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What is Needed at Receiver side for Receiving EDI documents?

I have Transport Management System. Now one of my carrier want to send me EDI document for Shipment Tracking. that document is EDI 214 (Transportation Carrier Shipment Status Message).Now I'm not clear what I'll need at receiving side. I did some search on google and there are lot's of information regarding EDI and it's workflow. But I'm not clear what should I need at Receiver Side. Do I need to open any port at my side for receiving document ? Do I need EDI Translator software ? Please Help me as I'm new to EDI.

Thanks so much for any help.

Solution

  • The good news is that receiving X12 is typically easier than generating X12, so your use case is simple relative to bi-directional communication. You are receiving X12 EDI 214s, so it is a single flow in one direction.

    The best way to think about this is to ask 1) what is my input I am receiving? and 2) what is the output I want to generate? You are receiving an EDI 214, so presumably you want to generate a JSON/XML/CSV object with just the tracking data that you ERP (system of record) can ingest.

    So you need a few things in a typical "EDI architecture"

    1. File transfer protocol (an SFTP is easiest) that you trading partner can connect to and send files to
    2. You need to translate that X12 to JSON (you should check out www.stedi.com/docs/edi-core to do that)
    3. You need to "Map" that file to your output schema (and perhaps convert it to XML/CSV)
    4. You need to post that file to your ERP system
    5. You need to send an EDI 997 (acknowledgement) back to the sender to say "I got it" (think of a read receipt on SMS). Note: some times this is optional