Wow... SO many varied and valuable opinions and comments.... the depth and breadth is staggering....
Since there are so many, I decided to start back with the original post for My 2 bits.... One thing that nobody really seemed to touch upon with any great emphasis is the basic of what E D I is... EDI is ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT INTERCHANGE... At this most basic of levels - ANY document that is transmitted electronically qualifies as an EDI document. Even this simple posting can be considered an EDI document - as it is transmitted electronically from Me to all of you. Sure, I had to manually enter this information and you have to manually read this information - unless you have some kind of speech recognition software that can read it aloud to you.... But still, simply put, this IS EDI..... The document is being sent from My system to yours, through a series of T1 lines, servers, LANs, WANs and whatever other devices are being used.... I deal with a LOT of non-technical people in My EDI world... As a retailer, and the ONLY EDI person for that retailer, I deal with our own buying department as well as reps and account managers and presidents and sales folks and .... you get the idea ... from many of the suppliers and vendors we buy from... And, for the most part, quite a few of them don't have a CLUE as to what EDI is.... So in order to help them understand it better - to wrap their little heads around it - I use a simple explanation that they're generally going to understand - e-mail.... In this day and age, nearly anybody has heard of and used e-mail... Whether they have an Outlook server system at work or they use any of the freebies (yahoo, hotmail, msn, aol, etc., etc., etc.), they still uderstand the basic concept - I type a message and hit send. It goes through the line to My service provider. The service provider then sends the message to your service provider, who then dumps the mail in your inbox so you can read it.... They get that. They understand that.... When you break down the process to simple steps like that, the light bulb goes on.... They don't know all about the fact that these letters and symbols and punctuation marks are all made up of a bunch of ones and zeros, bits and bytes... they don't know that this letter or that symbol has an ASCII code of _____ and that it's translated to a series of gibberish from My side to be retranslated into normal, readable text on their side. At this basic level, we know that scenario A in Tom's post IS EDI.... the document is prepared and sent electronically and then is translated and put into their system. But the rub is, folks, so is scenario B.... How does that Excel spreadsheet get into Tom's hands...? Probably via e-mail.... sure, then some human hands and eyes have to tweak and twitter with the information and then a program translates it and dumps it into the system..... It's STILL EDI.... One had mentioned that maybe the Excel spreadsheet may be automated on the other side... or something to that effect... and it is quite possible that it is... maybe vendor B has some macros set up in Excel and has a pre-set and locked down format in the spreadhseet so that a buyer needs only enter a quantity for this item and for that and save it and then e-mail it to whomever.... Years ago, QRS offered a service called MEC (Managed E Commerce) in which a document could be sent from a translator (such as TrustedLink) to a mailbox. From there, QRS would then convert that EDI document to a fax sheet and fax it to the final recipient. The vendor could then fill out a form about the shipment, fax it back and QRS would turn it into an EDI document to be sent back to the original sender.... When Inovis took over QRS, the MEC program was shuffled off to ICC who now runs the program.... Using some of the explanations below, however, these process of MEC would NOT be considered EDI - because there are human hands and eyes involved.... And what of all the web-based EDI programs and products out there? Whether from SPS or DICentral or Inovis or TrueCommerce or ________, these web-based solutions are also very human intensive.... For the user of these services, they need to go into the website and open the mailbox, look at the new documents and process them somehow (print them out, whatever)... They then have to go back and manually enter the information regarding the shipment documents.... Mind you, for all of these examples I'm giving, I'm giving them from My viewpoint as the EDI guy for a major retailer. But yes, these are all EDI documents... no matter how they're handled - they're EDI because of the basic ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT INTERCHANGE aspect - the documents are sent and received ELECTRONICALLY... And yes, there are certain standards in place, and we've all discussed the pros and cons of this standard and that standard in other posts and threads and topics.... Oh, and the comment about the Bible and all the different versions out there - and which one is the Bible-thumper hitting - I take it even a step further - and ask them how they can know that it's 100% certain.... I mean, it was written in Aramaic first (right?) then translated into Greek and then Latin and then German and English and..... Who's to say that when it was translated from one language to the next that a word was translated properly. One of the things that can be easily lost in the translation is the inflection and the tone of what is said.... And even with EDI standards, some of that "tone" or "inflection" can be lost.... If I require a SKU to be sent back to Me on an ASN or an Invoice, it's then up to the sender to figure out My intent and provide the SKU back to Me. But if in their own system, they have a SKU for the product and I have a SKU for the product, which SKU should they send to Me...? Of course, it's the mapping document that I give to them that says it is to be My SKU that they send. One other thing - basically none of us are right and none of us are wrong.... We're all working around the same basic principle - the sending of documents and data electronically - but some of our view on EDI (just like Religion) are very different and unique. So... That's My input.... Craig Dunham EDI Coordinator Big 5 Sporting Goods. --- In [email protected], "Tom Smith (Yes, that's REALLY my name!)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > My boss and I get along pretty well. We just have some very > different ideas about what EDI is/does. > Scenario: > Customer A sends us orders in a comma delimited flat file via FTP. > Our EDI translator formats into a flat file that will go into the OP > system. I'll call that EDI. > > Customer B sends us orders in an Excel spreadsheet vie e-mail. > Someone here extracts the spreadsheet, checks the data & reformats as > needed, and then saved into a particular directory. It is then > picked up and parsed by a Visual Basic program that creates the flat > file that eventually goes into the OP system. > > I can accept A as EDI because; the file is computer generated, is > transmitted via FTP, is translated by an EDI tool, and almost never > requires human intervention. Basically it goes from their computer > into ours. > > I say that B is not EDI because; a person creates the spreadsheet, (I > know this because the format is inconsistent.) sends it to person, > who further manipulates the spreadsheet, (Due to the inconsistent > format) and then the spreadsheet is imported via the Visual Basic > program. > > I say that EDI is the computer to computer exchange of business > documents. > He says EDI is the B2B exchange of documents. > Again, what say ye? > ... Please use the following Message Identifiers as your subject prefix: <SALES>, <JOBS>, <LIST>, <TECH>, <MISC>, <EVENT>, <OFF-TOPIC> Job postings are welcome, but for job postings or requests for work: <JOBS> IS REQUIRED in the subject line as a prefix. Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EDI-L/join (Yahoo! 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