Enforcing Mandatory EDI standards

[Gcox]

I am using an Inovis product referred to as TrustedLink iSeries, Version 6.1.0 Visual Mapper.

Lets say you have an inbound document, it doesn’t matter what is it. My question is, if a “Mandatory” segment is missing… then shouldn’t the document show a translation error in the mail box? I would expect that to be the case if a segment is defined as Mandatory in the ANSI X12 Guidelines.

In my case I was working with 214 documents (X12 version 4010) in a logistics application and I wanted to make the N1 segment mandatory. The mapping tool allows you to override standards and change an attribute to Mandatory if it isn’t already. But when the document came through with a missing N1 there was no translation error.

Regardless of the X12 standards, if you tell a trading partner that a segment is required, how do you enforce that rule?

 

[BocaBurger]

You would need to have the rule in your TP agreement. If your translator does not correctly fail the data, then contact the vendor and see if it is design issue or code problem.



BocaBurger
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The pen is mightier than the sword, but the sword hurts more!

 

[eyetry]

If data is compliant and you can't accept it, because of your internal rules, you'll need to have the TP agreement.

There are a number of TPs that won't sign a agreement that requires them to make a change based on a vendor preference. So it kind of depends on who's got the power.

If you can't get your validation to fail based on making it structurally required can you fail it in your code?

 

[Gcox]

Yes, I can fail it in the code and I think that is what I’ll have to do. However, it could cause some confusion if the TP gets a 997 back that indicates something different than my validations. But I can deal with that. I just find it odd that the translator software will allow me to flip an override flag from optional to mandatory on most segments... but it doesn’t seem to have any effect.