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Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and Rogue Data Solutions

... is the bi-directional, computer-to-computer transmission of structured data in a standard format that reflects a distinct business context or transaction.

Globalization and related commercial activity on the Internet is increasing rapidly as organizations begin to use the Internet to reach their business partners. The lastest geneartion of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is a tool that can be used for the transmission of business transactions through VAN's and over the Internet. It is the bread and butter of many strategic workflow systems, allowing information to be exchange globally.

There is plenty of evidence that transaction based systems are on the rise. EDI traditionally yields tangible business results, such as reduced turnaround time in business transactions and increased productivity: proven competitive advantages!

Rogue Data can insure standards associated with your industry are integrated with any systems you use to service your clients - this includes interaction with your clients' CRM, SCM, ERP systems.

What is EDI?

EDI is the automated exchange of structured electronic business documents, such as customs documents, purchase orders or invoices, between an organization and its trading partner(s). The machine-readable format allows business documents to be transferred, without re-keying, from an application in one location to an independent application in another location, without human intervention or interpretation. EDI is intended to replace paper documents, eliminating the inefficiencies of manual systems.

It is based on the principle that original data should be entered only once and subsequently passed electronically between relevant parties. For example in Canadian Healthcare, the EDI cycle begins when the hospital purchaser sends the healthcare supplier an EDI purchase order. The supplier returns a purchase order acknowledgment to the purchaser. Next, at shipping time, the supplier sends the purchaser an EDI advance shipping notice. An EDI invoice follows and, finally, the purchaser sends payment information to the bank and the funds are transferred electronically to the supplier's bank account through electronic fund transfer (EFT) or financial EDI. Other uses for EDI:

• importers use it to process customs declarations electronically to Governments
• universities and educational institutions use EDI to exchange student transcripts
• manufacturers use EDI to transmit complex engineering designs
• consumers use EDI for credit card and banking transactions

EDI was was implemented first in the transportation sector, followed by the food and drug distribution, the automotive, and the banking and financial sectors. Electronic processing and transfer of information was significantly faster, more efficient and more accurate than the manual exchange of paper. This translated into increased productivity and faster order fulfillment, and thus provided it users a competitive advantage.

What EDI is not...

In EDI, the emphasis is on the automation of business transactions. It is not a word processed document or electronic mail because all of these transactions require human interaction to process at least at one end of the interchange where someone has to interpret and re-key the exchanged information.

How does traditional EDI work?

Historically, industry has had to agree on standard formats for messages and the way in which they are applied. In theory, disparate business systems would rely on standardization to make the process independent of any specific hardware or software. The linkage of diverse systems is achieved through the use of a common format for data transfer. There are two major standards now in use world wide to support structured messaging. They are the United Nations EDIFACT and the ANSI X.12 formats. In addition, there are several hybrid systems and proprietary formats also in use. In North America, the ANSI X12 applies to most North American EDI traffic, whereas UN EDIFACT is the preferred standard for international traffic in Europe and Asia.

Rogue Data has an approach the eliminates the need for traditional Translation software is usually required to interpret the data extracted from local systems.

Communications

The delivery of these standardized data to their destination (trading partner's application) may be achieved in a number of ways. The most common methods are:

Point-to-point or direct EDI

Direct EDI , as the name implies, is a direct link between two computers. Direct EDI typically requires considerable expertise to incorporate EDI translation software into an organization's computing environment but it is also considerably cheaper than other methods and as such is often preferred to support high-volume ordering. Rogue Data provides a unique, secure point-to-point capability over the Internet.

Value-Added-Network (VAN)

A VAN provides an electronic mailbox with a store-and- forward facility as well as other added services for which the subscriber is charged a monthly and/or per use fee. However, with the advent of secure EDI transactions over the Internet, the VAN model is changing

EDI over the Internet

The Internet has shown potential as a way to deliver EDI messages because it allows a fast and economical delivery of these messages, either through electronic mail or file transfer. The issues of authentication, access control, data integrity, and confidentiality on the Internet are fully addressed by Rogue Data's free EDI over the Internet connection provided to its clients.

Integration of standardized data into existing or re- engineered processes is crucial to a successful EDI implementation. Hence, the major task in implementing EDI is the process of mapping the proprietary format data (extracted from a local system) to the prescribed structured format. With Rogue Data, mapping can be hosted in a manner that reduces the costs of conversion mapping.

With Rogue Data Corporation, you're organization can now suppport ANY EDI standards including ANSI X12 transactions sets and EDIFACT messages in any industry. Your enterprise system whether it is JDEdwards, SAP, Oracle (1st tier Enterprise Resource Planning ERP' Systems) or smaller accounting programs can support any EDI standard!

More importantly, this can be accomplished without the delays, disruption and undo expense associated with traditional systems using in-house, hosted, or desktop products from RogueData.

Only very few large corporation have implemented traditional solutions. Most are reluctant to set away from the huge investments they have made. This has lead to the imposition of dated VAN (Value Added Network) interaction, even with the advent of the Internet. For their part, VANs are built around expensive private networks and incorporate traditional EDI methods and solutions. This has sustained the need for current EDI solutions and other traditional data exchange models. While they focus on the "physical exchange" at the "network layer", they offer little added value when it comes to conversion and integration to their customer's back-end applications. We compensate with full data transformation, validation, routing and conversion to and from any internal business system.

Emerging Web Standards

At the present time, XML provides a wrapper around EDI transactions in lieu of the traditional envelop structure known as XML/EDI. Standards associated with application are only now emerging, especially in the business of financial transactions. RDC provides full EDI to XML conversion, providing migration capabilities to new clients, while leveraging the hidden value of existing EDI investments.

Application Independent

Structured data exchange lets entities share and/or exchange structured information in a way that helps to speed up processing of business transactions and exchange structured information without losing its context - regardless of differences in supporting technology, communication infrastructure or international borders, which is why it is used by major industries and transportation networks worldwide. This unique nature of structure data allows RDC to map your clients preferred mode of interaction directly with your systems, based on mutually agreed transaction content requirements.

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