Re: is edi translator software difficult to write?

Steve,

My experience with EDI is that while yes in theory you could remove one
vendor's product and replace it with another, how they each handle the
mapping and also how it links to your applications may differ greatly.
Essentially all EDI packages can "handle" the document standards.

What you'd need is some kind of import/export of the mapping data
though, since the mapping is usually handled by the specific package and
not stored in some easily translatable format, although today it's
possible that it all could be in XML and a heckuva lot easier to move
between EDI packages.

Admittedly it's been awhile since I've had to deal with EDI regularly
and I am thankful for that. : )


KEVIN MORT / Solutions Architect
Arrow Enterprise Computing Solutions
MIDMARKET GROUP

ph: 954.442.9436
fax: 954.442.9545

email: kmort@xxxxxxxxx
www.arrowecs.com

date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 13:31:10 -0400
from: "Steve Richter" <stephenrichter@xxxxxxxxx>
subject: Re: is edi translator software difficult to write? was: edi
vendorcomplaining

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 1:06 PM, sjl <sjl_abc@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Steve -

If you do some basic research, you would find out that there are

hundreds of

EDI documents for various types of transactions that defined by the

ANSI

X.12 specifications, the EDIFACT specifications, and the AS2

specifications.

Also, there are the many different versions of each EDI document, and

you

could theoretically have several different trading partners that each
require a different version of a given document.

So, what was your question again?

what is the difficulty in switching from one edi package to another?
presumably, they all map from and to these edi documents and
transactions. Are there EDI packages written in Java which can be
dropped on an i system and run as is?

basically, why cant customers remove Innovis and replace it with
another package that handles the same EDI specifications?