Leverage SAP to track shipments

If your business involves selling product then inevitably you need to move that product, whether it be from your suppliers to you, or from you to your customers. If that is the case then you will also be interested in knowing how those movements, or shipments, are doing.

If they are experiencing a delay then it could potentially impact the promise you made to your customer... If the goods are delayed on route to your warehouse then you could potentially impact the plan for the warehouse folks who may have arranged a special shift to receive the goods in...

Wouldn't it be nice to know that the plan that was laid out up front was being followed? We can't force our suppliers to comply but there are ways to measure compliance and react to deviations to the plan just as soon as you are made aware of them. How can we accomplish that?

WHITEPAPER: Understanding the 10 EDI messages critical to deploying "Best in Class" Procure to Pay (PTP) SAP EDI

I have seen many, many EDI implementations in this space over the years and have yet to come by a single company that has adopted all of the good features available in SAP to bring real value in to the PTP process. In each part of the process, described below, I will highlight exactly what the purpose is for each EDI message or functionality and highlight the benefits for implementing it in the mentioned fashion.

Below, I list the PTP process for a typical replenishment PO where we procure stock via a Purchase Order (PO) to a supplier who delivers the product to our warehouse using one of our 3rd party carriers. The nuances around freight forwarding, drop ship and make to order scenarios are not covered here but are addressed using 90% of these same techniques as well.

Everything EDI...

We would like to bring your attention to a portal that shares a lot of good information on Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), a technology that has long been thought of as "dying" but is actually growing in its adoption.

Check it out for free mapping templates, links to standards, recruiters, service companies and much more...

Website: http://www.edigenie.com 

Survey: EDI efforts are growing in the supply chain | Supply Chain Dive

Dive brief:

• Roughly 76% of 80 SAP Business One users surveyed by the University of Tennessee said they expect to see their electronic linkages with suppliers grow up to 25%, or more, according to a report sponsored by DiCentral.
• Inbound Logistics reports 80% of respondents said their buyers run an electronic data interchange (EDI) compliance program, which include penalties, and 3% have been fined over $100,000 for compliance over the past year.
• Improving technology and the need for greater supply chain connectivity is making such linkages more important, but also helping companies: 60% say data integration has improved their customer service levels, and 75% are confident they can process most inbound EDI/XML connections without a human touch.

Read full article here

How Do You Communicate: Direct EDI or VAN Based EDI? - ERP Software Blog

I found this article from Brian Lynch, of Data Masons Software. Take a read on his take on things...

Which is best for your company?

As a professional who has helped over 1,000 companies, during my career, to implement EDI with Dynamics as their back office, I often get asked “What method of EDI communication is best for MY company?” Since there are only two main methods of communications, an EDI Value added network (VAN) provider or Direct EDI, my response is typically the same. 20 years ago VAN’s were the only choice; however, most major trading partners support direct communications. Fortunately, the decision for most companies can be straightforward and should be based entirely on business requirements, such as volume of documents, IT support and services being provided by your EDI provider.

zedSuite Delivers Certified SPS Commerce Integration for SAP Business One

San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) July 22, 2015 - zedSuite (http://www.zedsuite.com), a leading SAP software solution and technology partner, today announced the release of Cloud EDI 2.0 for SPS Commerce. With the addition of EDI transactions 940 and 945, the Cloud EDI Solution for SAP Business One provides a cloud-based service, integrating trading partners to the industry's broadest retail network comprising more than 60,000 members. This single integration between SAP Business One and the SPS Commerce Retail Network provides retailers and suppliers the industry's first SPS and SAP certified integration solution.

EXTOL EDI Integrator for i and EXTOL Secure Exchange Selected by Southern Motorcycle Supply, Inc.

POTTSVILLE, Pa., Aug. 11, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- EXTOL International, a leading provider of e-business integration software and services, has been selected by Southern Motorcycle Supply to provide the EXTOL EDI Integrator for i (EEI) and EXTOL Secure Exchange (ESX) solutions.

Southern Motorcycle Supply, a parts and accessories distributor for motorcycles, personal watercraft, ATVs, small engines and performance craft, needed to meet two Amazon requirements: implement EDI documents and use the required AS2 communication. Their previous EDI vendor declined to help them with integration.

"Southern Motorcycle Supply's research on EDI vendors found EXTOL's native iSeries EDI integration platform to best support their EDI integration with Amazon," said Peter Harper, vice president of sales at EXTOL. "Our Professional Services team is now working with Southern Motorcycle Supply to migrate all of their EDI data to EEI so they can start rapidly on-boarding other trading partners, and provide end-to-end visibility of EDI transactions moving through their business."

To view the original version on PR Newswire, visit:PR Newswire - SOURCE EXTOL International

Mapping a Customers EDI field in to and then out of SAP

Customers that transact Orders to you via an EDI X12 850 often need you to send certain, customer specific, fields back to them on subsequent documents. This is often a requirement at both the header and item levels of the order. A common example of a header field would be the department number. It makes sense for the customer to have the department number returned on subsequent documents but we don't have any use for that number in our SAP system other than to store the details and pass it to subsequent documents.

EDI - IDoc mapping to X12 and EDIFACT

This is an oldie but a goodie!!! A list of the Message Types (an example of the IDoc type) linked to the corresponding EDIFACT and ANSI X12 standard message.

SAP Track and Trace solution – Part 1 – Outbound Logistics

Most organizations deal with the shipment of goods in to and out of their premises. With the increasing demand for a better customer experience it is a challenge to provide a high level of customer service when parts of your supply chain fall somewhat out of your “sphere of influence”. Sure, through contractual obligations, you can try and force your suppliers and carriers to behave in a certain way but as the old saying goes “stuff happens!”. If the supply chain breaks down outside of your 4 walls, are you aware of it? Do you have enough time between when you find out about the issue and the time needed to correct it? Do these issues in the supply chain cause disruption and potentially lead to lost customers and sales?

The key to remedying this issue was discussed back in the 1990’s and was termed Supply Chain Event Management – Give me the ability to monitor the events occurring THROUGHOUT my supply chain as and when they occur – Let me measure these events against what I had expected to occur and if it differs in any way let me know so that I can take proactive measures to correct it.SAP was a part of the “think tank” that came up with the term “Supply Chain Event Management” and created the product SAP Event Management to provide us with this functionality. It went in to General Availability in 2004 so has been around rather a long time…

In this article I want to describe how SAP Event Management forms the back-bone of your Track and Trace requirements and specifically focus on the outbound logistics scenario.

Firstly let me describe what Track and Trace is and how it relates to my issue described above.

What Wikipedia Won't Tell You About EDI

I found this interesting blog post written by Kristen Kearns, Manager of EDI Services for Aurora Technologies. She quite correctly describes some of the nuances in EDI that is overlooked by folks that aren't too engaged in the implementation of EDI. The theory of EDI with it's communication protocols, standards, elements, segments, separators is all good and fine but at some stage it runs in to the brick wall called REALITY!!!

Mapping the SAP IDoc to / from Partner Profile

I have spent many years coming to grips with the relationship between a SAP IDoc, the partner profile and how it relates to EDI. You can see sample mapping templates here and Sample EDI Specs here but this spreadsheet will hopefully make clear how the SAP Partner Profile (WE20) impacts the IDoc control record (EDIDC) and ultimately how it plays a role in selecting the appropriate map to use for translating in to an EDI message (for outbound). 2 Files are also attached to this post to show:

1. See the 7 key fields used to determine which partner profile to select - See Image and relate to "Partner Profile Key" section 1-7 below
2. Relating the EDI fields in the Partner profile to the EDI translation tool - See Image and relate to "EDI standard" section 1-3 below

Read the full article on EDIGenie.COM

EDI and the IoT (Internet of Things)

I read this great post by Faith Lamprey on how EDI is very suited to connecting to the Internet Of Things...
With devices and gadgets being Internet, RFID and GPS enabled you can imagine there would be enough information to control every aspect of that device.

Real use case: Supply Chain Maturity Whitepaper

Last year I conducted an analysis of a particular business who’s main focus is procuring, storing and supplying general products to large facilities. The focus of my investigation was primarily around the integration of SAP EDI in to the supply chain and in particular the Procure to Pay (PTP) process with a heavy emphasis on the Advanced Ship Notification and the automation thereof.

SAP EDI Subsystem Certification

Cross Application - Electronic Data Interchange Interface (CA-EDI)

• Certified EDI Subsystems - http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/interface-certifications?rid=/webcontent/uuid/3e580672-0501-0010-8aab-8d61c461bbb1
• Search for certified EDI subsystems at http://www.sap.com/ecosystem/customers/directories/SearchSolution.epx

Built into SAP’s applications are interfaces to EDI messages.SAP provides an open, common interface to EDI translators / subsystems (XA-EDI). EDI subsystems assume responsibility for all EDI-oriented tasks:

• Converting data
• Message or interchange handling
• Communication
• Partner profile administration
• Process monitoring

Read the full article on EDIGenie.COM

TIP: ABAP code to add an IDoc to your application object

Sometimes you need to write ABAP code to generate an IDoc. With this new custom IDoc generation you would like to have it link to your SAP application object (E.g. Sales Order, Delivery, …) You would like to see your IDoc linked to the Generic Object Services (GOS) display relationships service. Well here is the code needed to do just that…

SAP Best Practice way of handling inbound posting IDoc errors

I often get asked how IDocs and workflow are connected.... The diagram below should clear up the confusion.

Use transaction WE42 to ensure that the relevant IDoc object is linked to the needed events that workflow uses.

INPUTERROROCCURRED is triggered when the IDoc fails to post. It will then search for linked workflows (configured using transaction SWETYPV) to see what workflow to trigger.

There is a standard single step workflow that is provided but most people want a little more functionality than what is provided SAP standard. Read the full article on EDIGenie.COM

ALE Scenario Development Blog

This is the material that inspired the creation of SAP Genie, know known as ERPGenie....
Blog on SDN for ALE development -

https://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/sdn/weblogs?blog=/pub/wlg/4900

SAP e-Invoicing Compliance: EDI Message Implementation Information for SAP Users

Posted by Kevin Benedict

The following information is needed to implement a new EDI message in an SAP environment if you are implementing internally using your own EDI translator system and team. It is a lot of information for one message, but it is necessary in order to understand exactly what data needs to be consumed or produced by your applications and business processes.
Every electronic message will require this information. If you have 1,000 trading partners each sending an electronic invoice, then you would need 1,000 implementation documents containing the information listed below. Why 1,000 documents, because each will be tested separately and often will contain small differences in the data sent in the files, plus the trading partner contact information will be different each time.

Read the full article here: SAP e-Invoicing Compliance: EDI Message Implementation Information for SAP Users

Part 2 of 2: What You “Need-to-Know” about Electronic Data Interchange(EDI)

Last week, we wrote about the basics of EDI, and the advantages it can provide your company. As promised, we’re back for Part 2 with an overview of the opportunities EDI can provide, as well as some advice from Robin Smith of Virtual Logistics about picking a solution. Like we said in Part 1 of […]


http://blog.bluelinkerp.com/2014/06/10/part-2-of-2-what-you-need-to-know-about-electronic-data-interchange-edi/