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Announcement:

Zenbridge is now HIPAA Compliant ✨

Discover the Ultimate EDI Dictionary: Your Essential Guide to Seamless EDI Terminology and Integration Clarity!

Announcement:

Zenbridge is now HIPAA Compliant ✨

Discover the Ultimate EDI Dictionary: Your Essential Guide to Seamless EDI Terminology and Integration Clarity!

Announcement:

Zenbridge is now HIPAA Compliant ✨

Discover the Ultimate EDI Dictionary: Your Essential Guide to Seamless EDI Terminology and Integration Clarity!

Announcement:

Zenbridge is now HIPAA Compliant ✨

Discover the Ultimate EDI Dictionary: Your Essential Guide to Seamless EDI Terminology and Integration Clarity!

Impacted the Transaction Management Capabilities of a SaaS Provider

Overview

The project aimed to partner with a SaaS provider, enabling EDI integration for their ERP users and establishing automated EDI workflows to streamline sales processes. Zenbridge’s EDI-as-API approach enhanced the transaction management capabilities of the SaaS provider’s ERP product. As a result, the SaaS provider effectively empowered its customers to handle sales processes with higher precision, standardized data exchange, and minimal manual duties.

EDI Documents in scope - 810, 812, 820, 850, 855, 856, 864.

Introduction

A SaaS provider specializing in tailored solutions for metal-based manufacturing companies offers ERP software to manage all aspects of steel-related orders and transactions, facilitating seamless interactions with trading partners to generate accurate estimates and sales orders. The SaaS provider was keen on establishing a fluid electronic data interchange (EDI) process through its ERP system, with the goal of automating sales workflows from end to end at high precision for its users. By achieving this goal, the SaaS provider would enhance the user experience on their ERP and build stronger customer relationships.

Challenges

Absent EDI Infrastructure

The ERP was short of an EDI infrastructure and relied on an email-based system to send and receive Invoices and Remittance Advice. This method lacked standardization of documents, which caused difficulties for trading parties while interpreting and translating data from the emails they received.

Manual Validations

The manual handling of documents increased the likelihood of errors while handling continuous sales orders. The trading parties would have to intervene to validate the data for compliance, which was time-consuming and often caused delays in deliveries.

Limited EDI Experience

The in-house developer team’s limited experience with EDI processes and the steep learning curve associated with EDI would further impede the developer team’s progress toward achieving an automated data exchange workflow.

Solutions

EDI-as-API

The SaaS provider’s in-house developers searched for an EDI integration platform with API capabilities for two main reasons.

EDI-as-API technology would complement their ERP, enabling faster integrations.
Leveraging API technology would eliminate the need for extensive developer training in EDI.

Developer Training

The in-house developers chose to handle EDI-ERP integration on their own. The initial stage began with studying EDI specifications and API documentation. To facilitate this process, Zenbridge allocated an exclusive delivery manager as well as a team of EDI developers to train the in-house team for the following.

Understanding EDI standards
Configuring EDI specifications of documents in scope
Mapping API documentation data points into the ERP
Locating missing mandatory fields/elements that come up in error alerts.

Delivery Management

While the in-house development team led the integration process, the delivery manager collaborated closely to undertake an array of responsibilities.

Connect with trading partners to gather connection details.
Create EDI workflows between the trading parties.
Configure & share EDI specifications tailored for trading parties.
Transfer API documentation to the in-house development team.

Customized Solutions

Standardizing unique ISA IDs - Zenbridge integrated logic to accept trading partner ISA IDs that contain hyphens, standardizing such IDs in the system for interpreting EDI documents correctly. The implementation was timely and without errors, ensuring no transaction disruptions for the SaaS provider or its customers.

Dedicated SFTP - Zenbridge set up a hosted SFTP environment for the SaaS provider to exchange EDIs. It ensured that the SaaS provider could maintain the security levels of its VPN, which is necessary to protect the information of their ERP users. With a hosted SFTP environment, sending and receiving data with Zenbridge became safe without causing any implications in the exchange process.

Results

The SaaS provider now runs a fully automated EDI process for its ERP users. With API integration, ERP users have gained access to comprehensive EDI transaction details within the ERP interface. So far, the SaaS provider has integrated 3 customers and established connections with 7 trading partners within 3 months for the following EDI documents.

EDI 810 - Invoice

EDI 812 - Credit/debit adjustment

EDI 820 - Remittance Advice

EDI 850 - Purchase Order

EDI 855 - Purchase Order Acknowledgement

EDI 856 - Advance Shipping Notice

EDI 864 - Text Message

With the help of the above EDI documents and an automated workflow between systems, ERP users can now handle their sales processes with higher precision and reduced manual duties. The in-house development team was able to create customized fields in the ERP to store and manage EDI data, fulfilling the goal of enhancing the transaction management capabilities of its ERP.

Today, the Saas provider has strengthened its capacity for EDI integrations through the gained expertise of a dedicated in-house EDI developer single handedly collaborating with Zenbridge for all integration processes. This partnership ensures the readiness to seamlessly integrate with new trading partners in the future. Zenbridge continues to communicate and assist in EDI compliance updates and trading partner management, offering ongoing support to the SaaS provider.

ERP

Industries

EDI Standards