Is this normal???

[1Bad88]

We have been working with True Commerce for the past 7 months to integrate EDI with our accounting package. Is this a normal / reasonable time period for a project like this?

 

[1Bad88]

We are implementing 810 and 850 transactions with 1 trading partner through Ariba.

Our accounting database is clean. We are using Peachtree Quantum 2009. We have all of the EDI requirements in document form and have provided them to the integration specialists.

 

[1Bad88]

I forgot to mention we are also sending and receiving 997's

All are ANSI X12

 

[eyetry]

Not familiar with 'True Commerce' or 'Ariba' but if you are just implementing 4 transaction (two plus acknowledgments) and your DB is clean and straight forward seven months seems a little long, depending on where you are in the implementation process.

Are you at the point where the coding and configuration is complete? Now you are transitioning trading partners? Transitioning TPs can take a while.

Or

Are you still in the development phase? If so, did you have to develope your own X12 schemas from scratch? Are there other customization items that might extend implemententation? Were any of the transactions ready out of the box? Did you have to develope from the ground up?

On average we configed and developed each of our edi/x12 files, inbound and outbound, in about 1.5 - 2 months, including testing.

 

[1Bad88]

I should have been a little more specific, we are recieving 850's and sending 810's along with the associated 997's

They started with prepackaged templates and have just been adjusting them to fit our needs. The response times for changes just seems to be long, and it doesn't matter if you are in a bind or not.

We are limping along right now with full production into this system.

We thought that we were done with configuration last week, but their new changes negated the previous set of changes.

 

[slike63]

Hey 1Bad88,

I usually just read these postings to get a feel for what people are running into out there. I work with Liaison Technologies. We specialize in EDI outsourcing. We only cater to a certain size companies though. Let me know how how many TP's you have. If you have enough, than there are a few things that we do that can cut you mapping time by 50%. One of those things is Contivo. We acquired the company this year and it is what you need if speed is an issue.

 

[KateatMKS]

The first Trading Partner for a company might take longer than subsequent ones, but 2 months should be plenty of time when you are doing so few transactions.

The timetable posted by toto4 is an excellent example of a typical installation.

We follow a similar timetable even when doing 856 documents and UCC-128 labels.

 

[eyetry]

I look at it a 2 months should be plenty of time for 2 x12 transaction types, 1 inbound & 1 outbound.

Your transaction definitions shouldn't change by trading partner. Your rules around the transaction are what gets affected.

Once the transactions are defined and the initial code/mappings are defined you should be able to address unique issues for variations in less than a week per TP. Most inbound transactions will be similar at a rate as follows 60%, 20%, 10% and then misc. For example, for one simple x12 transaction we have 90 TPs. For 90 TPs we have 1 outbound transaction script, and 8 inbound. And, actually it's one inbound script that's parameter driven. The parameters define the rules.

Also, inbound is typically more challenging that outbound. If you are returning a compliant x12 transaction, for the most part, you should be able to have one process create all outbounds the same way.