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SBS
was selected by a large Energy Service Provider to provide a full service EDI
gateway solution, capable of integration with existing in-house systems. The
primary goal of this system was to allow successful EDI communication to occur
with trading partners in multiple states, utilizing multiple versions of the
ANSI standards. As part of this, the system would provide the interface to the
customer billing system, BANNER, a packaged software product. System
requirements, defined by the client and the design team, were as follows:
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EDI Mapping specifications for the required transactions used in all
participating states, both in ANSI X12 3070 version and the Y2K compliant 4010
version.
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Conversion of all transactions to/from a common file format for all data being
sent between the EDI interface and the in-house Banner application.
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Error handling and exception processing for all EDI transactions in compliance
with the ANSI standards.
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Ease of expansion. The ability to add trading partners to the processing flow
with minimal setup time was a key element.
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The ability to add and modify state and/or utility specific edits to inbound
and outbound transactions with minimal development time.
Realizing the complexity of communicating with many different
trading partners in multiple ANSI formats, emphasis was placed on the design of
the mapping specifications. Differences and similarities were identified
between standards, and a best-fit compromise was made to generalize as much of
the system as possible. This also would help reduce setup time as new trading
partners were added to the system.
Throughout the development process, members of the SBS
management/design team represented the supplier in the PA, CT, MA, and ME
Electronic Business Transaction Groups (EBT) and technical subgroups, which
were responsible for the development and maintenance of the EDI standards. This
gave the system designers a forum to discuss issues uncovered with the
standards during design, and an opportunity to effect changes based on new
business functionality.
For integration purposes, development would occur on several
platforms. All translation processing would reside on the mainframe, developed
using the existing translation software. Business processing, state-specific
processing, and translation from state-specific formats to the generic in-house
format would occur in a Visual Basic application. Finally, a Windows/Unix
interface was developed to transfer files to/from the Banner system.
Testing of the system was conducted under rigid guidelines and
timeframes by the development team in conjunction with the technical
coordinators of participating trading partners. Due to timing constraints
inherent with EDI, complete testing platforms were developed to determine the
necessary batch processing times and acceptable response times.
The final product was an end-to-end EDI solution that operated
independently on a scheduled basis and required minimal routine maintenance.
A technical administrator from SBS maintained the system upon
implementation, performing a variety of functions:
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System Maintenance – Day-to-day issue resolution, trouble shooting
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New Trading Partner Setup – Upon dealing with a new trading partner, setup and
testing of the trading partner requirements.
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Technical representation at EBT and technical subgroup meetings.
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Further development and reporting functionality.
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