Electronic Ordering (EDI) enables you to process Purchase Orders with an EDI trading partner (such as Pubnet, Baker & Taylor, etc.) electronically, with no need for phone calls, faxes, and the like. All EDI POs in [i] Merchant will be processed via FTP.
This documentation details how you actually go about processing electronic orders. But before Electronic Ordering can work, you will need to set up initial parameters for every EDI trading partner you want to use in the Electronic Ordering Parameters program. Only after doing that can you proceed with the processing of Electronic Orders.
To access the EDI program:
From the main [i] Merchant Desktop, select Modules-Purchasing-EDI. The EDI work screen appears. This is the launching pad for all EDI functions in [i] Merchant.
The EDI work screen is separated into two basic sections: Purchase Orders and FTP - with EDI Partner. Additionally, there is a display grid at the bottom of the work screen. Any POs you select will display in this grid.
In the Purchase Orders section, located in the upper left of the work screen, there are three tabs: Find PO's, Remove PO's, and PO Properties. Before you can send or receive acknowledgment for electronic orders, you must, of course, first select which POs on your system you want to send electronically in the first place. The place to start is with the Find PO's tab.
Click on the Find PO's tab in your EDI work screen. The Find Purchase Order window appears. Select the POs you want. It can be just one, or it can be every PO on your system. That's up to you. Once you have selected the appropriate POs, you are automatically brought back to the EDI work screen, and the POs just selected appear in the grid at the bottom of the screen. The grid displays the following information for each selected PO: Sent Date (if it has been sent); Received Date (if you have processed the acknowledgment for the sent PO); PO Number; Vendor Name (taken from the PO when you created it); and EDI Partner (taken from Vendor Properties for the vendor you chose to put on the PO).
If you want to view the Properties for any of the POs displayed in the work-screen grid:
Highlight the desired PO, and click on the PO Properties tab in the Purchase Orders section of the work screen. You will be taken to the PO Properties page for the PO you just selected. There, you can make any changes necessary, or just view the Properties. Upon closing out of PO Properties, you will be returned to the EDI work screen.
If there is a PO displayed in the EDI work-screen grid that you do not want displayed:
Highlight the PO you want removed, and click on the Remove PO's tab in the Purchase Orders section of the work screen. The PO you had selected will be removed from the work-screen grid (but not from the [i] Merchant system).
If at any time during this process you want to add more POs to the work-screen display grid, simply select the Find PO's tab again and select more POs to put in the grid.
Once you have all of the desired POs displayed in the grid, you can begin the Electronic Ordering process.
To send the PO's:
Simply click on the Send PO's button in the FTP - with EDI Partner section of the work screen. The Send PO's box appears for the first EDI trading partner listed in the grid at the bottom of the work screen.
In the Send PO's box, select whether or not you want to allow back orders for this PO, in dealing with this particular EDI partner. If you will allow them, click on "Yes". If not, select "No".
In the Cancel Date field, select the cut-off date, after which you will no longer accept products on this PO from this EDI partner. So, for example, if you want all products by 3/10/06, key in that date. Anything the EDI partner has not sent you by this date will be canceled from the PO. You can either key in the date or click on the down arrow at the right of the field and select it from the mini-calendar that displays.
Note:
The values you select here, if different from the ones in EDI Parameters, will override the comparable values established for the EDI partner as set in EDI Parameters.
Once you have set the values in the Send PO's box the way you want them, click on OK to send the POs to the EDI partner. All applicable POs in the work-screen grid are instantly sent to the EDI partner, via FTP. In the work-screen grid, the Sent Date column is automatically filled in with the current-day's date for all applicable POs.
If there are still POs remaining in the work-screen grid that are to be sent to different EDI trading partners, the Sent PO's box will automatically appear for them, one at a time. Simply repeat the process just described for each applicable EDI partner. For example, the Send PO's box may have appeared first regarding Baker & Taylor. But in your work-screen grid, let's say you also have POs to be sent to Random House and Partners. Once you send the POs to Baker & Taylor, the Sent PO's box will pop up for Random House. Then, after sending the POs to Random House, the Sent PO's box will appear for Partners.
If, for whatever reason, you decide not to send the POs to an EDI trading partner after the Send PO's box has already appeared, simply click on Cancel at the bottom right of the Send PO's box. The PO's will not be sent.
After sending POs, you will later want to receive an acknowledgment that the EDI trading partner actually retrieved the POs you sent to them.
To get an acknowledgment from an EDI partner:
From the EDI work screen, click on the Get PO Acknowledgment from the FTP - with EDI Partner section of the work screen. The EDI Confirmation box appears.
You will be receiving acknowledgment for POs one EDI trading partner at a time. So, in the EDI Vendor field, select the EDI trading partner you want to get an acknowledgment from. Click on the arrow at the right of the field, and select the desired trading partner from the list.
Process EDI Responses is a check-box field. If you fill in the check box, the system will apply the actions determined by the problem codes and status codes you set up in EDI Parameters for this trading partner. In other words, the system will apply the mapping you have established for this trading partner. For information on mapping, click here. If you leave this box unchecked, the system will not pay attention to the mapping you established in EDI Parameters for this trading partner. So, for example, if the box remains unchecked, no reordering would be possible if the PO included products that this trading partner did not ship to you.
The remaining fields within the EDI Confirmation box apply only if you checked the Process EDI Responses field.
The Use Vendor field applies to the TBO screen. If you checked the Process EDI Responses field above, and if you set up mapping for this trading partner in EDI Parameters, then any products not shipped to you on the PO will be put back on to the TBO screen. If you select "Specific" here, every product not received on the PO (or POs, if you're getting acknowledgements for more than one PO from this trading partner) will go back to the TBO screen with the vendor you specify in the TBO Vendor field below. So, for example, let's say you did not receive six products from a PO, and you select "Specific" here, then choose Ingram in the TBO Vendor field below. All of these six items will go back on the TBO screen, and the vendor listed for them at that screen will now be Ingram.
If you select "Vendor of Record" here, all unreceived products on the PO (or POs) will go back to the TBO screen, and the vendor listed there for each product will be that product's vendor of record, as established in Product Properties. So, for the six products referenced above, they can conceivably have six different vendors of record.
The TBO Vendor field only applies if you select "Specific" under Use Vendor. For an example on how this works, please refer to the example above. If applicable, select the TBO Vendor by clicking on the icon at the right of the field and then selecting the desired vendor.
The TBO Type field is optional. Whatever you choose in this field will be the TBO Type for every product not received on this PO (or POs). The unreceived products will go back on to the TBO screen, and their TBO Type will be filled in with whatever you choose here. (Note: The TBO Type field from the Problem Code parameter will NOT carry over to the EDI module. If you want to set a TBO Type in EDI, you must fill the field in here.)
Once you have set up the above parameters the way you want them, click on OK. (If you click on Cancel, the PO or POs will not be acknowledged as received. All of the POs that have been received by the applicable EDI trading partner will display in the work-screen grid, and the Received Date column will fill in with the current date.
Repeat the above steps for every applicable EDI trading partner from whom you need to get acknowledgments for outstanding POs.
To view EDI Parameters, click on the EDI Parameters tab in the FTP - with EDI Partner section of the EDI work screen.
Notice at the top left corner of the EDI Work screen, there are two pulldown menus: Purchase Orders and FTP. Some of the selections in these menus simply mirror the buttons on the work screen itself. But you should be aware of two menu selections that differ--one under Purchase Orders, the other under FTP.
Under the Purchase Orders pulldown menu, take note of "Remove Send Date to Send again". This is only relevant if you know there was a problem with a particular PO not being transmitted to a trading partner. Under normal circumstances, when you send an order, the Sent Date fills in and you cannot resend the order. But if there was a problem, you may need to resend. If you need to resend an order because it did not go through the first time, highlight the order you wish to resend, then select the "Remove Send Date to Send again" option. This does just what it says: It removes the Sent Date, which enables you to resend the order.
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Warning: |
Use this option with extreme caution, or else you will inadvertently send an order twice. Make 100% certain that the order did NOT go through before attempting to send it again. |
Under the FTP menu, notice the choice, "Log Ftp Session". You should have this field checked. This will log your FTP sessions. Therefore, if a problem occurs, you will have a log of the files and can use that to discern what may have gone wrong.