How any VAN does supplier specific mapping?? 1

[rpolisetti]

Hi All,

Could any one please throw some light on the following.

1) How any VAN does supplier specific mapping. I mean, when supplier sends EDI document to VAN, they convert the supplier EDI document to customer specific EDI document. What exactly the process behind this?
* Will the VAN have a seperate map for each and every
supplier ??

This information will help me a lot to work on a project where I am trying to implement supplier specific mapping.

Please help me.

Thanks,
Raja

 

[Stella001]

I worked at a VAN for over 7 years as and EDI mapper with Mercator, and the answer varies. In some cases we had customer specific maps that would handle multiple suppliers data depending on the versions. In other cases we had supplier/customer specific maps that were specific to the partnership only. If all depends on versions and the type of data being sent. I hope this helps.

 

[rpolisetti]

Thanks a lot stella. Your response is very useful.

<<In some cases we had customer specific maps that would handle multiple suppliers data depending on the versions.>> You mean, you have only one map for a customer where it handles n number of suppliers depends on the data and version.

If possible, could you please eloborate on this. It will be great help to me. Thanks in advance.

Regards,
Raja

 

[rpolisetti]

Thanks a lot stella. One more query.. please dont mind..

You said, <<< In some cases we had customer specific maps that would handle multiple suppliers data depending on the versions>>... how exactly you handled multiple supplier data with one customer map.
* Did you developed the map in a way that "fit-for-all" model.

If possible, could you please eloborate on this?. This information will be great help to me to proceed furthe in my project.

Thanks,
Raja

 

[Stella001]

Usually your "fit-for-all" maps were your version upgrade maps. If the customer requires say version 4030 and you have multiple suppliers sending version 4010, we could use the one map to run all the data through to upgrade to version 4030.

 

[rpolisetti]

Thanks a lot stella.

What I was mean by "fit-for-all" is...
We are having many suppliers and each one sends EDI documents (lets say 810) as per their requirement.. meaning.. EDI document which is generated from their existing map..

We have to translate that EDI to our propritery XML format and sends that to Buyer. We cannot ask all suppliers to follow a single EDI specification.

I would like to find, how I can handle multiple suppliers EDI documents (which are in different differnt requiements, like one may have ITD segment as optional and one may have it as mandatory etc etc)..

Can we develope a "Fit-for-all" model to handle all these supplier EDI documents??

Please advice.

Thanks in advance,
Raja