TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
To begin with, EDI is the abbreviation of Electronic Data Interchange. It can be defined as the intercompany communication that involves business documents presented in a standard format. EDIs can replace paper-based documents such as invoices, purchase orders, etc. It mostl;y involves real-time information and Alumio has made EDI implementation quite a cakewalk!
Video
How To Use EDIs In Alumio?
Here is a step-by-step guide for you that is better explained in the YouTube video above.
Step 1: Go to Storages > Storages in the left-hand panel and that will redirect you to the internal storage page of Alumio.
Step 2: Select a storage as per requirement. For example, you can choose EDIFACT Objects in this case (refer to the YouTube Video above). It is a normalized EDI object.
Step 3: Click on Entities present at the top. A list will open with Identifiers. In this case, click on the Identifier called test.
Step 4: You will be working with JSON files within Alumio. Even if you are getting XML data, it will always involve a translation from XML to JSON (and likewise other data types).
Nevertheless, you can translate the data to any required format before sending it out. If you are going to work with EDI (EDIFACT Objects in this case), there is a certain data format that you must adhere to.
If you take a look within the storage (Step 3), you can view an example of that. Here, you can see an order with the EDIFACT Objects in a certain data type although Alumio supports other data types as well.
Step 5: Next, go to Connections> Routes in the left-hand panel. Click on Data Entity from JSON to EDIFACT using sFTP.
A route in Alumio consists of two components:
The Incoming configuration which is used to import data to Alumio. In this case, it will get the object that was shown in the storage (Step 4).
The Outgoing configuration that facilitates smooth export of the data to an external system. In this case, it is a pre-existing sFTP environment (refer to the video).
You have to pull the file from the storage and translate the file to EDIFACT and eventually move it to the sFTP environment in this case.
Note: In a real-life scenario, you might have to connect an ERP system or get an order data (for example, purchase order), etc. You have to transform the same into EDIFACT format before sending it to a trading partner, an sFTP, or somewhere else.
Step 6: There is already an Incoming configuration selected in the Route (Step 5), called Storage- Get Normalized EDIFACT Objects. Click on the View configuration placed just beneath the Incoming configuration.
Step 7: Click on the Run Incoming button at the top left corner. A pop-up Subscriber has been consumed will appear.
Step 8: Next, go to the Dashboard from the left-hand panel. You will see that 1 new task has been created. Click on it and you will be redirected to the Tasks page of Alumio.
Step 9: Click on the Identifier of the task (marked in blue) to open it. Click on the Entity Data.
Step 10: You will observe that the EDIFACT is being represented in a JSON structure.
By clicking on Import Messages, you can check all the API calls, data transactions, etc.
Similarly, if you click on the Export Messages, you can visualize the details of the export communications when the task is getting exported to an external system. To do that, simply go Overview > Route- Data Entity from JSON to EDIFACT using sFTP and click on the Run Route button at the top-left corner.
As soon as you run the Route, Alumio will convert the JSON file to EDIFACT and publish/send it out to the sFTP environment (refer step 5). If you can click on the Tasks (from the left-hand panel), you will see that the tasks have been executed.
Step 11: Now, if you re-visit the sFTP environment (refer step 5) and refresh it, you will see the exported file. It will contain the normalized EDIFACT file.
Wrapping Up
Although this guide uses a specific example to help you understand the EDI implementation within Alumio, you can employ the same process to implement any EDI-based methods. Let’s hope the article has answered all your queries. If not, never feel bothered to reach out to our experts!