Give us your problems Part II

If EDI is supposed to reduce human effort in business live, you can measure the success at the question when an interface has been edited the last time. There are interfaces that younger team members of an EDI department do not know no longer and those that cause so many problems that every colleague knows them.

Such problem interfaces require not only the labor force of the EDI department, but usually keep other colleagues busy too: From the own operating department, from the operating department of the business partner, from his EDI department and possibly from EDI providers.

In the process, direct costs arise on the one hand, like the invoice for support tickets or mapping changes. On the other hand, labor expense piles up for the time that is necessary for writing emails with error analyses or organizing emergency meetings with all involved parties. This may negate a part of the cost reduction that was budgeted by the use of EDI.

To avoid such loss of efficiency, it seems reasonable to identify the core of the problem first of all. For example, does master data cause ongoing problems? Is it necessary to consolidate information from different sources at a point in time where one source is not available reliably?

Given the great range of possible problems, it becomes clear that there is a multiplicity of fitting measures that can only be outlined in such a short text. However, to check for the existence of certain information at suitable points in the process chain and to stop the process if they are missing has often stood the test of time. This can be carried out in the ERP system or EDI system.

It is also helpful to check conversely, whether reference numbers, like delivery note numbers have been used several times without permission. In ideal circumstances, you can use a data base for this. Wherever this is not possible, you can also invoke, read and write this information on a simple auxiliary text file, depending on the EDI product.

To avoid the loss of efficiency is also the goal of our validation API. Here, you can not only check whether all required information is contained in an EDI file. Used in productive data streams, you can also safeguard your workflows in a way where the transmission to the partner is prevented in the case of an error. The detailed error texts also help you to identify the source of the mistake and thus reduce the processing time. At the end, only one thing counts: The less working hours that flow into an interface, the more EDI lives up to its promise of efficiency.