For some time now, we’ve seen that a lot of people that are coming to us think that we only support EDIFACT as ‘EDI’ is spelled out in our name. That is not true, especially that our core product is an iPaaS.
Offering a modern data integration platform enables us to help our customers with all the different data formats that they and their ecosystem use. This certainly includes EDIFACT, more modern formats, such as XML, and proprietary data formats that some companies develop internally.
This blog aims to help those that are looking for a data integration solution and they want to know more whether we support their data format.
Disclaimer: chances are high that we are supporting your data format.
Why data formats state a challenge for businesses?
Living in a data economy, we are generating large volumes of data. However, the data is heterogeneous in terms of format. It’s challenging enough that the formats of the data differ, but what makes data management even more difficult is that it comes from external and internal sources.
Connecting the different systems is part of the story. Once the connections have been deployed, data homogenization needs to happen during the data transfer.
Transferring and translating the data is not enough. Also, the data integrity must be ensured by maintaining and enhancing the quality of it with data validation and enrichment solutions.
EDI
We have written a series of blog posts of EDI in B2B in more depth. If you want to know more how modernizing and moving your EDI processes to the cloud could benefit you, you should move forward to read those blogs from here.
To ease your life and find out whether we support the EDI transactions that you are dealing with.
Some of the transaction codes in the EDI transaction set are industry-specific, however, many EDI transaction codes are the same across multiple industries.
EDIFACT
In the previous blog, we’ve already discussed that EDIFACT is a cornerstone of global trade and supply chain management. Although many don’t like working with it, as it is complex and the data format is only semi-structured, it is still important for so many businesses. It is still a widely adopted format.
Ocean EDI
In many of our blogs and webinars, we mentioned how heavily the ocean shipping industry relies on EDI. This is not going to change any time soon, nor should it be. However, industry players need to find the right solutions for managing the data better.
We have been integrating EDI backlogs in the ocean shipping industry with fast deployment, agile development, and way more cost-effectively than traditional solutions.
Cargo-IMP & Cargo-XML (Air Cargo)
Cargo-IMP and Cargo-XML are widely used in the air cargo industry besides other formats. The shift from Cargo-IMP to Cargo-XML has been started as IATA has stopped supporting Cargo-IMP Toolkits. WE have been helping airlines and freight forwarders to convert their Cargo-IMP to Cargo-XML, so they could transfer data in real-time and ensure that the data is high quality.
Rail & Road EDI
EDIFACT is heavily used in road and rail transportation for communicating with partners, customers, 3PLs, and warehouses.
We support any transactions from e.g. carrier bill of lading, rail car-hire settlements, or rate request.
Finance EDI
To exchange information regarding payments, many financial institutes use EDI in batch processes.
These processes can happen in real-time by moving the integration solutions to the cloud. This maintains security and the organization will keep owning the data.
Warehousing EDI
EDI in warehouses is often used to tell whether it’s time to ship the product. Some of the relevant transactions are market development fund allocation/settlement, customer call reporting, warehouse shipping order/advice or response to a load tender.
Healthcare EDI
The HIPAA EDI transaction sets are based on X12. EDI is used in healthcare to improve information sharing regarding billing information or retail pharmacy claims.
XML
Extensible Markup Language (XML)is a markup language defining a set of rules for encoding documents and it is readable for both humans and machines.
This is the most commonly used format after EDIFACT – those who don’t use EDIFACT most likely use XML, as this is simpler and therefore easier to work with.
JSON
JavaScript Programming Notation (JSON) is an open-standard format and it is human readable. It is a common data format and it is based on the JavaScript language.
Proprietary formats
Under the proprietary format, we mean a data format that has been developed by an organization and with their specific set of rules and syntax. Using proprietary formats often restricts the interoperability among firms as without instructions it is difficult to encode.
The release of the encoding-schema is normally the question of non-disclosable agreements or a license agreement.
Is your data format missing from the list?
This list only includes a few of the available data formats – we handle a variety of them on behalf of the customers.
Our integration platform is not only transferring the information but ensures the data integrity by validation and enrichment processes.
If you have a question regarding data formats, feel free to leave a comment below or contact us by email and one of our architects will answer your questions.
To learn what EDI formats we support within different industries, download our transaction sets:
