFACT Deenveloping service removes the envelopes from inbound messages.
 Configure the EDIFACT services in the Sterling B2B Integrator Graphic Process Modeler (GPM).
Note: As a way to help reduce the number of envelopes you need to create and use, the EDI Enveloping and EDI Deenvelope services support use of an asterisk (*) as a wildcard character in mandatory envelope fields for EDIFACT. By using wildcards, you can set up one set of envelopes that can be used for multiple trading partners. If certain trading partners have specific requirements, you can still have envelopes that pertain just to them, and the EDI Enveloping service chooses the envelope that is the best match. In other words, the envelope that has the most matches to specific fields in the data (for example Receiver ID, Receiver ID Qualifier), is the one selected.
Envelopes
  • Inbound EDIFACT envelope wizards to implement inbound EDIFACT.
  • Outbound EDIFACT envelope wizards to implement outbound EDIFACT.
  • Create the appropriate EDIFACT envelopes for the EDIFACT messages you are sending and receiving.
Predefined business processes
  • For inbound data, we recommend that you use the EDIDeenvelope business process unless you know the input data will only contain EDIFACT data (in that scenario, you can use the EDIFACTDeenvelopeUnified business process directly to gain a performance benefit). The EDIDeenvelope business process attempts to determine the standard of each interchange and start the appropriate business process for each type, and if the data is EDIFACT, it starts the EDIFACTDeenvelopeUnified business process.
  • For outbound data, the EDIFACTEnvelopeUnified business process applies an EDIFACT envelope to one or more EDIFACT messages and then uses the envelope data to translate and process them.
 Configure the predefined business processes as necessary.
IBM® Sterling B2B Integrator Map Editor
  • Sterling B2B Integrator Map Editor wizard enables you to generate a file layout for you using the EDIFACT message that you select. Included in the EDIFACT map are groups, segments, composite elements, and elements that are defined by EDIFACT.
  • Properties dialog boxes that enable you to define and modify EDI map components for EDIFACT.
  • Autolink function automatically creates links between input and output fields that have the same name or business name. This function can be used with any data format.
  • Additional mapping operations as needed.
  • Download Sterling B2B Integrator Map Editor.
  • Create a map or maps to translate your EDIFACT messages.
Correlation Search Search by EDIFACT information. Use the EDI Correlation search functionality to search for EDIFACT correlation information.
Reports Report by EDIFACT standard Use the EDI Translation Detail report to search for details of inbound and outbound EDIFACT messages and easily create useful reports on your inbound and outbound EDIFACT messaging.

Prerequisite for Using EDIFACT

The audience using this software should be familiar with the Sterling B2B Integrator and the EDIFACT standard.

Note: This documentation is not intended to explain the EDIFACT standard.