Anyone using EDI

usnavdev · 2005-05-16

Is anyone using an EDI piece to Navision? I am a partner with a retail customer (they manufacture and distribute goods) in need of a VERY THOROUGH edi package - will need to handle the following documents: 753, 754, 810, 812, 816, 820, 824, 850, 852, 855, 856, 860, 864, 869, 870, and 997. We've purchased Lanham's product, but are running into a lot of scenarios they do not deal with, and the support takes several days to get answers back to us.

The customer is currently using Emanio's Trading Partner PC32 - which we would love to find an integration to Navision from this, but haven't yet. ](*,)
Thanks!

Savatage · 2005-05-16

we use Lanham's edi. Generation 1 in which we use Sterling Commerce's Gentran:Director to received & send all the docs. And the Lanham product to import & export the needed data.

I'm not sure about the newer version but supposedly it doesn't need Gentran to function.

There's alot of setup and the setup docs, that I have at least, are not the most detailed. It took alot of trial & error which wouldn't have been necessary with better instructions.

Right now we use 997, 810, 850, 864, 816 & 856's

http://www.sterlingcommerce.com/Product ... index.html

usnavdev · 2005-05-17

It just seems that most of the customers we're working with have extremely specific needs for edi - Kohl's, Wal-Mart, K-mart, etc. Do you work with any of these? You're right - the documentation is lacking in many areas. How many total documents are you running right now with Lanham's edi? Our customer is going to have more than 300 total documents (around 60 total edi customers). How long did it take you to get all your documents up and running?

Thanks for the response!

Savatage · 2005-05-17

Our biggest customer would be Bed Bath & Beyond. They had specific needs. The docs took a few hours to do, but once you get 1 done the next will be easier & eaiser because you already know what you need to do & what to expect.

Most of the docs are pretty similar for a few customers so copying the template is pretty easy from trading partner to another.

Since it's all been done it works great and I have no worries.

Bill of ladings/Advance ship notices & ucc labels are all set up in packing rules in Shipping & Receiving setup.

As I said the key is just getting through the first one. It's all down hill from there.

jag333 · 2005-05-20

We use Lanham's EDI, generation 2. I have done maps for Wal-Mart, BBB, Kohl's, Sports Authority, Heinz, Dicks, Target, Toys R Us, Modell's, Big 5, Gart Sports, Olympia and others. We handle the following documents: 940, 945, 943, 944, 947, 850, 856 and, of course, 997's. The Lanham module required some adjustments from our end, but, as you can see, we are able to use Lanham quite successfully for a large number of TP's. We also use the UCC128 label generation, Fast pack, barcode formatting and others to handle the large amount of requirements from the different TP's. We also use Cleo's Lexicom as a communication tool for most of our customers so we don't need Gentran. Lexicom handles FTP, communication to a VAN and AS2. All of this requires a lot of setup and it takes time to get the first few maps to work properly, but, like others have said, once you get a few done, it gets a lot easier.

Savatage · 2007-02-19

I know this is an old post - but can somebody give me an idea of the monthly costs they are incurring for using EDI.

We're up to $800 a month for Network & non-network fees, mailbox fees, Translation fees & software fees.

It' sure seems like a lot of money to get 2 tiny text files everyday.

There has to be a better way!

Alex_Chow · 2007-02-19

You're talking about the VAN fees. There's nothing you can do about that unless your customer decides to go to AS/2 (basically direct connect).

But with Gen. 2 EDI, there are no monthly costs associated with using EDI, other than the yearly maintainence fee.

Savatage · 2007-02-19

Yes! our customer has switched to AS2.

What do I need to do to cut out the middle man!!
I already downloaded m-e-c-as2 from
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mec-as2/

Now do we need our own web server? - I'm not clear on what needs to happen. AS2 Id's are they assigned? do I still need Sterling Commerce:Gentran for translating. (even if we do eliminating the Non-Network van cost would be great!)

Any info would be helpful

Edit(add).. What does Gen2 do that Gen1 doesn't to eliminate all these costs?

Alex_Chow · 2007-02-19

It's not different to go from a VAN to AS2, if you're using Gen 2 EDI. All that's needed is to configure the Lexicom communication software to talk to your customer and that's it.

You can accomplish the same using Gen 1 EDI. You can set it up to read raw EDI files from your communication software. This will eliminate the need for GenTran to translate it, then to have Navision translate it again.

Alex_Chow · 2007-02-19

Savatage wrote:

Edit(add).. What does Gen2 do that Gen1 doesn't to eliminate all these costs?

Gen 2 handles multiple file templates for different purposes. You'll need to setup multiple folders for each AS2 client since you won't need the VAN to do the sorting for you anymore.

This way, the Lexicom software (or any other communication software) can grab everything dumped into the folder and send it out based on the respective TP AS2 connections.

dazedman00 · 2007-03-07

We are currently using Gen 2 Lanham EDI and we trade with only 1 vendor but are planning to add many more to that in the near future. I was told by Lanham that there is a tool to mass populate the trading partners tables so you don’t have to do it from the back end or by hand. I asked more about the tool and they said we need to ask our partner. I am running in circles to find out what we need to use this tool. We need access to the SE Toolbox. What license do we need to use this SE Toolbox? We currently have the Application builder license.

Alex_Chow · 2007-03-07

It's basically mapping for some of the more popular retailers. This is actually very good for the end users for time critical EDI live dates.

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