Many of you might be familiar with Infor’s BODs or Business Object Documents, where system integrations are simplified by pre-defined XML (eXtensible Markup Language) documents supporting specific business processes.
Although these messages will certainly assist in A2A integrations, they are not optimized for the requirements of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) transactions.
Anyone familiar with EDI knows the complexities, with different standards, versions, configurations etc. and although it is meant to be a standard you will not find two companies that implement the same EDI message, ie a Customer Order, exactly the same way. Not even if the standard and version being used are identical.
The new EDI BODs address this issue and act as a superset for a specific type of EDI message, containing all the possible data requirements any trading partner may have for that particular message type.
So how can we leverage from this in the development of our EDI infrastructure?
Wouldn’t it be great if we could just send the entire EDI BOD a just let our trading partners pick out what data they want to use.
Unfortunately, it is not that simple, as companies have spent a lot of money over a long time to build up rigid systems to send and receive data in their particular EDI format. Fortunately, there are companies that specialize in converting and translating all these different EDI flavors. They provide Message Brokering services, and one of the world leaders in this field is SPS Commerce, who already have established connections with a huge number of trading partners around the globe.
Infor and SPS Commerce has teamed up to offer a turn-key solution where the new EDI BODs are fully supported, meaning that Infor customers can take advantage of SPS Commerce vast network of connected trading partners out of the box.
The benefit for Infor Customers is that the maintenance of the EDI trading partnerships are reduced to a minimum, with only a single BOD document per type of transaction and SPS Commerce handling the maintenance and on-boarding of new and existing partners.
The new EDI BODs are only available for Infor Multi-tenant customers at this time.
Please let us know if this sounds interesting and if you would like to know more.
Integration Wizards is an Infor Alliance partner how specializes in Infor M3 and Infor LN EDI and integrations. We want to make sure what we develop today will also work tomorrow and the next day, so we strive to keep abreast with the latest technology developments so we can give our clients the best advice and deliver long-lasting solutions.
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