What are the core EDI applications out there, and how worthy are they? 2

[rotorhead]

I've used Harbinger's TLE for the AS/400, STX for Win v4.34, STX for DOS.. and didn't really like any of them. I'm wondering how much of a pain in the backside E-Com v5 (Harbinger's upcoming product release, which will become the ONLY offering from Harbinger) will be.<br>
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I've also heard of Gentran and Sterling having various packages out there for EDI roles, but haven't seen much in the way of decent reviews.<br>
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I personally felt that TLE/400 is the best of the Harbinger products I've used to date, requiring the least amount of steps to accomplish a particular task. It's still menu-driven, however, and can be a real pain to navigate.<br>
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What do the rest of you use, and what are your feelings on the various packages out there? <p>Darryl Hadfield<br><a href=mailto:hadfield@mail.com>hadfield@mail.com</a><br><a href= > </a><br>

 

[GleasonCorp]

Our company was using Harbinger &quot;BustedLink&quot; and we are phasing it out to replace it with an AS400 solution. We were having so many problems with Harbinger support and the integration with the AS400 we decided to get rid of it. We purchased Extol Integrator and are now migrating our trading partners and documents to the AS400.

 

[CoreConsulting]

If your company has deep pockets Sterling's Gentran software products are pretty reliable.

We are running Gentran NT Server (3.01) and everything is pretty intuitive. Handles just about every aspect of the EDI process and we're now even playing around with their new ODBC direct database interface. One of the features that works well for us is the ability to run external applications from within Gentran NT's automated scheduler process.

Obviously, every product is going to have some gliches (we found 2 during our recent upgrade to 3.01) but Gentran support is pretty good...I don't usually feel like I'm talking to a wall with their tech guys as I do with some of the other VAN's.

Regardless of the package you'd definitely want to look for high speed access. Sterling recently completed a revamp of their FTP network and we'll be moving away from dial-up in the near future. Good thing about having Gentran is that the setup should be relatively painless.

 

[ckjoshua]

I have been implementing Gentran EDI solutions for about 5 years now. I really don't like the AS400 or Unix version of Gentran but they do have there places. I have found that the GentranServer for Windows NT to be the easiest application to install and implement. The mapper is very intuitive and easy to learn even if you have no experience with mapping. The MAPI email add-on is very useful when you need to send out reports via email to your customers or even for trading EDI via email. The File System option is very useful for polling directories for data and automating your import and export translations. I have used some of the other packages (Extol, Harbinger, etc.) and have not been as impressed with the features or ease of use.

Hope this helps.

 

[BPCSuser]

We are in the unfortunate situation where we have to adhere to our customers requirements, which consists transactions sent by EDI, XML and flat file sent over email, FTP and IBM Expedite. We are using a product called ECS/ie from

http://www.ecs-europe.com

which manages to support all these formats.

 

[sayeers]

Rotorhead,

I have used GentranServer for NT, Harbinger and Mercator for various applications. As far as ease of use goes GentranServer scores big. Mercator has got other great features but is not as intutive as Gentran. Harbinger/Inovis has got a lot of potential built into but the avenues to that are hard to get to also has some nasty bugs.

So, if you are looking up to get to a new installation, may be you might just want to write one up using XML freeware parsers and update the standards as and when necessary.