Features of the iWay Integration Solution for EDI X12
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The standards-based iWay Integration Solution for EDI X12 reduces the amount of effort it takes to integrate Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) documents with your internal enterprise applications and third-party trading partners. It includes conversion and validation of documents from EDI to XML format, making it easy to include EDI documents in your XML-based integration projects.
Features of the iWay Integration Solution for EDI X12 include:
- Integration with iWay Service Manager to provide bi-directional conversion of EDI formats and XML.
- Integration with iWay Trading Partner Manager to provide routing, custom transformation by document, and other value-added features.
- Integration with more than 200 other information assets, including J2EE-based back-office systems; data structures such as DB2, IMS, VSAM, and ADABAS; and front-office systems based on Sybase.
- Integration with leading application servers, integration brokers, and development environments. Supported software platforms include BEA WebLogic, IBM WebSphere, Sun Java Enterprise System, and Oracle Application Server.
- Support for synchronous and asynchronous bi-directional interactions for EDI documents between application servers, integration brokers, third-party software packages, and messaging services.
- Support for EDI ANSI X12 transaction sets. For details on the supported transaction sets, see Ebix-Supported Transaction Sets.
- Reusable framework for parsing, transforming, and validating EDI documents without the need to write custom code.
- Data dictionary approach that facilitates EDI-to-XML transformations. The iWay Integration Solution for EDI X12 uses dictionaries to transform data from EDI format to any other format, or from any format to EDI format. It supports flat files, comma-delimited files, popular relational database formats, XML, and more.
- Pre-built data dictionaries, XML schemas, transformation templates, and rule files for automatic transformation and validation of input and output documents.
EDI X12 Transmission Envelope Structure
The following image illustrates a typical EDI X12 envelope structure that is used during a purchase order transmission. Syntax for an EDI X12 document containing two purchase orders is shown on the left and a graphical representation of the hierarchy is provided on the right.
An EDI X12 document must contain the following segments in its structure:
- Interchange Control Header (ISA). Indicates the start of the interchange. The ISA segment has a fixed length and consists of 106 characters. The fourth character, for example, an asterisk (*), is the segment delimiter that is used throughout the document.
- Functional Group Header (GS). Indicates the start of a group, which contains one or more transaction sets. The GS segment contains various sender and receiver codes for identification and control purposes.
- Transaction Set Header (ST). Indicates the start of a transaction set. The transaction set contains segments that make up the message data. All of the details that are required to process the transaction are available within the transaction set. A transaction set can contain one or more loops, which are required to repeat a collection of related segments.
- Transaction Set Trailer (SE). Indicates the end of a transaction set. The SE segment provides a count of the data segments that includes the header and trailer segments.
- Functional Group Trailer (GE). Indicates the end of the group. The GE segment contains an element that indicates the number of transaction sets within the group.
- Interchange Control Trailer (IEA). Indicates the end of the interchange. The IEA segment contains an element that indicates the number of groups within the interchange.