EDI and Systems Integration

EDI:

Electronic data interchange is a method of making multiple systems to interact with each other. Often systems integration holds the limelight when it comes to commissioning of new systems in a business. Interfaces are the documents through with multiple systems interact with each other. Interfaced data, flows from host system to the destination system with the help of an integrator. A middle ware (say TIBCO, BizTalk) is typically used to transform & transit data from one system to another system.

Formats of interface files:

Multiple formats of interface files are used in the world. Some of the most commonly used file formats are

• Flat files with fixed bytes
• Delimited files like Comma Separated Files (CSV files)
• XML files

Whatever be the file format, the goal is to make the systems interact with each other by interfacing data from one system to the other.

Events:

Events are the ones which trigger an interface activity. For example as soon as a shipment is shipped an interface is sent to the upstream system to communicate that the shipment is complete and the products and quantity shipped are shared with the upstream system. Here the event is the shipment being shipped.

Interface documents:

Interface documents are the ones which carry the information that is meant to be transferred from one system to the other. Interface documents usually contains multiple data segments. In case of flat files the segments are header segment and detail segment and in some cases a footer segment is also present. In XML formats usually a control segment followed by data elements segment is present.

 

Inbound & Outbound Interfaces:

If the file transfer happens from the host system (ERP) to our system then it is called as inbound interface. If the file transfer happens from our system to external systems (host system and others) then it is called as outbound interface. File transfer can happen through FTP, HTTP, HTTP(s), message queues. The transfer mode can be synchronous or asynchronous.

EDI Standards:

EDI interface document standards have been prescribed by American National Standards Institute, so that the interfaced data is in standard format for easier integration. The commonly used field names are prescribed and advised to use the same terminology across the systems