Edifact Message

SECTION 1 – INTRODUCTION TO EDI AND EDIFACT

This section gives a short introduction of EDI and EDIFACT.

1 Introduction to EDI

"EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) is the direct transfer of business information between

computer systems in different enterprise and/or organization (without human

intervention or with minimal human intervention) using widely agreed standards to

structure the transaction or message data."

With a structured message, such as a purchase order, the data is formatted according to

an agreed standard, thus facilitating the electronic transfer from one computer system to

another.

The present way of business communication:

Key in data Print out

Mail

Sender

Receiver

Print out

The EDI way of business communication:

Key in data

Sender

EDI

Process Data

AFACT EDI & EDIFACT Handbook (August 2007) Page 2

2 The Necessity of Standards

A standard is, according to ISO's, "a technical specification or another document

accessible to the public established with the co-operation and the consensus or the general

approval from all the parts interested, based on the combined relations of science,

technology and the experiment, aiming to the optimal advantage of the community as a

whole, and approved by an organisation qualified on the national, regional or international

level".

The communications between computers, like the human communication, need a common

language or a system of interpretation. The interpretation or the data conversion can

function very well between two partners according to a mode of specific agreement of

exchange or owner but with a higher number partners, the process of exchanges, in many

specific formats associated to each partner, quickly becomes "hard to handle".

A common language, using only one standard, facilitates the exchanges, allows the

opening to other partners and the adaptability according to its own needs on the various

levels international, European, national or sectorial.

Standardisation in EDI thus concerns:

the contents (standardisation of information to transmit, given codes, structures of

messages);

the container (protocols of telecommunication allowing to transmit the various types of

EDI); and

in a bound way, the organisation of the exchanges themselves, in a total context

("sequencing" of the messages, description of scenarios, concept of open "EDI "). For this

last point, one can refer usefully to work of the international working group

ISO/IEC/JTC1/SC30 on "Open EDI".

E D I : A q u e s t io n o f S ta n d a rd s

A p p l ic a tio n to A p p lic a t io n e x c h a n g e

S ta n d a rd is e d fo rm a ts o f e x c h a n g e

U N /E D IF A C T , (E A N C O M , S M D G , W C O -

G7 )

C o m m u n ic a tio n p ro to c o ls

X .4 0 0 , F T P , T C P / IP , H T T P , S M T P /M IM E . . .

AFACT EDI & EDIFACT Handbook (August 2007) Page 3

In the field of telecommunications or safety for EDI, it goes without saying