Harold is correct, a small investment up front in an experienced consultant will always save you in the end. Be sure to ask for references and experience. When it comes to selecting a consultant, if possible, choose one that has not only EDI experience, but either experience in your vertical or a demonstrated willingness and ability to dig in and analyze business practices. EDI is a tool and facilitator to the business process, without understanding that process, you'll never have the best system you can get.
Leah ________________________________ From: Harold DeWayne <[email protected]> To: Leah Halpin <[email protected]> Cc: Earl Wertheimer <[email protected]>; gisnewbie <[email protected]>; "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2012 10:45 AM Subject: Re: [EDI-L] EDI translation for a small firm already going through a van Nor will I disagree with either of my "esteemed colleagues" Ms Halpin or Mr Wertheimer, but from Ms Halpin's point 2: "are your partners using some EDI standard such as X12..." Make sure that if they tell you they're using the standards that they actually ARE using the standards... I've dealt with companies that use the GENERIC X12 standards but if they want a segment (or element) that does not exist in the standards, they simply add it and still claim to be using standards.[?] This is where an experienced consultant can be very valuable if you don't have the experience in-house. Harold DeWayne, CECP, RECS On Thu, Nov 15, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Leah Halpin <[email protected]> wrote: > ** > > > Hi ?, > I will not disagree with my esteemed colleague, however, depending on your > needs and choices you may save more or less of that leg. > > The first thing you need to do is identify what you do need, the resources > you currently have and the budget you have for new resources should you > determine based on your need, to support in house what the VAN is currently > doing. > > Point 1 - you want to save money - always a good incentive for management > Point 2 - you say "flat file" but you identify yourself (vaguely) as a > newbie, it is important to choosing the proper solution that you understand > what types of files your "trading partners" (what we in the biz call > companies who send and receive EDI between each other), which can be > customers, vendors, suppliers, etc. By type, I mean are they sending > proprietary data, in that each partner is sending you an entirely different > format, or, more likely, are your partners using some EDI standard such as > X12 (North American, typically) or EDIFACT (Europe, some NA, other regions)? > Point 3 - If your TP's are, in fact, sending you data files that are in a > "standard" format, then almost any commercial "translator" will work for > you, so, yay, however, that's where the fun starts, not where it ends. > > Point 4 - this is where you figure out what sort of volume you have, what > technical expertise, if any, you have in house, how much time you have to > do set up, what sort of learning curve the software (particularly mapping > tool and support/system monitor) has, what maintenance will cost, who's > going to monitor on a day to day basis, what you need to know to do that, > how often you'll need "new" maps, and on, and on, and on. > > Point 5 - once you've got point 4 done, then you need to send out some > RFQ's or contact sales people. At the moment, you've put the cart ahead of > the horse and if you're not careful, you're going to end up spending a lot > of money only to throw up your hands and go back to paying the VAN. > > Point 6 - if you really are a newbie, hiring a consultant (and there are > several great ones on this list) to help you analyze your business > requirements, system requirements and ongoing support needs will save you a > ton of money and frustration on the back end. I'm not one of them, so > please understand this is actually good advice, not self serving. > > Remember this, if you remember nothing else, salespeople will promise you > the moon, but they often don't mention it might take "a while" or cost > extra for "customizing". > > Good Luck, > Leah > > ________________________________ > From: Earl Wertheimer <[email protected]> > To: gisnewbie <[email protected]>; [email protected] > Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 10:35 PM > Subject: Re: [EDI-L] EDI translation for a small firm already going > through a van > > > > > > > We currently go through a VAN that charges us an arm and a leg for > > each map since the data needs to come to us as xml while our partners > > are only able to send flat files. > > If you bring the flat file (I suspect X12?) to XML conversion inhouse, you > will > save an arm, but not the leg. > > > Is there any tool out there that we can use just for the translation > > so we can skip on the 100,000 dollars we might end up having to pay > > the van for translating out messages for us.... > > There are lots of tools, Open Source and others that will do this, or you > can pay someone to write the conversion once. > > http://www.jitterbit.com/ has a community edition on sourceforge > http://sourceforge.net/projects/jitterbit/ > > Earl Wertheimer > [email protected] > http://www.spe-edi.com > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ... 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