<< A client just asked me if RBase is "compatible" with sending EDI. I told him I didn't know anything about EDI, but that I have read postings from people who have done this kind of transfer. I'm not sure this client could tell me anything about how EDI works, so can someone tell me what in the heck it means to use EDI, what the general procedure is? >>
EDI is a specification for a variety of large, complex text files. Each specification represents a very general type of business document (a bill of lading, for instance, or a service invoice). Within the documents are "segments" (generally lines) and elements (generally delimited with the asterisk character). Since R:Base can easily write text files, it's very easy to create outbound EDI documents in R:Base. It is kind of tedious programming (you generally have to write a lot of different stuff into the file, and get it just right) and the "standards" don't turn out to be quite that standard (you need to test with each partner you exchange EDI with and possible make custom adjustments) but eminently doable. We have a client who sends out several hundred invoices a day using a 100% R:Base EDI solution. On the other side of the equation, I haven't written an application to parse an _incoming_ EDI file. But again, it should be eminently doable (read each line into a long text column, parse on the correct delimiter character, and interpret the parsed results based on the first value extracted, which will be the segment identifier). So, yes. R:Base can be used to write programs that send and receive EDI. But if the customer is really asking "Does R:Base intrinsically understand any of the EDI specifications", the answer is no. You have to write code. -- Larry
