New feature for the Partner Onboarding: Questionnaires for EDI projects

In both onboarding and data quality projects, checking test messages is only one of several tasks. Equally important is providing manuals and sample messages, answering EDI partners' questions about interfaces, and querying the connection parameters of their EDI systems.

That's why Onboarding Feature not only includes a validation function for test messages, but also the option of making manuals, sample messages and information available to all users centrally on the platform. Additionally, we have now introduced the possibility to integrate questionnaires into EDI projects. With a questionnaire, you can collect information from partners in a structured form. This could be EDI parameters, for example, or information on the underlying business processes.

Imagine for example the following scenario. You want to connect different partners for a new delivery bill interface. You want the partners to provide information about the packaging structures in the DESADV, but you do not know which partner uses which packaging structures in reality. With the help of a questionnaire, you can now determine, for example, whether the packages contain only one material or whether parts for different materials will be stored in one container.

From the answers, you can see what to look for in the tests. You could also assign suitable test processes to the suppliers in the Partner Onboarding, making the tests even more targeted. All of this has one goal: To eliminate potential errors before the EDI connections go live and thus avoid data quality problems later on.

On the one hand, standardized questionnaires save time and effort, since no employee has to call or e-mail to obtain the desired information. On the other hand, however, there is a risk that the reader will not understand a question and will then not process the questionnaire further or send it off. To prevent this, we have included a help function. If the reader does not understand a question, he can ask a counter-question directly in the questionnaire and thus ask for help in filling it out.

You can then read through the answered questionnaires not only as an administrator on the platform, but you can also export them as PDFs or in the form of structured documents, so-called JSON files. This is also a big advantage compared to questionnaires in email form: By exporting them as JSON files, you can easily have the results processed by follow-up applications. There you could, for example, rewrite information about the EDI parameters of your partners into a data format that you can import into your EDI system. This would eliminate the need for you to create EDI connections by hand and allow you to quickly configure even large numbers of partners.