ASC X12 Enveloping Overview

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A document envelope consists of control information that enables organizations to effectively exchange messages. This information is added in headers and trailers to messages. Document envelopes are specific to the message protocol used. Creating document envelopes is necessary to use ASC X12 with your trading partners.

During the envelope creation process, you need to assign the envelope name, description, and parameters, such as unique identification numbers (control numbers).

Note: Each time a user adds, modifies, or deletes an envelope, the action is logged to create an audit trail based on the user who performed the event.

Each envelope type has a specific properties page for the envelope and other pages that enable you to specify additional requirements for the envelope. Properties for the following envelopes can be found in this documentation:

  • ASC X12 Inbound ISA IEA Envelope Properties, Interchange Level
  • ASC X12 Inbound GS GE Envelope Properties, Group Level
  • ASC X12 Inbound ST SE Envelope Properties, Transaction Level
  • ASC X12 Outbound ISA IEA Envelope Properties, Interchange Level
  • ASC X12 Outbound GS GE Envelope Properties, Group Level
  • ASC X12 Outbound ST SE Envelope Properties, Transaction Level

Document Lifespan

In previous releases, the document lifespan default was zero so that when the workflow expired, all associated documents were purged/archived with the workflow. Now the lifespan for ASC X12 documents awaiting acknowledgement is configurable, and the default is 30 days.

Note: You can change the default lifespan by editing the document.lifespan property in the enveloping.properties file. The document lifespan of the outbound document is automatically reset to zero after the acknowledgement for the document is received or if the user manually accepts the acknowledgement.

Envelope Structure

Sterling B2B Integrator supports the use of many EDI protocols, including ASC X12. The ASC X12 protocol has three levels of envelopes:

  • Interchange (outermost) – Contains an interchange header and trailer, and all the data sent from one sender to one receiver in the same transmission.
  • Functional group (middle) – Contains a group header and trailer that surrounds a group of transaction sets of the same type.
  • Transaction set (innermost) – Contains the standard message surrounded by a header and trailer record.

Base Envelopes

Sterling B2B Integrator uses a concept of a base envelope as a starting point to create a new envelope. The base envelope maintains a link to the new envelope that inherited its properties. If you modify the base envelope, all related envelopes (that is, ones that inherited the base envelope properties) change, as well.

Note: If you plan to create many envelopes using base envelopes, it is recommended that you do not use the base envelopes in production. You may want to document how your base envelopes are linked to other envelopes.

The default envelope is the version of the document envelope that Sterling B2B Integrator uses. You can specify a default envelope only if there are two or more versions of the same envelope. One version must be selected as the default.

Types of Envelopes

There are many types of envelopes provided in Sterling B2B Integrator. Each envelope is defined by its envelope properties. These predefined enveloping and deenveloping business processes are available for you to incorporate into your own business processes. Envelope parameters specify whether the document is inbound or outbound:

  • Inbound envelopes identify documents that come into Sterling B2B Integrator so they can be properly routed. Inbound envelopes also give you the option to translate documents when you choose to check documents for compliance. By choosing to translate documents from within the envelope, you can reduce document processing time because you do not need to specify a separate Translation service step in the business process.
  • Outbound envelopes identify documents so that they can be sent to and received by trading partners.