EDI Basics
Electronic commerce is the electronic exchange of business documents. Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is the electronic equivalent of processing paper documents and is at the center of electronic commerce.
EDI Document Flow
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a method of transferring electronic data in a predefined format from one computer application to another over a communications link.
EDI standards
EDI standards are formats for EDI documents that specify what information goes where within an EDI document. Your industry or trading partners determine which EDI standard you must use. When information is missing or in the wrong place, the EDI document might not be processed correctly.
Data Elements
A Data element is a unit of EDI data. For example, sender ID and receiver ID are data elements.
Segments
A segment is a set of two or more related data elements. The segment describes the data in the data element. For example, individually, the data elements FNAME and LNAME have little meaning. However, when combined, they form the CUSTOMER NAME data segment.
Envelopes
An EDI data structure resembles layers of envelopes. The envelopes separate different types of data and carry the sender and receiver address information. A receiver uses these envelopes to determine if all of the data has been received.