Richard, Boy can I relate to that situation. Luckily we are moving to SAP in stages so I deal with a different segment of the organization every 6 months or so going live. The generation rollouts have been on-going since October of 2004. We are on generation 5 right now with a few more to go. This August about 86% of our trading partners switch from our Trusted Link EDI400 system to being fully transacted in wm (around 2000 customers for 6 transaction sets). We normalized the mapping versions as much as possible consolidating customers on common mapping services in wm. The analysis was the largest effort and testing is huge too.
They keep wanting to shut down the AS400 but it is still supporting our manufacturing and HR applications so it will be around for a couple of more years. Good luck with your planning! Let me know if I can be of assistance. Thanks, Dawn ________________________________ From: Hurd, Richard [SLCUS] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 8:29 AM To: Field, Dawn; EDL LIST Subject: RE: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land We have too many maps and TPs to get the whole project done in wM in the timeframe given. I cannot convert (conservatively) 300-400 maps and hundreds of trading partners into a webMethods environment. I need to leave the translation piece alone in order to minimize the risk to the business. I have just been invited to a "Gentran Mainframe Sunset" planning meeting, so apparently I will also be part of the retirement of Gentran:Basic off of the mainframe. The SAP go-live, however, will predate this by a year or so, and I think we've all but decided that we'll most likely code a webMethods integration for each application flat file on one end, and an appropriate IDoc or RFC on the other. This fits in well with our current webMethods deployments, and makes the most sense from a maintainability point of view for us. Later, when we decide which translator we deploy, we'll be in a better position to determine the final architecture. Whether that will be wM or something else still remains to be seen - I'm not the only person at this sunset meeting. :) -----Original Message----- From: Field, Dawn [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, July 03, 2007 7:03 AM To: Hurd, Richard [SLCUS]; EDL LIST Subject: RE: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land Richard, Why don't you just do it all in wm? wm handles IDOC structures very well. We are using wm for our external communications, translation, and delivery to/from multiple backend systems (several JDE systems and 2 SAP). I designed our inbound sales order integration to handle just about any source and they all feed through a single integration designed to create the IDOC from our Order canonical document. The multiple sources consist of online stores, palm devices, EDI sales orders, and xml sales orders. The source just needs to be mapped to our Order canonical and meet the basic requirements for a Medtronic sales order. Once the order canonical is published to the broker the subscriber filters out the SAP bound documents based on a backend system parameter in the control record of the canonical and formats the canonical into the ORDERS05 IDOC and delivers it to SAP. Basically the canonical shields our backend system from the external format as well as the reverse. Let me know if you would like to hear more. Thanks, Dawn ________________________________ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard McGinnis Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 10:10 AM To: Hurd, Richard [SLCUS]; Leah Halpin; EDL LIST; Shawn Aker Subject: RE: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land Have you considered having Gentran translate the flat file format to IDOC format for you? It would require that you put together flat file to IDOC maps in Gentran, but still better alterantive than having to change all the maps in Gentran. -- Richard McGinnis [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:rmcginnis2019%40charter.net> 209.874.2021 ---- "Hurd wrote: > I'm not looking to get rid of Gentran, I just want Something to take the flat file output from Gentran and convert it to an IDoc. > > If I considered XI, it would only be to convert these files back and forth. TP management, FAs, mapping would all stay in Gentran. > > This way I only have to manage 46 application files rather than convert several hundred maps. > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Leah Halpin [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:leahhalpin%40yahoo.com> ] > Sent: Friday, June 29, 2007 9:54 AM > To: Shawn Aker; EDL LIST > Cc: Hurd, Richard [SLCUS] > Subject: Re: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land > > > I have to second Shawn's advice. XI is going to be much more painful and take a lot longer. The header record will have to be hardcoded in each map for XI, too, so you don't save anything there and the trading partner management and comms are an interesting combination of complex and lean. Oh, and you'll have to write your own outbound FA process from scratch, there's no syntax check built in. > > Leah > > > ----- Original Message ---- > From: Shawn Aker <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:smaker%40gmail.com> > > To: EDL LIST <[email protected] <mailto:EDI-L%40yahoogroups.com> > > Cc: "Hurd, Richard [SLCUS]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:rhurd3%40cscus.jnj.com> > > Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2007 8:55:51 PM > Subject: Re: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land > > > > I feel your pain with the complication of your processes. But seeing as how > I've work with all three products (XI,Webmethods, and Gentran Unix) Um.. the > easiest is going to be Gentran by far to put your EDI in - promise - > particularly if you have volume. > > I know you don't want to hear about new products - but I've been working > with and really digging Axway's new Synchrony 4 line. Strong communication, > translation, visibility that no other company right now offers in > combination. Plus you are treated like a king - which no else in this > business does either these days (particularly with the products/vendors > above). > > That's 4 cents now. > > Shawn > > On 6/28/07, Hurd, Richard [SLCUS] < [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:rhurd3%40cscus.jnj.com> jnj.com> wrote: > > > > It's tempting to think about this but we have several hundreds of maps > > that are in production. To map to a flatfile IDoc format, I'd have to > > modify each of those maps and create a new application destination. > > > > That sounds like a daunting task. However, if you've the Gentran:Basic > > experience, maybe you have an insight that I'm missing on how to handle > > this. > > > > > > > > -----Original Message----- > > *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] com <mailto:smaker%40gmail.com> [mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED] com <mailto:smaker%40gmail.com> ]*On Behalf Of *Shawn > > Aker > > *Sent:* Thursday, June 28, 2007 5:30 PM > > *To:* EDL LIST > > *Cc:* Hurd, Richard [SLCUS] > > *Subject:* Re: [EDI-L] EDI in SAP-land > > > > Richard, > > > > Remember, XI only speaks XML effectively. The setup for a "flat file" is > > horrendous in current versions and is something I would avoid at all cost. > > > > Although Gentran basic won't "talk" directly with SAP by updating status > > codes, using ALE, etc - you can map to a flatfile idoc format and use > > startrfc to bring in your data instead of writing two maps. Just hard code > > in what's called the DC record, setup the port, and you are all set. We did > > this at Motorola and it works great. We just had a few shell commands that > > sent emails for failures etc - pretty straight forward. > > > > Talk to me offline if you have questions. > > > > Shawn > > > > > > On 6/28/07, Hurd, Richard [SLCUS] < [EMAIL PROTECTED] jnj.com <mailto:rhurd3%40cscus.jnj.com> > wrote: > > > > > > I'm now moving away from the integration development team - > > > middleware, etc. - back to EDI. > > > > > > Apparently there is a large gap that they want to fill in our SAP > > > deployment architecture - they have somehow realized that perhaps we need to > > > use EDI to communicate our customers' orders into SAP and payments back to > > > us. No! You think? > > > > > > Anyway, my guess is that they figured that many years of EDI experience > > > sort of trumped many months of webMethods development, so here I am, staring > > > Arvind Nagpal's book in the face and asking "What the heck have I gotten > > > into?" > > > > > > I'll probably be asking lots of dumb questions in the future. However, I > > > just wanted people to know that I'm back with EDI as my day job. And trust > > > me, I don't need any salespeople to call, since at this juncture we're going > > > to be lucky to get EDI RUNNING with our current translator (Gentran Basic > > > for Z/OS.) > > > > > > So if anyone's successfully done that -- short term, as I'm sure they're > > > contemplating a translator somewhere in our future -- I'd love to talk. And > > > hopefully here so that all of our mistakes can be avoided by the next person > > > unlucky enough to be in this spot. :) > > > > > > The first thing I'll throw out there is that I know that Gentran:Basic > > > doesn't speak IDoc, so we're faced with a gap analysis; namely, our current > > > application flat file into IDoc structure. I'm figuring that this is the > > > best way to proceed. As far as a middleware tool to handle this, my choices > > > are two - either webMethods or SAP XI. Ultimately, my translator will speak > > > IDoc and we'll lose the middleware component - fewer moving parts, as far as > > > I'm concerned - so this work is more or less throwaway. I know wM can do it, > > > and I hope to find out soon if XI is up to the task as well. > > > > > > > > > Rich Hurd > > > EDI Lead-SAP Development > > > Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies > > > North American Consumer IT > > > 908-874-1523 > > > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Regards, > > > > Shawn Aker > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] com <mailto:saker%40iaspx.com> > > > > > > -- > Regards, > > Shawn Aker > [EMAIL PROTECTED] com <mailto:saker%40iaspx.com> > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > > > > > _____ > > Sick sense of humor? Visit Yahoo! TV's Comedy <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=47093/*http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222 <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=47093/*http://tv.yahoo.com/collections/222> > with an Edge to see what's on, when. > > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > ________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________ CONFIDENTIALITY AND PRIVACY NOTICE Information transmitted by this email is proprietary to Medtronic and is intended for use only by the individual or entity to which it is addressed, and may contain information that is private, privileged, confidential or exempt from disclosure under applicable law. If you are not the intended recipient or it appears that this mail has been forwarded to you without proper authority, you are notified that any use or dissemination of this information in any manner is strictly prohibited. In such cases, please delete this mail from your records. 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