Overview: Functions provided by an SPE solution

An IBM® Standards Processing Engine solution provides the following functions.

Enveloping and de-enveloping
Processing of standards-based documents, including validation and acknowledgment generation, is provided through the runtime SPE API.
Requirement: Support for a specific standard requires installation of the appropriate standards pack.
Terminology: Enveloping is used broadly to include the standards-specific terms packaging and bulking. Similarly, the term de-envelopingis used to include the standards-specific concepts unpackagingand debulking.
Transforming
A Standards Processing Engine solution uses strategic technologies from the IBM portfolio, including a dedicated XML-XML mapper and transformation engines. It can run a WebSphere® Transformation Extender, Sterling B2B Integrator, or XSLT map to transform a document or collection of documents. The capability to produce logs, exception data, and translation reports is also available.

Document flow

The following is the de-envelope document flow.
De-envelope
De-envelopes EDI transactions. The message flow can be summarized as follows:
  1. An X12 or EDIFACT document is passed to Standards Processing Engine. A single document often contains multiple groups, interchanges, and transactions.
  2. The document is de-enveloped, including validation, through the SPE API, WebSphere Transformation Extender SPE adapter, a Sterling B2B Integrator service for SPE, or through an IBM Integration Bus node, exposing its routing information and contents. Based on trading partner, standard, and transaction information, SPE selects the transformation map that is needed to process the transactions
  3. The output API splits out multiple transactions, if necessary.
  4. The transactions are transformed, and an acknowledgment is generated for each transaction.
  5. All data is passed back with the response.
Envelope
Envelopes EDI transactions. The message flow can be summarized as follows:
  1. The SPE node accepts one or more documents from the invoking application.
  2. It does a document translation that is based on the trading partner information.
  3. It wraps envelope headers around the translated documents, as defined by the trading partner information.
  4. It returns enveloped documents on response.
  5. If deferred enveloping is being used, prepared documents are held in the database in a ready state instead of being enveloped. Documents are enveloped when that response is triggered.
Transform
Transforms a message by using a map. The message flow is as follows:
  1. SPE receives a message from the invoking application.
  2. Header information in the message is used to interpret the standard.
  3. Assuming that the standard is supported, a map is called.
  4. The document is transformed according to the instructions in the map. During map execution, input data is validated to assure that it matches the input definition.